The place was taken, and whenever he tried to imagine any of the girls he knew in that place, he felt that it was utterly impossible.

Moreover, the recollection of the rejection and the part he had played in the affair tortured him with shame.

However often he told himself that he was in no wise to blame in it, that recollection, like other humiliating reminiscences of a similar kind, made him twinge and blush.

There had been in his past, as in every man's, actions, recognized by him as bad, for which his conscience ought to have tormented him; but the memory of these evil actions was far from causing him so much suffering as those trivial but humiliating reminiscences.