Cette épreuve lui manquait

[yawtsonglee]

Which of these 5 very different translations of "Cette épreuve lui manquait" in this paragraph in le Rouge et le noir (p. 320, Edition Charpentier 1846)?:

“Après diner, mademoiselle de La Mole, loin de fuir Julien, lui parla et l’engagea en quelque sorte à la suivre au jardin; il obéit. Cette épreuve lui manquait.”

“... It was a new experience.” (Samuel)

“...For him, it was a new sort of test.” (Raffel)

“...This proved too much for her self-control.” (Montcrieff)

“... This was a test which so far had been wanting.” (Shaw)

“... He could have done without this ordeal.” (Slater)

I'd appreciate any help.

 

[antoine boileau]

I would say that N° 3 is definitely wrong, - we're talkng about Julien, not mademoiselle de la Mole.
But any of the others would do. Personally i find N°2 closest to the sense in this context.

 

[Perco]

The very next sentence might be of help here. It is: "Mathilde cédait, sans trop s'en douter, à l'amour qu'elle reprenait pour lui." I'm afraid I can't remember the ins and outs of their relationship, but given the 'reprenait', am assuming there had been some 'blowing hot and cold'. And if that's the case, I'd go for something like "He had missed/been missing this type of test".

 

[Perco]

...but proposition 2 or 4 work very well if, which I think is also the case, Julien had been setting himself various challenges in the course of their relationship ...