park after dinner. With the pardonable curiosity of a young girl, she
let him suspect the calumnies which Helene had poured into her ears; but
on Canalis's exclamation of anger, she begged him to keep silence about
them, which he promised.

"These stabs of the tongue," he said, "are considered fair in the great
world. They shock your upright nature; but as for me, I laugh at them; I
am even pleased. These ladies must feel that the duke's interests are in
great peril, when they have recourse to such warfare."

Making the most of the advantage Modeste had thus given him, Canalis
entered upon his defence with such warmth, such eagerness, and with a
passion so exquisitely expressed, as he thanked her for a confidence in
which he could venture to see the dawn of love, that she found herself
suddenly as much compromised with the poet as she feared to be with the
grand equerry. Canalis, feeling the necessity of prompt action, declared
himself plainly. He uttered vows and protestations in which his poetry
shone like a moon, invoked for the occasion, and illuminating his
allusions to the beauty of his mistress and the charms of her evening
dress. This counterfeit enthusiasm, in which the night, the foliage,
the heavens and the earth, and Nature herself played a part, carried the
eager lover beyond all bounds; for he dwelt on his disinterestedness,
and revamped in his own charming style, Diderot's famous apostrophe
to "Sophie and fifteen hundred francs!" and the well-worn "love in
a cottage" of every lover who knows perfectly well the length of the
father-in-law's purse.

"Monsieur," said Modeste, after listening with delight to the melody of
this concerto; "the freedom granted to me by my parents has allowed me
to listen to you; but it is to them that you must address yourself."

"But," exclaimed Canalis, "tell me that if I obtain their consent, you
will ask nothing better than to obey them."

"I know beforehand," she replied, "that my father has certain fancies
which may wound the proper pride of an old family like yours. He wishes
to have his own title and name borne by his grandsons."

"Ah! dear Modeste, what sacrifices would I not make to commit my life to
the guardian care of an angel like you."

"You will permit me not to decide in a moment the fate of my whole
life," she said, turning to rejoin the demoiselles d'Herouville.

Those noble ladies were just then engaged in flattering the vanity
of little Latournelle