"Gaspard," said the duchess, calling her son to her. The young prince
came at once, and his mother continued, motioning to Modeste,
"Mademoiselle de La Bastie, my friend."
The heir presumptive, whose marriage with Desplein's only daughter had
lately been arranged, bowed to the young girl without seeming struck,
as his father had been, with her beauty. Modeste was thus enabled to
compare the youth of to-day with the old age of a past epoch; for the
old Prince de Cadignan had already said a few words which made her
feel that he rendered as true a homage to womanhood as to royalty. The
Duc de Rhetore, the eldest son of the Duchesse de Chaulieu, chiefly
remarkable for manners that were equally impertinent and free and
easy, bowed to Modeste rather cavalierly. The reason of this contrast
between the fathers and the sons is to be found, probably, in the fact
that young men no longer feel themselves great beings, as their
forefathers did, and they dispense with the duties of greatness,
knowing well that they are now but the shadow of it. The fathers
retain the inherent politeness of their vanished grandeur, like the
mountain-tops still gilded by the sun when all is twilight in the
valley.
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