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Butscha, who met La Briere at the coach-door, took the box containing the precious work of art to Francoise Cochet, with instructions to place it on Modeste's dressing-table. "Of course you will accompany Mademoiselle Modeste on her ride to-day?" said Butscha, who went to Canalis's house to let La Briere know by a wink that the whip had gone to its destination.
They tried to intoxicate Modeste's mind by appealing to her pride, and describing one of the highest stations to which a woman could aspire. "To have a duke for a son," said the elder lady, "is an actual advantage. The title is a fortune that we secure to our children without the possibility of loss."
"The burden of proof is now on you, madame," said Dumay, calmly; "it is for you to prove that we are mistaken." Discovering that the matter in question was only Modeste's honor, Gobenheim took his hat, made his bow, and walked off, carrying his ten sous with him, there being evidently no hope of another rubber. "Exupere, and you too, Butscha, may leave us," said Madame Latournelle.
La Briere was too much the man of his letters which we have read, his heart was too noble and pure to allow him to hesitate at the call of honor. He at once resolved to find Modeste's father, if he were in Paris, and confess all to him, and to let Canalis know the serious results of their Parisian jest. To a sensitive nature like his, Modeste's large fortune was in itself a determining reason.
He bent his brow, however, when he heard of Modeste's daily interviews with the young man whom Florestan termed "Mademoiselle's lover." "Ah," muttered he, "if I could only be present at one of those interviews!" "And, as you say," returned Florestan, drawing out, as he spoke, a neat-looking watch, "it is just the hour of their meeting; and as the place is always the same, you "
To this period of Modeste's eager rage for reading succeeded the exercise of a strange faculty given to vigorous imaginations, the power, namely, of making herself an actor in a dream-existence; of representing to her own mind the things desired, with so vivid a conception that they seemed actually to attain reality; in short, to enjoy by thought, to live out her years within her mind; to marry; to grow old; to attend her own funeral like Charles V.; to play within herself the comedy of life and, if need be, that of death.
Ernest's whole life was now wrapped up in these sweet scraps of paper; they were to him what banknotes are to a miser; while in Modeste's soul a deep love took the place of her delight in agitating a glorious life, and being, in spite of distance, its mainspring. Ernest's heart was the complement of Canalis's glory.
Modeste's eyes were blindfolded as it were; Canalis's elocution and the close attention which she was predetermined to pay to him prevented her from seeing that Butscha was carefully noting the declamation, the want of simplicity, the emphasis that took the place of feeling, and the curious incoherencies in the poet's speech which led the dwarf to make his rather cruel comment.
They were in the princess's room, at the time, and Nina, dressed for the street, was pulling on new gloves of fawn-colored suède. Her brown velvet and fox furs, her big hat with a fox band fastened with an osprey, were all that the modeste's art could achieve.
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