called the Muse. Happy is the
wife of a man whose days are occupied. If you heard the complaints of
women who have to endure the burden of an idle husband, either a man
without duties, or one so rich as to have nothing to do, you would know
that the highest happiness of a Parisian wife is freedom,--the right
to rule in her own home. Now we writers and men of functions and
occupations, we leave the sceptre to our wives; we cannot descend to
the tyranny of little minds; we have something better to do. If I ever
marry,--which I assure you is a catastrophe very remote at the present
moment,--I should wish my wife to enjoy the same moral freedom that
a mistress enjoys, and which is perhaps the real source of her
attraction."

Canalis talked on, displaying the warmth of his fancy and all his
graces, for Modeste's benefit, as he spoke of love, marriage, and the
adoration of women, until Monsieur Mignon, who had rejoined them, seized
the opportunity of a slight pause to take his daughter's arm and lead
her up to Ernest de La Briere, whom he had been advising to seek an open
explanation with her.

"Mademoiselle," said Ernest, in a voice that was scarcely his own,
"it is impossible for me to remain any longer under the weight of
your displeasure. I do not defend myself; I do not seek to justify my
conduct; I desire only to make you see that _before_ reading your most
flattering letter, addressed to the individual and no longer to the
poet,--the last which you sent to me,--I wished, and I told you in my
note written at Havre that I wished, to correct the error under which
you were acting. All the feelings that I have had the happiness to
express to you are sincere. A hope dawned on me in Paris when your
father told me he was comparatively poor,--but now that all is lost, now
that nothing is left for me but endless regrets, why should I stay
here where all is torture? Let me carry away with me one smile to live
forever in my heart."

"Monsieur," answered Modeste, who seemed cold and absent-minded, "I am
not the mistress of this house; but I certainly should deeply regret to
retain any one where he finds neither pleasure nor happiness."

She left La Briere and took Madame Dumay's arm to re-enter the house. A
few moments later all the actors in this domestic scene reassembled in
the salon, and were a good deal surprised to see Modeste sitting beside
the Duc d'Herouville and coquetting with him like an accomplished
Parisian woman