utscha sympathetically understood the love in the
flavor and vigor of his simple language, and in his deep and genuine
anxiety.

"But why don't you show yourself to Mademoiselle Modeste for what you
are?" he said; "why do you let your rival do his exercises?"

"Have you never felt your throat tighten when you wished to speak to
her?" cried La Briere; "is there never a strange feeling in the roots of
your hair and on the surface of your skin when she looks at you,--even
if she is thinking of something else?"

"But you had sufficient judgment to show displeasure when she as good as
told her excellent father that he was a dolt."

"Monsieur, I love her too well not to have felt a knife in my heart when
I heard her contradicting her own perfections."

"Canalis supported her."

"If she had more self-love than heart there would be nothing for a man
to regret in losing her," answered La Briere.

At this moment, Modeste, followed by Canalis, who had lost the rubber,
came out with her father and Madame Dumay to breathe the fresh air of
the starry night. While his daughter walked about with the poet, Charles
Mignon left her and came up to La Briere.

"Your friend, monsieur, ought to have been a lawyer," he said, smiling
and looking attentively at the young man.

"You must not judge a poet as you would an ordinary man,--as you would
me, for example, Monsieur le comte," said La Briere. "A poet has a
mission. He is obliged by his nature to see the poetry of questions,
just as he expresses that of things. When you think him inconsistent
with himself he is really faithful to his vocation. He is a painter
copying with equal truth a Madonna and a courtesan. Moliere is as true
to nature in his old men as in his young ones, and Moliere's judgment
was assuredly a sound and healthy one. These witty paradoxes might be
dangerous for second-rate minds, but they have no real influence on the
character of great men."

Charles Mignon pressed La Briere's hand.

"That adaptability, however, leads a man to excuse himself in his own
eyes for actions that are diametrically opposed to each other; above
all, in politics."

"Ah, mademoiselle," Canalis was at this moment saying, in a caressing
voice, replying to a roguish remark of Modeste, "do not think that a
multiplicity of emotions can in any way lessen the strength of feelings.
Poets, even more than other men, must needs love with constancy and
faith. You must not be jealous of what is