the young man, looking up at her with a face
that was illuminated like a city for a festival.

"You?" she said; "you give me the most precious of all friendships,--a
feeling as disinterested as that of a mother for her child. Compare
yourself to no one; for even my father is obliged to be devoted to me."
She paused. "I cannot say that I love you, in the sense which men give
to that word, but what I do give you is eternal and can know no change."

"Then," said Butscha, stooping to pick up a pebble that he might kiss
the hem of her garment, "suffer me to watch over you as a dragon guards
a treasure. The poet was covering you just now with the lace-work of his
precious phrases, the tinsel of his promises; he chanted his love on the
best strings of his lyre, I know he did. If, as soon as this noble lover
finds out how small your fortune is, he makes a sudden change in his
behavior, and is cold and embarrassed, will you still marry him? shall
you still esteem him?"

"He would be another Francisque Althor," she said, with a gesture of
bitter disgust.

"Let me have the pleasure of producing that change of scene," said
Butscha. "Not only shall it be sudden, but I believe I can change it
back and make your poet as loving as before,--nay, it is possible
to make him blow alternately hot and cold upon your heart, just as
gracefully as he has talked on both sides of an argument in one evening
without ever finding it out."

"If you are right," she said, "who can be trusted?"

"One who truly loves you."

"The little duke?"

Butscha looked at Modeste. The pair walked some distance in silence; the
girl was impenetrable and not an eyelash quivered.

"Mademoiselle, permit me to be the exponent of the thoughts that are
lying at the bottom of your heart like sea-mosses under the waves, and
which you do not choose to gather up."

"Eh!" said Modeste, "so my intimate friend and counsellor thinks himself
a mirror, does he?"

"No, an echo," he answered, with a gesture of sublime humility.
"The duke loves you, but he loves you too much. If I, a dwarf, have
understood the infinite delicacy of your heart, it would be repugnant
to you to be worshipped like a saint in her shrine. You are eminently a
woman; you neither want a man perpetually at your feet of whom you
are eternally sure, nor a selfish egoist like Canalis, who will always
prefer himself to you. Why? ah, that I don't know. But I will make
myself a woman, an old woman, and f