His cold-bloodedness
touched at certain points on rectitude and loyalty; his ostentation
had a lining of generosity. Results, we must remember, are to the
profit of society; motives concern God.
But after the arrival of Modeste's letter Ernest deceived himself no
longer as to Canalis. The pair had just finished breakfast and were
talking together in the poet's study, which was on the ground-floor of
a house standing back in a court-yard, and looked into a garden.
"There!" exclaimed Canalis, "I was telling Madame de Chaulieu the
other day that I ought to bring out another poem; I knew admiration
was running short, for I have had no anonymous letters for a long
time."
"Is it from an unknown woman?"
"Unknown? yes!--a D'Este, in Havre; evidently a feigned name."
Canalis passed the letter to La Briere. The little poem, with all its
hidden enthusiasms, in short, poor Modeste's heart, was disdainfully
handed over, with the gesture of a spoiled dandy.
"It is a fine thing," said the lawyer, "to have the power to attract
such feelings; to force a poor woman to step out of the habits which
nature, education, and the world dictate to her, to break through
conventions.
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