She then turned with an air of mock submission to Edouard. "I am at
monsieur's ORDERS."
Then this unhappy novice, being naturally good-natured, thanked her
again and again for her condescension in setting his heart at rest. He
proposed a walk, since his interference had lost her one. She yielded
a cold assent. This vexed him, but he took it for granted it would wear
off before the end of the walk. Edouard's heart bounded, but he loved
her too sincerely to be happy unless he could see her happy too; the
malicious thing saw this, or perhaps knew it by instinct, and by means
of this good feeling of his she revenged herself for his tyranny. She
tortured him as only a woman can torture, and as even she can torture
only a worthy man, and one who loves her. In the course of that short
walk this inexperienced girl, strong in the instincts and inborn arts
of her sex, drove pins and needles, needles and pins, of all sorts and
sizes, through her lover's heart.
She was everything by turns, except kind, and nothing for long together.
She was peevish, she was ostentatiously patient and submissive, she was
inattentive to her companion and seemingly wrapped up in contemplation
of absent things and persons, the colonel to wit; she was dogged,
repulsive, and cold; and she never was herself a single moment.
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