"Shall I go in, or shall I not?" he thought when the pines of Les
Touches came in sight. He was afraid; and continued his way rather
sulkily to Guerande, where he finished his excursion on the mall and
continued his reflections.
"She has no idea of my agitation," he said to himself.
His capricious thoughts were so many grapnels which fastened his heart
to the marquise. He had known none of these mysterious terrors and
joys in his intercourse with Camille. Such vague emotions rise like
poems in the untutored soul. Warmed by the first fires of imagination,
souls like his have been known to pass through all phases of
preparation and to reach in silence and solitude the very heights of
love, without having met the object of so many efforts.
Presently Calyste saw, coming toward him, the Chevalier du Halga and
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, who were walking together on the mall. He
heard them say his name, and he slipped aside out of sight, but not
out of hearing. The chevalier and the old maid, believing themselves
alone, were talking aloud.
"If Charlotte de Kergarouet comes," said the chevalier, "keep her four
or five months.
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