I believe that the road to love is more swiftly traversed. How priceless
the slightest words! What signifies the conversation, when you listen
for the heart to answer? What sweetness in the glance of a woman who
begins to attract you! At first it seems as though everything that
passes between you is timid and tentative, but soon there is born a
strange joy, an echo answers you; you know a dual life. What a touch!
What a strange attraction! And when love is sure of itself and knows
response in the object beloved, what serenity in the soul! Words die on
the lips, for each one knows what the other is about to say before
utterance has shaped the thought. Souls expand, lips are silent. Oh!
what silence! What forgetfulness of all!

Although my love began the first day and had since grown to ardor, the
respect I felt for Madame Pierson sealed my lips. If she had been less
frank in permitting me to become her friend, perhaps I should have been
more bold, for she had made such a strong impression on me, that I never
quitted her without transports of love. But there was something in the
frankness and the confidence she placed in me that checked me; moreover,
it was in my father's name that I had been treated as a friend. That
consideration rendered me still more respectful, and I resolved to prove
worthy of that name.

To talk of love, they say, is to make love. We rarely spoke of it.
Every time I happened to touch the subject Madame Pierson led the
conversation to some other topic. I did not discern her motive, but it
was not prudery; it seemed to me that at such times her face took on
a stern aspect, and a wave of feeling, even of suffering, passed over it.
As I had never questioned her about her past life and was unwilling to do
so, I respected her obvious wishes.