concession which is almost as unsatisfactory to the hearer and leaves
him dissatisfied. Nothing brings more profit in the commerce of

society than the small change of attention. He that heareth let him
hear, is not only a gospelprecept, it is an excellent speculation;

follow it, and all will be forgiven you, even vice. Canalis took a
great deal of trouble in his anxiety to please Modeste; but though he

was compliant enough with her, he fell back into his natural self with
the others.

Modeste, pitiless for the ten martyrs she was making, begged Canalis
to read some of his poems; she wanted, she said, a specimen of his

gift for reading, of which she had heard so much. Canalis took the
volume which she gave him, and cooed (for that is the proper word) a

poem which is generally considered his finest,--an imitation of
Moore's "Loves of the Angels," entitled "Vitalis," which Monsieur and

Madame Dumay, Madame Latournelle, and Gobenheim welcomed with a few
yawns.

"If you are a good whist-player, monsieur," said Gobenheim,
flourishing five cards held like a fan, "I must say I have never met a

man as accomplished as you."
The remark raised a laugh, for it was the translation of everybody's

thought.
"I play it sufficiently well to live in the provinces for the rest of

my days," replied Canalis. "That, I think, is enough, and more than
enough literature and conversation for whist-players," he added,

throwing the volumeimpatiently on a table.
This little incident serves to show what dangers environ a drawing-

room hero when he steps, like Canalis, out of his sphere; he is like
the favorite actor of a second-rate audience, whose talent is lost

when he leaves his own boards and steps upon those of an upper-class
theatre.

CHAPTER XXI
MODESTE PLAYS HER PART

The game opened with the baron and the duke, Gobenheim and Latournelle
as partners. Modeste took a seat near the poet, to Ernest's deep

disappointment; he watched the face of the wayward girl, and marked
the progress of the fascination which Canalis exerted over her. La

Briere had not the gift of seduction which Melchior possessed. Nature
frequently denies it to true hearts, who are, as a rule, timid. This

gift demands fearlessness, an alacrity of ways and means that might be
called the trapeze of the mind; a little mimicry goes with it; in fact

there is always, morally speaking, something of the comedian in a
poet. There is a vast difference between expressing sentiments we do

not feel, though we may imagine all their variations, and feigning to
feel them when bidding for success on the theatre of private life. And

yet, though the necessary hypocrisy of a man of the world may have
gangrened a poet, he ends by carrying the faculties of his talent into

the expression of any required sentiment, just as a great man doomed
to solitude ends by infusing his heart into his mind.

"He is after the millions," thought La Briere, sadly; "and he can play
passion so well that Modeste will believe him."

Instead of endeavoring to appear more amiable and wittier than his
rival, Ernest imitated the Duc d'Herouville, and was gloomy, anxious,

and watchful; but whereas the courierstudied the freaks of the young
heiress, Ernest simply fell a prey to the pains of dark and

concentrated jealousy" target="_blank" title="n.妒忌；猜忌">jealousy. He had not yet been able to obtain a glance
from his idol. After a while he left the room with Butscha.

"It is all over!" he said; "she is caught by him; I am more
disagreeable to her, and moreover, she is right. Canalis is charming;

there's intellect in his silence, passion in his eyes, poetry in his
rhodomontades."

"Is he an honest man?" asked Butscha.
"Oh, yes," replied La Briere. "He is loyal and chivalrous, and capable

of getting rid, under Modeste's influence, of those affectations which
Madame de Chaulieu has taught him."

"You are a fine fellow," said the hunchback; "but is he capable of
loving,--will he love her?"

"I don't know," answered La Briere. "Has she said anything about me?"
he asked after a moment's silence.

"Yes," said Butscha, and he repeated Modeste's speech about disguises.
Poor Ernest flung himself upon a bench and held his head in his hands.

He could not keep back his tears, and he did not wish Butscha to see
them; but the dwarf was the very man to guess his emotion.

"What troubles you?" he asked.
"She is right!" cried Ernest, springing up; "I am a wretch."

And he related the deception into which Canalis had led him when
Modeste's first letter was received, carefully pointing out to Butscha

that he had wished to undeceive the young girl before she herself took
off the mask, and apostrophizing, in rather juvenile fashion, his

luckless destiny. Butscha sympathetically understood the love in the
flavor and vigor of his simple language, and in his deep and genuine

anxiety.
"But why don't you show yourself to Mademoiselle Modeste for what you

are?" he said; "why do you let your rival do his exercises?"
"Have you never felt your throattighten when you wished to speak to

her?" cried La Briere; "is there never a strange feeling in the roots
of your hair and on the surface of your skin when she looks at you,--

even if she is thinking of something else?"
"But you had sufficient judgment to show displeasure when she as good

as told her excellent father that he was a dolt."
"Monsieur, I love her too well not to have felt a knife in my heart

when I heard her contradicting her own perfections."
"Canalis supported her."

"If she had more self-love than heart there would be nothing for a man
to regret in losing her," answered La Briere.

At this moment, Modeste, followed by Canalis, who had lost the rubber,
came out with her father and Madame Dumay to breathe the fresh air of

the starry night. While his daughter walked about with the poet,
Charles Mignon left her and came up to La Briere.

"Your friend, monsieur, ought to have been a lawyer," he said, smiling
and looking attentively at the young man.

"You must not judge a poet as you would an ordinary man,--as you would
me, for example, Monsieur le comte," said La Briere. "A poet has a

mission. He is obliged by his nature to see the poetry of questions,
just as he expresses that of things. When you think him inconsistent

with himself he is really faithful to his vocation. He is a painter
copying with equal truth a Madonna and a courtesan. Moliere is as true

to nature in his old men as in his young ones, and Moliere's judgment
was assuredly a sound and healthy one. These witty paradoxes might be

dangerous for second-rate minds, but they have no real influence on
the character of great men."

Charles Mignon pressed La Briere's hand.
"That adaptability, however, leads a man to excuse himself in his own

eyes for actions that are diametrically opposed to each other; above
all, in politics."

"Ah, mademoiselle," Canalis was at this moment saying, in a caressing
voice, replying to a roguish remark of Modeste, "do not think that a

multiplicity of emotions can in any way lessen the strength of
feelings. Poets, even more than other men, must needs love with

constancy and faith. You must not be jealous of what is called the
Muse. Happy is the wife of a man whose days are occupied. If you heard

the complaints of women who have to endure the burden of an idle
husband, either a man without duties, or one so rich as to have

nothing to do, you would know that the highest happiness of a Parisian
wife is freedom,--the right to rule in her own home. Now we writers

and men of functions and occupations, we leave the sceptre to our
wives; we cannot descend to the tyranny of little minds; we have

something better to do. If I ever marry,--which I assure you is a
catastrophe very remote at the present moment,--I should wish my wife

to enjoy the same moral freedom that a mistress enjoys, and which is
perhaps the real source of her attraction."

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.