He tried to imitate the strange,
general joy of the city, which had been roused from apathy by the
recurrence of a familiar noise; but the effort was a deplorable
failure. And Sophia condemned not merely the failure of Chirac's
imitation, but the thing imitated. "Childish!" she thought. Yet,
despise the feebleness of Chirac's behaviour as she might, she was
deeply impressed, genuinely astonished, by the gravity and
persistence of the symptoms. "He must have been getting himself
into a state about me for a long time," she thought. "Surely he
could not have gone mad like this all in a day or two! But I never
noticed anything. No; honestly I never noticed anything!" And just
as her behaviour in the restaurant had shaken Chirac's confidence
in his knowledge of the other sex, so now the singular behaviour
of Chirac shook hers. She was taken aback. She was frightened,
though she pretended not to be frightened.
She had lived over and over again the scene in the restaurant. She
asked herself over and over again if really she had not beforehand
expected him to make love to her in the restaurant. She could not
decide exactly when she had begun to expect a declaration; but
probably a long time before the meal was finished.
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