Canalis talked on, displaying the warmth of his fancy and all his graces, for Modeste's benefit, as he spoke of love, marriage, and the adoration of women, until Monsieur Mignon, who had rejoined them, seized the opportunity of a slight pause to take his daughter's arm and lead her up to Ernest de La Briere, whom he had been advising to seek an open explanation with her.
"Mademoiselle," said Ernest, in a voice that was scarcely his own, "it is impossible for me to remain any longer under the weight of your displeasure. I do not defend myself; I do not seek to justify my conduct; I desire only to make you see that BEFORE reading your most flattering letter, addressed to the individual and no longer to the poet,--the last which you sent to me,--I wished, and I told you in my note written at Havre that I wished, to correct the error under which you were acting. All the feelings that I have had the happiness to express to you are sincere. A hope dawned on me in Paris when your father told me he was comparatively poor,--but now that all is lost, now that nothing is left for me but endless regrets, why should I stay here where all is torture? Let me carry away with me one smile to live forever in my heart."
"Monsieur," answered Modeste, who seemed cold and absent-minded, "I am not the mistress of this house; but I certainly should deeply regret to retain any one where he finds neither pleasure nor happiness."
She left La Briere and took Madame Dumay's arm to re-enter the house.
A few moments later all the actors in this domestic scene reassembled in the salon, and were a good deal surprised to see Modeste sitting beside the Duc d'Herouville and coquetting with him like an accomplished Parisian woman. She watched his play, gave him the advice he wanted, and found occasion to say flattering things by ranking the merits of noble birth with those of genius and beauty. Canalis thought he knew the reason of this change; he had tried to pique Modeste by calling marriage a catastrophe, and showing that he was aloof from it;
but like others who play with fire, he had burned his fingers.
Modeste's pride and her present disdain frightened him, and he endeavored to recover his ground, exhibiting a jealousy which was all the more visible because it was artificial. Modeste, implacable as an angel, tasted the sweets of power, and, naturally enough, abused it.
The Duc d'Herouville had never known such a happy evening; a woman smiled on him! At eleven o'clock, an unheard-of hour at the Chalet, the three suitors took their leave,--the duke thinking Modeste charming, Canalis believing her excessively coquettish, and La Briere heart-broken by her cruelty.
For eight days the heiress continued to be to her three lovers very much what she had been during that evening; so that the poet appeared to carry the day against his rivals, in spite of certain freaks and caprices which from time to time gave the Duc d'Herouville a little hope. The disrespect she showed to her father, and the great liberties she took with him; her impatience with her blind mother, to whom she seemed to grudge the little services which had once been the delight of her filial piety,--seemed the result of a capricious nature and a heedless gaiety indulged from childhood. When Modeste went too far, she turned round and openly took herself to task, ascribing her impertinence and levity to a spirit of independence. She acknowledged to the duke and Canalis her distaste for obedience, and professed to regard it as an obstacle to her marriage; thus investigating the nature of her suitors, after the manner of those who dig into the earth in search of metals, coal, tufa, or water.
"I shall never," she said, the evening before the day on which the family were to move into the villa, "find a husband who will put up with my caprices as my father does; his kindness never flags. I am sure no one will ever be as indulgent to me as my precious mother."
"They know that you love them, mademoiselle," said La Briere.
"You may be very sure, mademoiselle, that your husband will know the full value of his treasure," added the duke.
"You have spirit and resolution enough to discipline a husband," cried Canalis, laughing.
Modeste smiled as Henri IV. must have smiled after drawing out the characters of his three principal ministers, for the benefit of a foreign ambassador, by means of three answers to an insidious question.
On the day of the dinner, Modeste, led away by the preference she bestowed on Canalis, walked alone with him up and down the gravelled space which lay between the house and the lawn with its flower-beds.
From the gestures of the poet, and the air and manner of the young heiress, it was easy to see that she was listening favorably to him.
The two demoiselles d'Herouville hastened to interrupt the scandalous tete-a-tete; and with the natural cleverness of women under such circumstances, they turned the conversation on the court, and the distinction of an appointment under the crown,--pointing out the difference that existed between appointments in the household of the king and those of the crown. They tried to intoxicate Modeste's mind by appealing to her pride, and describing one of the highest stations to which a woman could aspire.
"To have a duke for a son," said the elder lady, "is an actual advantage. The title is a fortune that we secure to our children without the possibility of loss."
"How is it, then," said Canalis, displeased at his tete-a-tete being thus broken in upon, "that Monsieur le duc has had so little success in a matter where his title would seem to be of special service to him?"
The two ladies cast a look at Canalis as full of venom as the tooth of a snake, and they were so disconcerted by Modeste's amused smile that they were actually unable to reply.
"Monsieur le duc has never blamed you," she said to Canalis, "for the humility with which you bear your fame; why should you attack him for his modesty?"
"Besides, we have never yet met a woman worthy of my nephew's rank,"
