"
"Ah, Modeste, how can you think it?" said Canalis, striking a dramatic
attitude. "Do you think me capable of marrying you only for your
money?"
"If I do you that wrong after your edifying remarks on the banks of
the Seine can you easily undeceive me," she said, annihilating him
with her scorn.
"Ah!" thought the poet, as he followed her into the house, "if you
think, my little girl, that I'm to be caught in that net, you take me
to be younger than I am. Dear, dear, what a fuss about an artful
little thing whose esteem I value about as much as that of the king of
Borneo. But she has given me a good reason for the rupture by accusing
me of such unworthy sentiments. Isn't she sly? La Briere will get a
burden on his back--idiot that he is! And five years hence it will be
a good joke to see them together."
The coldness which this altercation produced between Modeste and
Canalis was visible to all eyes that evening. The poet went off early,
on the ground of La Briere's illness, leaving the field to the grand
equerry. About eleven o'clock Butscha, who had come to walk home with
Madame Latournelle, whispered in Modeste's ear, "Was I right?"
"Alas, yes," she said.
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