the condition of the land, Charles Mignon remarked that time must be
allowed for the soil, which was still moving, to settle and grow solid

in a natural way.
"Time, which has providentially enriched your house, Monsieur le duc,

can alone complete the work," he said, in conclusion. "It would be
prudent to let fifty years elapse before you reclaim the land."

"Do not let that be your final word, Monsieur le comte," said the
duke. "Come to Herouville and see things for yourself."

Charles Mignon replied that every capitalist should take time to
examine into such matters with a cool head, thus giving the duke a

pretext for his visits to the Chalet. The sight of Modeste made a
lively impression on the young man, and he asked the favor of

receiving her at Herouville with her father, saying that his sister
and his aunt had heard much of her, and wished to make her

acquaintance. On this the count proposed to present his daughter to
those ladies himself, and invited the whole party to dinner on the day

of his return to the villa. The duke accepted the invitation. The blue
ribbon, the title, and above all, the ecstatic glances of the noble

gentleman had an effect upon Modeste; but she appeared to great
advantage in carriage, dignity, and conversation. The duke withdrew

reluctantly, carrying with him an invitation to visit the Chalet every
evening,--an invitation based on the impossibility of a courtier of

Charles X. existing for a single evening without his rubber.
The following evening, therefore, Modeste was to see all three of her

lovers. No matter what young girls may say, and though the logic of
the heart may lead them to sacrifice everything to preference, it is

extremely flattering to their self-love to see a number of rival
adorers around them,--distinguished or celebrated men, or men of

ancient lineage,--all endeavoring to shine and to please. Suffer as
Modeste may in general estimation, it must be told she subsequently

admitted that the sentiments expressed in her letters paled before the
pleasure of seeing three such different minds at war with one another,

--three men who, taken separately, would each have done honor to the
most exacting family. Yet this luxury of self-love was checked by a

misanthropical spitefulness, resulting from the terrible wound she had
received,--although by this time she was beginning to think of that

wound as a disappointment only. So when her father said to her,
laughing, "Well, Modeste, do you want to be a duchess?" she answered,

with a mocking curtsey,--
"Sorrows have made me philosophical."

"Do you mean to be only a baroness?" asked Butscha.
"Or a viscountess?" said her father.

"How could that be?" she asked quickly.
"If you accept Monsieur de La Briere, he has enough merit and

influence to obtainpermission from the king to bear my titles and
arms."

"Oh, if it comes to disguising himself, HE will not make any
difficulty," said Modeste, scornfully.

Butscha did not understand this epigram, whose meaning could only be
guessed by Monsieur and Madame Mignon and Dumay.

"When it is a question of marriage, all men disguise themselves,"
remarked Latournelle, "and women set them the example. I've heard it

said ever since I came into the world that 'Monsieur this or
Mademoiselle that has made a good marriage,'--meaning that the other

side had made a bad one."
"Marriage," said Butscha, "is like a lawsuit; there's always one side

discontented. If one dupes the other, certainly half the husbands in
the world are playing a comedy at the expense of the other half."

"From which you conclude, Sieur Butscha?" inquired Modeste.
"To pay the utmost attention to the manoeuvres of the enemy," answered

the clerk.
"What did I tell you, my darling?" said Charles Mignon, alluding to

their conversation on the seashore.
"Men play as many parts to get married as mothers make their daughters

play to get rid of them," said Latournelle.
"Then you approve of stratagems?" said Modeste.

"On both sides," cried Gobenheim, "and that brings it even."
This conversation was carried on by fits and starts, as they say, in

the intervals of cutting and dealing the cards; and it soon turned
chiefly on the merits of the Duc d'Herouville, who was thought very

good-looking by little Latournelle, little Dumay, and little Butscha.
Without the foregoingdiscussion on the lawfulness of matrimonial

tricks, the reader might possibly find the forthcomingaccount of the
evening so impatiently awaited by Butscha, somewhat too long.

Desplein, the famous surgeon, arrived the next morning, and stayed
only long enough to send to Havre for fresh horses and have them put-

to, which took about an hour. After examining Madame Mignon's eyes, he
decided that she could recover her sight, and fixed a suitable time, a

month later, to perform the operation. This important consultation
took place before the assembled members of the Chalet, who stood

trembling and expectant to hear the verdict of the prince of science.
That illustrious member of the Academy of Sciences put about a dozen

brief questions to the blind woman as he examined her eyes in the
strong light from a window. Modeste was amazed at the value which a

man so celebrated attached to time, when she saw the travelling-
carriage piled with books which the great surgeon proposed to read

during the journey; for he had left Paris the evening before, and had
spent the night in sleeping and travelling. The rapidity and clearness

of Desplein's judgment on each answer made by Madame Mignon, his
succinct tone, his decisive manner, gave Modeste her first real idea

of a man of genius. She perceived the enormous difference between a
second-rate man, like Canalis, and Desplein, who was even more than a

superior man. A man of genius finds in the consciousness of his talent
and in the solidity of his fame an arena of his own, where his

legitimate pride can expand and exercise itself without interfering
with others. Moreover, his perpetual struggle with men and things

leave them no time for the coxcombry of fashionablegenius, which
makes haste to gather in the harvests of a fugitive season, and whose

vanity and self-love are as petty and exacting as a custom-house which
levies tithes on all that comes in its way.

Modeste was the more enchanted by this great practical genius, because
he was evidently charmed with the exquisite beauty of Modeste,--he,

through whose hands so many women had passed, and who had long since
examined the sex, as it were, with magnifier and scalpel.

"It would be a sad pity," he said, with an air of gallantry which he
occasionally put on, and which contrasted with his assumed

brusqueness, "if a mother were deprived of the sight of so charming a
daughter."

Modeste insisted on serving the simple breakfast which was all the
great surgeon would accept. She accompanied her father and Dumay to

the carriage stationed at the garden-gate, and said to Desplein at
parting, her eyes shining with hope,--

"And will my dear mamma really see me?"
"Yes, my little sprite, I'll promise you that," he answered, smiling;

"and I am incapable of deceiving you, for I, too, have a daughter."
The horses started and carried him off as he uttered the last words

with unexpected grace and feeling. Nothing is more charming than the
peculiar unexpectedness of persons of talent.

CHAPTER XX
THE POET DOES HIS EXERCISES

This visit of the great surgeon was the event of the day, and it left
a luminous trace in Modeste's soul. The young enthusiast ardently

admired the man whose life belonged to others, and in whom the habit
of studying physicalsuffering had destroyed the manifestations of

egoism. That evening, when Gobenheim, the Latournelles, and Butscha,
Canalis, Ernest, and the Duc d'Herouville were gathered in the salon,

they all congratulated the Mignon family on the hopes which Desplein
encouraged. The conversation, in which the Modeste of her letters was

once more in the ascendant, turned naturally on the man whose genius,
unfortunately for his fame, was appreciable only by the faculty and

men of science. Gobenheim contributed a phrase which is the sacred
chrism of genius as interpreted in these days by public economists and