death of Monsieur le Grand, as they call Cinq-Mars, to keep his office

among us, we should have been obliged to sell Herouville to the Black
Brethren. Ah, believe me, mademoiselle, it is a bitter humiliation to

me to have to think of money in marrying."
The simple honesty of this confession came from his heart, and the

regret was so sincere that it touched Modeste.
"In these days," said the poet, "no man in France, Monsieur le duc, is

rich enough to marry a woman for herself, her personal worth, her
grace, or her beauty--"

The colonel looked at Canalis with a curious eye, after first watching
Modeste, whose face no longer expressed the slightest astonishment.

"For persons of high honor," he said slowly, "it is a noble employment
of wealth to repair the ravages of time and destiny, and restore the

old historic families."
"Yes, papa," said Modeste, gravely.

The colonel invited the duke and Canalis to dine with him sociably in
their riding-dress, promising them to make no change himself. When

Modeste went to her room to make her toilette, she looked at the
jewelled whip she had disdained in the morning.

"What workmanship they put into such things nowadays!" she said to
Francoise Cochet, who had become her waiting-maid.

"That poor young man, mademoiselle, who has got a fever--"
"Who told you that?"

"Monsieur Butscha. He came here this afternoon and asked me to say to
you that he hoped you would notice he had kept his word on the

appointed day."
Modeste came down into the salon dressed with royal simplicity.

"My dear father," she said aloud, taking the colonel by the arm,
"please go and ask after Monsieur de La Briere's health, and take him

back his present. You can say that my small means, as well as my
natural tastes, forbid my wearing ornaments which are only fit for

queens or courtesans. Besides, I can only accept gifts from a
bridegroom. Beg him to keep the whip until you know whether you are

rich enough to buy it back."
"My little girl has plenty of good sense," said the colonel, kissing

his daughter on the forehead.
Canalis took advantage of a conversation which began between the duke

and Madame Mignon to escape to the terrace, where Modeste joined him,
influenced by curiosity, though the poet believed her desire to become

Madame de Canalis had brought her there. Rather alarmed at the
indecency with which he had just executed what soldiers call a "volte-

face," and which, according to the laws of ambition, every man in his
position would have executed quite as brutally, he now endeavored, as

the unfortunate Modeste approached him, to find plausible excuses for
his conduct.

"Dear Modeste," he began, in a coaxing tone, "considering the terms on
which we stand to each other, shall I displease you if I say that your

replies to the Duc d'Herouville were very painful to a man in love,--
above all, to a poet whose soul is feminine, nervous, full of the

jealousies of true passion. I should make a poor diplomatist indeed if
I had not perceived that your first coquetries, your little

premeditated inconsistencies, were only assumed for the purpose of
studying our characters--"

Modeste raised her head with the rapid, intelligent, half-coquettish
motion of a wild animal, in whom instinct produces such miracles of

grace.
"--and therefore when I returned home and thought them over, they

never misled me. I only marvelled at a cleverness so in harmony with
your character and your countenance. Do not be uneasy, I never doubted

that your assumed duplicity covered an angelic candor. No, your mind,
your education, have in no way lessened the precious innocence which

we demand in a wife. You are indeed a wife for a poet, a diplomatist,
a thinker, a man destined to endure the chances and changes of life;

and my admiration is equalled only by the attachment" target="_blank" title="n.附着；附件；爱慕">attachment I feel to you. I
now entreat you--if yesterday you were not playing a little comedy

when you accepted the love of a man whose vanity will change to pride
if you accept him, one whose defects will become virtues under your

divine influence--I entreat you do not excite a passion which, in him,
amounts to vice. Jealousy is a noxious element in my soul, and you

have revealed to me its strength; it is awful, it destroys everything
--Oh! I do not mean the jealousy of an Othello," he continued,

noticing Modeste's gesture. "No, no; my thoughts were of myself: I
have been so indulged on that point. You know the affection to which I

owe all the happiness I have ever enjoyed,--very little at the best"
(he sadly shook his head). "Love is symbolized among all nations as a

child, because it fancies the world belongs to it, and it cannot
conceive otherwise. Well, Nature herself set the limit to that

sentiment. It was still-born. A tender, maternal soul guessed and
calmed the painful constriction of my heart,--for a woman who feels,

who knows, that she is past the joys of love becomes angelic in her
treatment of others. The duchess has never made me suffer in my

sensibilities. For ten years not a word, not a look, that could wound
me! I attach more value to words, to thoughts, to looks, than ordinary

men. If a look is to me a treasure beyond all price, the slightest
doubt is deadlypoison; it acts instantaneously, my love dies. I

believe--contrary to the mass of men, who delight in trembling,
hoping, expecting--that love can only exist in perfect, infantile, and

infinite security. The exquisite purgatory, where women delight to
send us by their coquetry, is a base happiness to which I will not

submit: to me, love is either heaven or hell. If it is hell, I will
have none of it. I feel an affinity with the azure skies of Paradise

within my soul. I can give myself without reserve, without secrets,
doubts or deceptions, in the life to come; and I demand reciprocity.

Perhaps I offend you by these doubts. Remember, however, that I am
only talking of myself--"

"--a good deal, but never too much," said Modeste, offended in every
hole and corner of her pride by this discourse, in which the Duchesse

de Chaulieu served as a dagger. "I am so accustomed to admire you, my
dear poet."

"Well, then, can you promise me the same canine fidelity which I offer
to you? Is it not beautiful? Is it not just what you have longed for?"

"But why, dear poet, do you not marry a deaf-mute, and one who is also
something of an idiot? I ask nothing better than to please my husband.

But you threaten to take away from a girl the very happiness you so
kindly arrange for her; you are tearing away every gesture, every

word, every look; you cut the wings of your bird, and then expect it
to hover about you. I know poets are accused of inconsistency--oh!

very unjustly," she added, as Canalis made a gesture of denial; "that
alleged defect which comes from the brilliant activity of their minds

which commonplace people cannot take into account. I do not believe,
however, that a man of genius can invent such irreconcilable

conditions and call his invention life. You are requiring the
impossible solely for the pleasure of putting me in the wrong,--like

the enchanters in fairy-tales, who set tasks to persecuted young girls
whom the good fairies come and deliver."

"In this case the good fairy would be true love," said Canalis in a
curt tone, aware that his elaborate excuse for a rupture was seen

through by the keen and delicate mind which Butscha had piloted so
well.

"My dear poet, you remind me of those fathers who inquire into a
girl's 'dot' before they are willing to name that of their son. You

are quarrelling with me without knowing whether you have the slightest
right to do so. Love is not gained by such dry arguments as yours. The

poor duke on the contrary abandons himself to it like my Uncle Toby;
with this difference, that I am not the Widow Wadman,--though widow

indeed of many illusions as to poetry at the present moment. Ah, yes,
we young girls will not believe in anything that disturbs our world of

fancy! I was warned of all this beforehand. My dear poet, you are
attempting to get up a quarrel which is unworthy of you. I no longer

recognize the Melchior of yesterday."
"Because Melchior has discovered a spirit of ambition in you which--"

Modeste looked at him from head to foot with an imperial eye.
"But I shall be peer of France and ambassador as well as he," added

Canalis.
"Do you take me for a bourgeois," she said, beginning to mount the