Julien remained alone in the garden. "That is the immense advantage they have over us," he said to himself. "Their ancestors lift them above vulgar sentiments, and they have not got always to be thinking about their subsistence! What misery," he added bitterly. "I am not worthy to discuss these great matters. My life is nothing more than a series of hypocrisies because I have not got a thousand francs a year with which to buy my bread and butter."
Mathilde came running back. "What are you dreaming about, monsieur?" she said to him.
Julien was tired of despising himself. Through sheer pride he frankly told her his thoughts. He blushed a great deal while talking to such a person about his own poverty. He tried to make it as plain as he could that he was not asking for anything. Mathilde never thought him so handsome; she detected in him an expression of frankness and sensitiveness which he often lacked.
Within a month of this episode Julien was pensively walking in the garden of the hotel; but his face had no longer the hardness and philosophic superciliousness which the chronic consciousness of his inferior position had used to write upon it. He had just escorted mademoiselle de la Mole to the door of the salon. She said she had hurt her foot while running with her brother.
"She leaned on my arm in a very singular way," said Julien to himself. "Am I a coxcomb, or is it true that she has taken a fancy to me? She listens to me so gently, even when I confess to her all the sufferings of my pride! She too, who is so haughty to everyone! They would be very astonished in the salon if they saw that expression of hers. It is quite certain that she does not show anyone else such sweetness and goodness."
Julien endeavoured not to exaggerate this singular friendship. He himself compared it to an armed truce. When they met again each day, they almost seemed before they took up the almost intimate tone of the previous day to ask themselves "are we going to be friends or enemies to-day?" Julien had realised that to allow himself to be insulted with impunity even once by this haughty girl would mean the loss of everything. "If I have got to quarrel would it not be better that it should be straight away in defending the rights
