Modeste's pride and her present disdain frightened him, and he
endeavored to recover his ground, exhibiting a jealousy which was all
the more visible because it was artificial. Modeste, implacable as an
angel, tasted the sweets of power, and, naturally enough, abused it.
The Duc d'Herouville had never known such a happy evening; a woman
smiled on him! At eleven o'clock, an unheard-of hour at the Chalet,
the three suitors took their leave,--the duke thinking Modeste
charming, Canalis believing her excessively coquettish, and La Briere
heart-broken by her cruelty.
For eight days the heiress continued to be to her three lovers very
much what she had been during that evening; so that the poet appeared
to carry the day against his rivals, in spite of certain freaks and
caprices which from time to time gave the Duc d'Herouville a little
hope. The disrespect she showed to her father, and the great liberties
she took with him; her impatience with her blind mother, to whom she
seemed to grudge the little services which had once been the delight
of her filial piety,--seemed the result of a capricious nature and a
heedless gaiety indulged from childhood.
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