...of hesitancy

“They’re a lot maniacs and lunatics…” he declared, and, in reply to Xavier’s interrogative look….
“The chap’s, I mean, who write all this stuff… don’t you agree?”
Xavier shook his head:
“If I thought that….”
He stopped at the very moment when he was about to say - “I shouldn’t set my foot in the place at which I am due tomorrow evening….” He choked back the admission for fear lest the other might at once lose interest in him. It was not from deference to public opinion that he kept silent. He did not want to break the bond, the fragile and invisible strand which, for the last few seconds, as though tossed from one tree to another, had bound them together. He felt like Robinson Crusoe o his island, seeing suddenly before him another human being - not as the result of some unforeseeable shipwreck, but of an especial intention of that God who knew the secret places of the heart. He dreaded to speak the word which would put an end to this story of two persons before it had properly begun. But the other would not let the subject drop:
“You admit that you don’t take the slightest interest in all this?”
“I have been advised to read it.”
“Advised? - by whom?”
One part of himself, the part which bowed before his Director, whispered to Xavier: “this is precisely the duty demanded of you - to speak the word that shall separate you from this man. You pretend to yourself that your are acting from the highest of motives, whereas, in strict truth, in this pause before the door of the Seminary shall have closed behind you, you are merely yielding to the curiosity aroused in you by a casual acquaintance. What is demanded of you is, first and foremost, this specific sacrifice. If you don’t achieve that, you achieve nothing…” to which Xavier replied: “Maybe… but it is more than myself that is in question.” Where, at this moment, was the young woman? He conjured up in imagination the picture of the sitting-room in some country-house, with a window looking out on to just such an expanse of pasture-land, with its scarves of mist and its line of quivering poplars, as he could see framed in the window of the railway carriage. It was of her he wanted to speak; because of her, he felt sure, that he must not let this interchange between them be broken. Meanwhile, the young man was saying:
“I know I’m being indiscreet. I’ve got a perfect mania for asking questions….”

[The Lamb, Mauriac, F.]