"That is what a bigamist should tell the jury," retorted La Briere,
laughing.
This epigram made another disagreeable impression on Canalis. He began
to think La Briere too witty and too free for a secretary.
The arrival of an elegant caleche, driven by a coachman in the Canalis
livery, made the more excitement at the Chalet because the two suitors
were expected, and all the personages of this history were assembled
to receive them, except the duke and Butscha.
"Which is the poet?" asked Madame Latournelle of Dumay in the
embrasure of a window, where she stationed herself as soon as she
heard the wheels.
"The one who walks like a drum-major," answered the lieutenant.
"Ah!" said the notary's wife, examining Canalis, who was swinging his
body like a man who knows he is being looked at. The fault lay with
the great lady who flattered him incessantly and spoiled him,--as all
women older than their adorers invariably spoil and flatter them;
Canalis in his moral being was a sort of Narcissus. When a woman of a
certain age wishes to attach a man forever, she begins by deifying his
defects, so as to cut off all possibility of rivalry; for a rival is
never, at the first approach, aware of the super-fine flattery to
which the man is accustomed.
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