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Recovering herself under Modeste's tender care, Madame Mignon went up to her bedroom leaning on the arm of her daughter, to whom she said, as her sole reproach, when they were alone: "My unfortunate child, see what you have done! Why did you conceal anything from me? Am I so harsh?" "Oh! I was just going to tell it to you comfortably," sobbed Modeste.
The father, however, was only too cruelly right on one point. Modeste's last letter, which we have read, had indeed spoken as though the marriage were a settled fact, and the remembrance of that letter filled her with shame; she thought her father very harsh and cruel to force her to receive a man unworthy of her, yet to whom her soul had flown, as it were, bare.
The greater the folly, the more imperatively the duchess exacted it. Modeste's beauty and money thus pitted against Eleonore's rights and influence made this hesitation between the man and his honor as terrible to witness as the peril of a matador in the arena.
Canalis thought he knew the reason of this change; he had tried to pique Modeste by calling marriage a catastrophe, and showing that he was aloof from it; but like others who play with fire, he had burned his fingers. Modeste's pride and her present disdain frightened him, and he endeavored to recover his ground, exhibiting a jealousy which was all the more visible because it was artificial.
The duke at once proposed to arrange a hunt in one of the crown forests, which lay a few leagues from Havre. Thanks to his intimacy with the Prince de Cadignan, Master of the Hunt, he saw his chance of displaying an almost regal pomp before Modeste's eyes, and alluring her with a glimpse of court fascinations, to which she could be introduced by marriage.
Modeste coldly took up her embroidery. "Madame may be right; I have been twice in Havre lately," replied La Briere, sitting down by Dumay. Canalis, charmed with Modeste's beauty, mistook the admiration she expressed, and flattered himself he had succeeded in producing his desired effects.
Modeste's three lovers each and all went to Rosembray with their hearts full of hope, and captivated by her many perfections.
Even the poor occupation of teaching her little class of music pupils had been taken away by the holidays. Her sole resource was in Modeste's society. Modeste who, by the way, had never been ill, and who suffered from nothing but old age was delighted to receive her dear young lady in her little room far up under the roof, where, though quite infirm, she lived comfortably, on her savings.
Even the poor occupation of teaching her little class of music pupils had been taken away by the holidays. Her sole resource was in Modeste's society. Modeste who, by the way, had never been ill, and who suffered from nothing but old age was delighted to receive her dear young lady in her little room far up under the roof, where, though quite infirm, she lived comfortably, on her savings.
" break locks, steal purses, and cut people's throats on the highway," cried the colonel. "Ah, you young girls, that's just like you, with your peremptory opinions and your ignorance of life. A man who once deceives a woman was born under the scaffold on which he ought to die." This ridicule stopped Modeste's effervescence for a moment and least, and again there was silence.
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