The coldness which this altercation produced between Modeste and Canalis was visible to all eyes that evening.  The poet went off early, on the ground of La Briere’s illness, leaving the field to the grand equerry.  About eleven o’clock Butscha, who had come to walk home with Madame Latournelle, whispered in Modeste’s ear, “Was I right?”

“Alas, yes,” she said.

“But I hope you have left the door half open, so that he can come back; we agreed upon that, you know.”

“Anger got the better of me,” said Modeste.  “Such meanness sent the blood to my head and I told him what I thought of him.”

“Well, so much the better.  When you are both so angry that you can’t speak civilly to each other I engage to make him desperately in love and so pressing that you will be deceived yourself.”

“Come, come, Butscha; he is a great poet; he is a gentleman; he is a man of intellect.”

“Your father’s eight millions are more to him than all that.”

“Eight millions!” exclaimed Modeste.

“My master, who has sold his practice, is going to Provence to attend to the purchase of lands which your father’s agent has suggested to him.  The sum that is to be paid for the estate of La Bastie is four millions; your father has agreed to it.  You are to have a ‘dot’ of two millions and another million for an establishment in Paris, a hotel and furniture.  Now, count up.”

“Ah! then I can be Duchesse d’Herouville!” cried Modeste, glancing at Butscha.

“If it hadn’t been for that comedian of a Canalis you would have kept HIS whip, thinking it came from me,” said the dwarf, indirectly pleading La Briere’s cause.

“Monsieur Butscha, may I ask if I am to marry to please you?” said Modeste, laughing.

“That fine fellow loves you as well as I do,—­and you loved him for eight days,” retorted Butscha; “and HE has got a heart.”

“Can he compete, pray, with an office under the Crown?  There are but six, grand almoner, chancellor, grand chamberlain, grand master, high constable, grand admiral,—­but they don’t appoint high constables any longer.”

“In six months, mademoiselle, the masses—­who are made up of wicked Butschas—­could send all those grand dignities to the winds.  Besides, what signifies nobility in these days?  There are not a thousand real noblemen in France.  The d’Herouvilles are descended from a tipstaff in the time of Robert of Normandy.  You will have to put up with many a vexation from the old aunt with the furrowed face.  Look here,—­as you are so anxious for the title of duchess,—­you belong to the Comtat, and the Pope will certainly think as much of you as he does of all those merchants down there; he’ll sell you a duchy with some name ending in ‘ia’ or ‘agno.’  Don’t play away your happiness for an office under the Crown.”

CHAPTER XXV

A DIPLOMATIC LETTER