“You have something better than fame in your house,” said Canalis; “you have beauty, if I am to believe Ernest.”

“Yes, a good daughter; but you will find her rather countrified,” said Charles Mignon.

“A country girl sought by the Duc d’Herouville,” remarked Canalis, dryly.

“Oh!” replied Monsieur Mignon, with the perfidious good-humor of a Southerner, “I leave my daughter free.  Dukes, princes, commoners, —­they are all the same to me, even men of genius.  I shall make no pledges, and whoever my Modeste chooses will be my son-in-law, or rather my son,” he added, looking at La Briere.  “It could not be otherwise.  Madame de La Bastie is German.  She has never adopted our etiquette, and I let my two women lead me their own way.  I have always preferred to sit in the carriage rather than on the box.  I can make a joke of all this at present, for we have not yet seen the Duc d’Herouville, and I do not believe in marriages arranged by proxy, any more than I believe in choosing my daughter’s husband.”

“That declaration is equally encouraging and discouraging to two young men who are searching for the philosopher’s stone of happiness in marriage,” said Canalis.

“Don’t you consider it useful, necessary, and even politic to stipulate for perfect freedom of action for parents, daughters, and suitors?” asked Charles Mignon.

Canalis, at a sign from La Briere, kept silence.  The conversation presently became unimportant, and after a few turns round the garden the count retired, urging the visit of the two friends.

“That’s our dismissal,” cried Canalis; “you saw it as plainly as I did.  Well, in his place, I should not hesitate between the grand equerry and either of us, charming as we are.”

“I don’t think so,” said La Briere.  “I believe that frank soldier came here to satisfy his desire to see you, and to warn us of his neutrality while receiving us in his house.  Modeste, in love with your fame, and misled by my person, stands, as it were, between the real and the ideal, between poetry and prose.  I am, unfortunately, the prose.”

“Germain,” said Canalis to the valet, who came to take away the coffee, “order the carriage in half an hour.  We will take a drive before we go to the Chalet.”

CHAPTER XVIII

A SPLENDID FIRST APPEARANCE

The two young men were equally impatient to see Modeste, but La Briere dreaded the interview, while Canalis approached it with the confidence of self-conceit.  The eagerness with which La Briere had met the father, and the flattery of his attention to the family pride of the ex-merchant, showed Canalis his own maladroitness, and determined him to select a special role.  The great poet resolved to pretend indifference, though all the while displaying his seductive powers; to appear to disdain the young lady, and thus pique her self-love.  Trained by the handsome Duchesse de