But
that is not all. Modeste Mignon is of high birth, and Mongenod has
just told me that her father, the Comte de La Bastie, has something
like six millions. The father is here now, and I have asked him
through Mongenod for an interview at two o'clock. Mongenod is to give
him a hint, just a word, that it concerns the happiness of his
daughter. But you will readily understand that before seeing the
father I feel I ought to make a clean breast of it to you."
"Among the plants whose flowers bloom in the sunshine of fame," said
Canalis, impressively, "there is one, and the most magnificent, which
bears like the orange-tree a golden fruit amid the mingled perfumes of
beauty and of mind; a lovely plant, a true tenderness, a perfect
bliss, and--it eludes me." Canalis looked at the carpet that Ernest
might not read his eyes. "Could I," he continued after a pause to
regain his self-possession, "how could I have divined that flower from
a pretty sheet of perfumed paper, that true heart, that young girl,
that woman in whom love wears the livery of flattery, who loves us for
ourselves, who offers us felicity? It needed but an angel or a demon
to perceive her; and what am I but the ambitious head of a Court of
Claims! Ah, my friend, fame makes us the target of a thousand arrows.
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