“Well then!” he cried aloud, “I will stay, I will suffer, I will love her for myself only, in solitude.  Modeste shall be my sun, my life; I will breathe with her breath, rejoice in her joys and bear her griefs, be she even the wife of that egoist, Canalis.”

“That’s what I call loving, monsieur,” said a voice which came from a shrub by the side of the road.  “Ha, ha, so all the world is in love with Mademoiselle de La Bastie?”

And Butscha suddenly appeared and looked at La Briere.  La Briere checked his anger when, by the light of the moon, he saw the dwarf, and he made a few steps without replying.

“Soldiers who serve in the same company ought to be good comrades,” remarked Butscha.  “You don’t love Canalis; neither do I.”

“He is my friend,” replied Ernest.

“Ha, you are the little secretary?”

“You are to know, monsieur, that I am no man’s secretary.  I have the honor to be of counsel to a supreme court of this kingdom.”

“I have the honor to salute Monsieur de La Briere,” said Butscha.  “I myself have the honor to be head clerk to Latournelle, chief councillor of Havre, and my position is a better one than yours.  Yes, I have had the happiness of seeing Mademoiselle Modeste de La Bastie nearly every evening for the last four years, and I expect to live near her, as a king’s servant lives in the Tuileries.  If they offered me the throne of Russia I should answer, ‘I love the sun too well.’  Isn’t that telling you, monsieur, that I care more for her than for myself?  I am looking after her interests with the most honorable intentions.  Do you believe that the proud Duchesse de Chaulieu would cast a favorable eye on the happiness of Madame de Canalis if her waiting-woman, who is in love with Monsieur Germain, not liking that charming valet’s absence in Havre, were to say to her mistress while brushing her hair—­”

“Who do you know about all this?” said La Briere, interrupting Butscha.

“In the first place, I am clerk to a notary,” answered Butscha.  “But haven’t you seen my hump?  It is full of resources, monsieur.  I have made myself cousin to Mademoiselle Philoxene Jacmin, born at Honfleur, where my mother was born, a Jacmin,—­there are eight branches of the Jacmins at Honfleur.  So my cousin Philoxene, enticed by the bait of a highly improbable fortune, has told me a good many things.”

“The duchess is vindictive?” said La Briere.

“Vindictive as a queen, Philoxene says; she has never yet forgiven the duke for being nothing more than her husband,” replied Butscha.  “She hates as she loves.  I know all about her character, her tastes, her toilette, her religion, and her manners; for Philoxene stripped her for me, soul and corset.  I went to the opera expressly to see her, and I didn’t grudge the ten francs it cost me—­I don’t mean the play.  If my imaginary cousin had not told me the duchess had seen her fifty summers, I should have thought I was over-generous in giving her thirty; she has never known a winter, that duchess!”