Modeste may in general estimation, it must be told she subsequently admitted that the sentiments expressed in her letters paled before the pleasure of seeing three such different minds at war with one another, —­three men who, taken separately, would each have done honor to the most exacting family.  Yet this luxury of self-love was checked by a misanthropical spitefulness, resulting from the terrible wound she had received,—­although by this time she was beginning to think of that wound as a disappointment only.  So when her father said to her, laughing, “Well, Modeste, do you want to be a duchess?” she answered, with a mocking curtsey,—­

“Sorrows have made me philosophical.”

“Do you mean to be only a baroness?” asked Butscha.

“Or a viscountess?” said her father.

“How could that be?” she asked quickly.

“If you accept Monsieur de La Briere, he has enough merit and influence to obtain permission from the king to bear my titles and arms.”

“Oh, if it comes to disguising himself, he will not make any difficulty,” said Modeste, scornfully.

Butscha did not understand this epigram, whose meaning could only be guessed by Monsieur and Madame Mignon and Dumay.

“When it is a question of marriage, all men disguise themselves,” remarked Latournelle, “and women set them the example.  I’ve heard it said ever since I came into the world that ’Monsieur this or Mademoiselle that has made a good marriage,’—­meaning that the other side had made a bad one.”

“Marriage,” said Butscha, “is like a lawsuit; there’s always one side discontented.  If one dupes the other, certainly half the husbands in the world are playing a comedy at the expense of the other half.”

“From which you conclude, Sieur Butscha?” inquired Modeste.

“To pay the utmost attention to the manoeuvres of the enemy,” answered the clerk.

“What did I tell you, my darling?” said Charles Mignon, alluding to their conversation on the seashore.

“Men play as many parts to get married as mothers make their daughters play to get rid of them,” said Latournelle.

“Then you approve of stratagems?” said Modeste.

“On both sides,” cried Gobenheim, “and that brings it even.”

This conversation was carried on by fits and starts, as they say, in the intervals of cutting and dealing the cards; and it soon turned chiefly on the merits of the Duc d’Herouville, who was thought very good-looking by little Latournelle, little Dumay, and little Butscha.  Without the foregoing discussion on the lawfulness of matrimonial tricks, the reader might possibly find the forthcoming account of the evening so impatiently awaited by Butscha, somewhat too long.