Modeste’s eyes, and alluring her with a glimpse of court fascinations, to which she could be introduced by marriage.  Glances were exchanged between the duke and the two demoiselles d’Herouville, which plainly said, “The heiress is ours!” and the poet, who detected them, and who had nothing but his personal splendors to depend on, determined all the more firmly to obtain some pledge of affection at once.  Modeste, on the other hand, half-frightened at being thus pushed beyond her intentions by the d’Herouvilles, walked rather markedly apart with Melchior, when the company adjourned to the park after dinner.  With the pardonable curiosity of a young girl, she let him suspect the calumnies which Helene had poured into her ears; but on Canalis’s exclamation of anger, she begged him to keep silence about them, which he promised.

“These stabs of the tongue,” he said, “are considered fair in the great world.  They shock your upright nature; but as for me, I laugh at them; I am even pleased.  These ladies must feel that the duke’s interests are in great peril, when they have recourse to such warfare.”

Making the most of the advantage Modeste had thus given him, Canalis entered upon his defence with such warmth, such eagerness, and with a passion so exquisitely expressed, as he thanked her for a confidence in which he could venture to see the dawn of love, that she found herself suddenly as much compromised with the poet as she feared to be with the grand equerry.  Canalis, feeling the necessity of prompt action, declared himself plainly.  He uttered vows and protestations in which his poetry shone like a moon, invoked for the occasion, and illuminating his allusions to the beauty of his mistress and the charms of her evening dress.  This counterfeit enthusiasm, in which the night, the foliage, the heavens and the earth, and Nature herself played a part, carried the eager lover beyond all bounds; for he dwelt on his disinterestedness, and revamped in his own charming style, Diderot’s famous apostrophe to “Sophie and fifteen hundred francs!” and the well-worn “love in a cottage” of every lover who knows perfectly well the length of the father-in-law’s purse.

“Monsieur,” said Modeste, after listening with delight to the melody of this concerto; “the freedom granted to me by my parents has allowed me to listen to you; but it is to them that you must address yourself.”

“But,” exclaimed Canalis, “tell me that if I obtain their consent, you will ask nothing better than to obey them.”

“I know beforehand,” she replied, “that my father has certain fancies which may wound the proper pride of an old family like yours.  He wishes to have his own title and name borne by his grandsons.”

“Ah! dear Modeste, what sacrifices would I not make to commit my life to the guardian care of an angel like you.”

“You will permit me not to decide in a moment the fate of my whole life,” she said, turning to rejoin the demoiselles d’Herouville.