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The young man, whose name was Francois Althor, the dandy of Havre, blessed with a certain vulgar beauty in which the middle classes delight, well-made, well-fleshed, and with a fine complexion, abandoned his betrothed so hastily on the day of her father's failure that neither Modeste nor her mother nor either of the Dumays had seen him since.
Monsieur Vilquin had a son and two daughters, one of whom was married to Monsieur Althor, junior. Prudence kept La Briere from seeming anxious about the Vilquins; the postmaster was already looking at him slyly. "Is there there any one staying with them at the present moment," he asked, "besides the family?" "The d'Herouville family is there just now.
Latournelle ventured a question on the subject to Jacob Althor, the father; but he only shrugged his shoulders and replied, "I really don't know what you mean." This answer, told to Modeste to give her some experience of life, was a lesson which she learned all the more readily because Latournelle and Dumay made many and long comments on the cowardly desertion.
"You are carried away by your provincial hatred for everything that obliges you to look higher than your own head. You can't forgive a poet for being a statesman, for possessing the gift of speech, for having a noble future before him, and you calumniate his intentions." "His! mademoiselle, he will turn his back upon you with the baseness of an Althor."
If, as soon as this noble lover finds out how small your fortune is, he makes a sudden change in his behavior, and is cold and embarrassed, will you still marry him? shall you still esteem him?" "He would be another Francisque Althor," she said, with a gesture of bitter disgust. "Let me have the pleasure of producing that change of scene," said Butscha.
Some time during the spring which followed the removal of Madame Mignon and her daughter to the Chalet, Francisque Althor came to dine with the Vilquins. Happening to see Modeste over the wall at the foot of the lawn, he turned away his head. Six weeks later he married the eldest Mademoiselle Vilquin.
He is in despair at not being able to make his games of whist count for mute adoration of my charms." "Hush, my darling!" cried Madame Latournelle, "here he comes." "Old Althor is in despair," said Gobenheim to Monsieur Mignon as he entered. "Why?" asked the count. "Vilquin is going to fail; and the Bourse thinks you are worth several millions. What ill-luck for his son!"
The talk of the town ran for a time on Mademoiselle Mignon's position only to insult her. "Poor girl! what will become of her? an old maid, of course." "What a fate! to have had the world at her feet; to have had the chance to marry Francisque Althor, and now, nobody willing to take her!" "After a life of luxury, to come down to such poverty "
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