d a little too intense to be
natural.

"Does Monsieur de La Briere know how to ride?" she asked, for the
purpose of teasing him.

"Not very well, but he gets along," answered the poet, cold as Gobenheim
before the colonel's return.

At a cross-road, which Monsieur Mignon made them take through a lovely
valley to reach a height overlooking the Seine, Canalis let Modeste and
the duke pass him, and then reined up to join the colonel.

"Monsieur le comte," he said, "you are an open-hearted soldier, and
I know you will regard my frankness as a title to your esteem. When
proposals of marriage, with all their brutal,--or, if you please, too
civilized--discussions, are carried on by third parties, it is an injury
to all. We are both gentlemen, and both discreet; and you, like myself,
have passed beyond the age of surprises. Let us therefore speak as
intimates. I will set you the example. I am twenty-nine years old,
without landed estates, and full of ambition. Mademoiselle Modeste,
as you must have perceived, pleases me extremely. Now, in spite of the
little defects which your dear girl likes to assume--"

"--not counting those she really possesses," said the colonel,
smiling,--

"--I should gladly make her my wife, and I believe I could render her
happy. The question of money is of the utmost importance to my future,
which hangs to-day in the balance. All young girls expect to be loved
_whether or no_--fortune or no fortune. But you are not the man to marry
your dear Modeste without a 'dot,' and my situation does not allow me
to make a marriage of what is called love unless with a woman who has
a fortune at least equal to mine. I have, from my emoluments and
sinecures, from the Academy and from my works, about thirty thousand
francs a year, a large income for a bachelor. If my wife brought me as
much more, I should still be in about the same condition that I am now.
Shall you give Mademoiselle a million?"

"Ah, monsieur, we have not reached that point as yet," said the colonel,
Jesuitically.

"Then suppose," said Canalis, quickly, "that we go no further; we will
let the matter drop. You shall have no cause to complain of me, Monsieur
le comte; the world shall consider me among the unfortunate suitors of
your charming daughter. Give me your word of honor to say nothing on
the subject to any one, not even to Mademoiselle Modeste, because," he
added, throwing a word of promise to the ear, "my circumstances may so
chang