"If she didn't love me, just a little," he told himself, "she would not wish to have me altered. To alter me, she will have to see me more often." And so he was able to trace, in these faults which she found in him, a proof at least of her interest, perhaps even of her love; and, in fact, she gave him so little, now, of the last, that he was obliged to regard as proofs of her interest in him the various things which, every now and then, she forbade him to do.