At the end of three months, after having gone uphill and down hill, turned sharp corners, and negotiated level crossings, and experienced innumerable break-downs, he knew her as well as he knew the fly-wheel of his car, but not much better.

He employed surprises, adventures, sudden stoppages in the depths of forests and before hotels, but he had advanced no farther.

He said to himself that it was absurd; then, taking her again in his car he set off at fifty miles an hour quite prepared to upset her in a ditch or to smash himself and her against a tree.
One day, having come to take her on some excursion, he found her more charming than ever, and more provoking.

He darted upon her as a storm falls upon the reeds that border a lake.

She bent with adorable weakness beneath the breath of the storm, and twenty times was almost carried away by its strength, but twenty times she arose, supple and, bowing to the wind.