To begin with, Albertine now struck me as not implacable so much as almost frightened; she seemed to me rather respectably than ill-bred, judging by the description, "bad style," "a comic manner" which she applied to each in turn of the girls of whom I spoke to her; finally, she presented as a target for my line of sight a temple that was distinctly flushed and hardly attractive to the eye, and no longer the curious gaze which I had always connected with her until then.