“You are a sorcerer!” exclaimed Modeste.

“Neither will you find that sweet equality of feeling, that continual sharing of each other’s life, that certainty of pleasing which makes marriage tolerable, if you take Canalis,—­a man who thinks of himself only, whose ‘I’ is the one string to his lute, whose mind is so fixed on himself that he has hitherto taken no notice of your father or the duke,—­a man of second-rate ambitions, to whom your dignity and your devotion will matter nothing, who will make you a mere appendage to his household, and who already insults you by his indifference to your behavior; yes, if you permitted yourself to go so far as to box your mother’s ears Canalis would shut his eyes to it, and deny your crime even to himself, because he thirsts for your money.  And so, mademoiselle, when I spoke of the man who truly loves you I was not thinking of the great poet who is nothing but a little comedian, nor of the duke, who might be a good marriage for you, but never a husband—­”

“Butscha, my heart is a blank page on which you are yourself writing all that you read there,” cried Modeste, interrupting him.  “You are carried away by your provincial hatred for everything that obliges you to look higher than your own head.  You can’t forgive a poet for being a statesman, for possessing the gift of speech, for having a noble future before him,—­and you calumniate his intentions.”

“His!—­mademoiselle, he will turn his back upon you with the baseness of an Althor.”

“Make him play that pretty little comedy, and—­”

“That I will! he shall play it through and through within three days, —­on Wednesday,—­recollect, Wednesday!  Until then, mademoiselle, amuse yourself by listening to the little tunes of the lyre, so that the discords and the false notes may come out all the more distinctly.”

Modeste ran gaily back to the salon, where La Briere, who was sitting by the window, where he had doubtless been watching his idol, rose to his feet as if a groom of the chambers had suddenly announced, “The Queen.”  It was a movement of spontaneous respect, full of that living eloquence that lies in gesture even more than in speech.  Spoken love cannot compare with acts of love; and every young girl of twenty has the wisdom of fifty in applying the axiom.  In it lies the great secret of attraction.  Instead of looking Modeste in the face, as Canalis who paid her public homage would have done, the neglected lover followed her with a furtive look between his eyelids, humble after the manner of Butscha, and almost timid.  The young heiress observed it, as she took her place by Canalis, to whose game she proceeded to pay attention.  During a conversation which ensued, La Briere heard Modeste say to her father that she should ride out for the first time on the following Wednesday; and she also reminded him that she had no whip in keeping with her new equipments.  The young man flung a lightning glance at the dwarf, and a few minutes later the two were pacing the terrace.