every day one passes by magnificent opportunities without knowing it,
though a gesture would be enough to let me know her mind.'

"Then he imagined to himself combinations which conducted him to triumph.
He pictured some chivalrous deed or merely some slight service which he
rendered her, a lively, gallant conversation which ended in a
declaration.

"But he could find no opening, had no pretext, and he waited for some
fortunate circumstance, with his heart beating and his mind topsy-turvy.
The night passed and the pretty girl still slept, while Morin was
meditating his own fall. The day broke and soon the first ray of sunlight
appeared in the sky, a long, clear ray which shone on the face of the
sleeping girl and woke her. She sat up, looked at the country, then at
Morin and smiled. She smiled like a happy woman, with an engaging and
bright look, and Morin trembled. Certainly that smile was intended for
him; it was discreet invitation, the signal which he was waiting for.
That smile meant to say: 'How stupid, what a ninny, what a dolt, what a
donkey you are, to have sat there on your seat like a post all night!

"'Just look at me, am I not charming? And you have sat like that for the
whole night, when you have been alone with a pretty woman, you great
simpleton!'

"She was still smiling as she looked at him; she even began to laugh; and
he lost his head trying to find something suitable to say, no matter
what. But he could think of nothing, nothing, and then, seized with a
coward's courage, he said to himself:

"'So much the worse, I will risk everything,' and suddenly, without the