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Updated: May 31, 2025
"It is all about a young man who is hanging round the house," cried Madame Latournelle. "Well!" said Modeste, "why should Dumay kill him?" "Sancta simplicita!" ejaculated Butscha, looking at his master as proudly as Alexander is made to contemplate Babylon in Lebrun's great picture. "Where are you going, Modeste?" asked the mother as her daughter rose to leave the room.
"My dear Dumay, remember, you have now bound yourself to live with me for twelve years." In consequence of certain events which will presently be related, the estates of Monsieur Mignon, formerly the richest merchant in Havre, were sold to Vilquin, one of his business competitors.
Dumay withdrew, his heart torn with anxiety, believing that the wretched Butscha had worn the skin of the poet to deceive Modeste; whereas Butscha himself, keen-witted as a prince seeking revenge, and far cleverer than any paid spy, was ferretting out the life and actions of Canalis, escaping notice by his insignificance, like an insect that bores its way into the sap of a tree.
"I am listening, monsieur," said the poet; "my time is precious, the ministers are expecting me." "Monsieur," said Dumay, "I shall be brief. You have seduced how, I do not know a young lady in Havre, young, beautiful, and rich; the last and only hope of two noble families; and I have come to ask your intentions."
"Writing to my father," she answered; "did you not tell me you should start in the morning?" Dumay had nothing to say to that, and he went to bed, while Modeste wrote another long letter, this time to her father.
"I can swear that, my dear mother," said Modeste, laughing, and looking at Dumay who was watching her and smiling to himself like a mischievous girl. "She must be false indeed if you are right," cried Dumay, when Modeste had left them and gone into the house. "My daughter Modeste may have faults," said her mother, "but falsehood is not one of them; she is incapable of saying what is not true."
In a short time he learned to keep his patron's books, a science which, to use his own expression, pertains to the sergeant-majors of commerce. Never in his dreams had Lieutenant Dumay hoped for a situation so good as this; but greater still was the satisfaction he derived from the knowledge that his lucky enterprise had been the pivot of good fortune to the richest commercial house in Havre.
Born to the use of two languages, she could speak and read German quite as well as French; she had also, together with her sister, learned English from Madame Dumay. Being very little overlooked in the matter of reading by the people about her, who had no literary knowledge, Modeste fed her soul on the modern masterpieces of three literatures, English, French, and German.
'You sink too much in it, I said; 'if Vilquin does not buy it back there's two hundred thousand francs which won't bring you a penny; it only leaves you a hundred thousand to get along with, and it isn't enough. The colonel and Dumay are consulting about it now. But nevertheless, between you and me, Modeste is sure to be rich.
"Mademoiselle," said Dumay, in a very humble manner and barring Modeste's way, "may your father find his daughter with no other feelings in her heart than those she had for him and for her mother before he was obliged to leave her."
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