"Your nobility of soul and your pride are so inconsistent with your
faults that I begin to suspect you calumniate yourself, and do those
naughty things on purpose."
"Ah! have you only just found that out, Monsieur le duc?" she
exclaimed, laughing. "You have the sagacity of a husband."
They rode half a mile in silence. Modeste was a good deal astonished
not to receive the fire of the poet's eyes. The evening before, as she
was pointing out to him an admirable effect of setting sunlight across
the water, she had said, remarking his inattention, "Well, don't you
see it?"--to which he replied, "I can see only your hand"; but now his
admiration for the beauties of nature seemed a little too intense to
be natural.
"Does Monsieur de La Briere know how to ride?" she asked, for the
purpose of teasing him.
"Not very well, but he gets along," answered the poet, cold as
Gobenheim before the colonel's return.
At a cross-road, which Monsieur Mignon made them take through a lovely
valley to reach a height overlooking the Seine, Canalis let Modeste
and the duke pass him, and then reined up to join the colonel.
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