“But why, dear poet, do you not marry a deaf-mute, and one who is also something of an idiot?  I ask nothing better than to please my husband.  But you threaten to take away from a girl the very happiness you so kindly arrange for her; you are tearing away every gesture, every word, every look; you cut the wings of your bird, and then expect it to hover about you.  I know poets are accused of inconsistency—­oh! very unjustly,” she added, as Canalis made a gesture of denial; “that alleged defect which comes from the brilliant activity of their minds which commonplace people cannot take into account.  I do not believe, however, that a man of genius can invent such irreconcilable conditions and call his invention life.  You are requiring the impossible solely for the pleasure of putting me in the wrong,—­like the enchanters in fairy-tales, who set tasks to persecuted young girls whom the good fairies come and deliver.”

“In this case the good fairy would be true love,” said Canalis in a curt tone, aware that his elaborate excuse for a rupture was seen through by the keen and delicate mind which Butscha had piloted so well.

“My dear poet, you remind me of those fathers who inquire into a girl’s ‘dot’ before they are willing to name that of their son.  You are quarrelling with me without knowing whether you have the slightest right to do so.  Love is not gained by such dry arguments as yours.  The poor duke on the contrary abandons himself to it like my Uncle Toby; with this difference, that I am not the Widow Wadman,—­though widow indeed of many illusions as to poetry at the present moment.  Ah, yes, we young girls will not believe in anything that disturbs our world of fancy!  I was warned of all this beforehand.  My dear poet, you are attempting to get up a quarrel which is unworthy of you.  I no longer recognize the Melchior of yesterday.”

“Because Melchior has discovered a spirit of ambition in you which—­”

Modeste looked at him from head to foot with an imperial eye.

“But I shall be peer of France and ambassador as well as he,” added Canalis.

“Do you take me for a bourgeois,” she said, beginning to mount the steps of the portico; but she instantly turned back and added, “That is less impertinent than to take me for a fool.  The change in your conduct comes from certain silly rumors which you have heard in Havre, and which my maid Francoise has repeated to me.”

“Ah, Modeste, how can you think it?” said Canalis, striking a dramatic attitude.  “Do you think me capable of marrying you only for your money?”

“If I do you that wrong after your edifying remarks on the banks of the Seine can you easily undeceive me,” she said, annihilating him with her scorn.

“Ah!” thought the poet, as he followed her into the house, “if you think, my little girl, that I’m to be caught in that net, you take me to be younger than I am.  Dear, dear, what a fuss about an artful little thing whose esteem I value about as much as that of the king of Borneo.  But she has given me a good reason for the rupture by accusing me of such unworthy sentiments.  Isn’t she sly?  La Briere will get a burden on his back—­idiot that he is!  And five years hence it will be a good joke to see them together.”