the questions and replies. He made appeals energetic enough to soften rocks, and warm enough to melt ice; but no woman was drawn towards him by his mute aspirations: one must want, to be loved. There is a great difference between desiring and wanting; desiring floats easily upon the clouds: wanting runs on foot among the flints. One watches for every chance, the other demands nothing but its own existence; wanting marches straight to its point over hedges and ditches, ravines and mountains; desiring remains seated at home and cries in its sweetest voice:
"Clocher, clocher, arrive, ou ju suis mort!"
Nevertheless, in the August of this very year, four months before pinioning his uncle's arms, François had dared to love face to face. At the Ems Springs, he had met a young girl almost as shy as himself, whose shuddering timidity had given him courage. She was a Parisienne, frail and delicate as fruit grown on the shady side of a wall: transparent as those lovely children whose blue blood can be seen distinctly under their skin. She accompanied her mother, whom an inveterate disorder (a chronic trouble of the throat, if I am not mistaken) obliged to take the waters. Mother and daughter must have lived apart from the world, for they regarded the boisterous crowd of bathers with long looks of astonishment.
