I ought to have told myself all this, but I did not; I was convinced that I had appeared a fool to Bergotte, when Gilberte whispered in my ear:

“You can’t think how delighted I am, because you have made a conquest of my great friend Bergotte. He’s been telling Mamma that he found you extremely intelligent.”

“Where are we going?” I asked her. “Oh, wherever you like; you know, it’s all the same to me.” But since the incident that had occurred on the anniversary of her grandfather’s death I had begun to ask myself whether Gilberte’s character was not other than I had supposed, whether that indifference to what was to be done, that wisdom, that calm, that gentle and constant submission did not indeed conceal passionate longings which her self-esteem would not allow to be visible and which she disclosed only by her sudden resistance whenever by any chance they were frustrated.