way by your provincial hatred for everything that obliges you to
look higher than your own head. You can't forgive a poet for being a
statesman, for possessing the gift of speech, for having a noble future
before him,--and you calumniate his intentions."

"His!--mademoiselle, he will turn his back upon you with the baseness of
an Althor."

"Make him play that pretty little comedy, and--"

"That I will! he shall play it through and through within three
days,--on Wednesday,--recollect, Wednesday! Until then, mademoiselle,
amuse yourself by listening to the little tunes of the lyre, so that the
discords and the false notes may come out all the more distinctly."

Modeste ran gaily back to the salon, where La Briere, who was sitting by
the window, where he had doubtless been watching his idol, rose to his
feet as if a groom of the chambers had suddenly announced, "The Queen."
It was a movement of spontaneous respect, full of that living eloquence
that lies in gesture even more than in speech. Spoken love cannot
compare with acts of love; and every young girl of twenty has the
wisdom of fifty in applying the axiom. In it lies the great secret of
attraction. Instead of looking Modeste in the face, as Canalis who paid
her public homage would have done, the neglected lover followed her with
a furtive look between his eyelids, humble after the manner of Butscha,
and almost timid. The young heiress observed it, as she took her place
by Canalis, to whose game she proceeded to pay attention. During a
conversation which ensued, La Briere heard Modeste say to her father
that she should ride out for the first time on the following Wednesday;
and she also reminded him that she had no whip in keeping with her new
equipments. The young man flung a lightning glance at the dwarf, and a
few minutes later the two were pacing the terrace.

"It is nine o'clock," cried Ernest. "I shall start for Paris at full
gallop; I can get there to-morrow morning by ten. My dear Butscha, from
you she will accept anything, for she is attached to you; let me give
her a riding-whip in your name. If you will do me this immense kindness,
you shall have not only my friendship but my devotion."

"Ah, you are very happy," said Butscha, ruefully; "you have money, you!"

"Tell Canalis not to expect me, and that he must find some pretext to
account for my absence."

An hour later Ernest had ridden out of Havre. He reached Paris in twelve
hours, where his first