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La Briere, full of dark presentiments, craved the presence of Modeste with an eagerness whose bitter joys are known only to lovers who feel that they are parted, and parted fatally from those they love.
La Briere will help me. A man is never condemned without a hearing." "I am curious to see if Monsieur des Lupeaulx will come here to-night." "He? Of course he will come," said Rabourdin; "there's something of the tiger in him; he likes to lick the blood of the wounds he has given."
"It is in keeping with its possessor," she added, returning it to Modeste. "You must admit, Madame la duchesse," answered Mademoiselle de La Bastie, with a tender and malicious glance at La Briere, "that it is a rather strange gift from the hand of a future husband." "I should take it," said Madame de Maufrigneuse, "as a declaration of my rights, in remembrance of Louis XIV."
Honest natures cannot easily break the ties that bind them, especially if they have tied them voluntarily. The secretary was therefore still living in domestic relations with the poet when Modeste's letter arrived, in such relations, be it said, as involved a perpetual sacrifice of his feelings. La Briere admitted the frankness with which Canalis had laid himself bare before him.
"Does Monsieur de La Briere know how to ride?" she asked, for the purpose of teasing him. "Not very well, but he gets along," answered the poet, cold as Gobenheim before the colonel's return. At a cross-road, which Monsieur Mignon made them take through a lovely valley to reach a height overlooking the Seine, Canalis let Modeste and the duke pass him, and then reined up to join the colonel.
Oh! he is worth far more than I." At a gesture from Modeste he continued gracefully: "Yes, the poetry that I express he carries in his heart; and if I speak thus openly before him it is because he has the modesty of a nun." "Enough, oh, enough!" cried La Briere, who hardly knew which way to look. "My dear Canalis, you remind me of a mother who is seeking to marry off her daughter."
On the other hand La Briere had come to the resolution of bidding Modeste an eternal farewell. Each suitor was therefore on the watch to slip in a last word, like the defendant's counsel to the court before judgment is pronounced; for all felt that the three weeks' struggle was approaching its conclusion.
Butscha, La Briere, and Madame Latournelle exchanged glances that were more than half derisive, and drove Modeste to a pitch of irritation that kept her silent for a moment. "Mademoiselle, do not mind them," said Canalis, smiling upon her, "we are neither beaten, nor caught in a contradiction.
"Well! and isn't he worth more than that spiteful and gloomy secretary in whom you take such an interest?" she retorted, assuming, at the mere thought of Ernest, the haughty manner whose secret belongs exclusively to young girls, as if their virginity lent them wings to fly to heaven. "Pray, would your little La Briere accept me without a fortune?" she said, after a pause.
Disdaining to reply to a correspondent who did not appear to be a person with whom he could take liberties, Canalis delegated the task to his friend and secretary, La Briere, who answered under cover of the great man's name and ultimately found out and, incognito, beheld the lady. She was beautiful and he lost his heart to her.
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