await your response to know if I can then sign myself as I do now, Your servant, O. d'Este M.
"The little mischief! how she abuses her privileges," cried La Briere;
"but isn't she frank!"
No young man can be four years private secretary to a cabinet minister, and live in Paris and observe the carrying on of many intrigues, with perfect impunity; in fact, the purest soul is more or less intoxicated by the heady atmosphere of the imperial city. Happy in the thought that he was not Canalis, our young secretary engaged a place in the mail-coach for Havre, after writing a letter in which he announced that the promised answer would be sent a few days later,--
excusing the delay on the ground of the importance of the confession and the pressure of his duties at the ministry.
He took care to get from the director-general of the post-office a note to the postmaster at Havre, requesting secrecy and attention to his wishes. Ernest was thus enabled to see Francoise Cochet when she came for the letters, and to follow her without exciting observation.
Guided by her, he reached Ingouville and saw Modeste Mignon at the window of the Chalet.
"Well, Francoise?" he heard the young girl say, to which the maid responded,--
"Yes, mademoiselle, I have one."
Struck by the girl's great beauty, Ernest retraced his steps and asked a man on the street the name of the owner of that magnificent estate.
"That?" said the man, nodding to the villa.
"Yes, my friend."
"Oh, that belongs to Monsieur Vilquin, the richest shipping merchant in Havre, so rich he doesn't know what he is worth."
"There is no Cardinal Vilquin that I know of in history," thought Ernest, as he walked back to Havre for the night mail to Paris.
Naturally he questioned the postmaster about the Vilquin family, and learned that it possessed an enormous fortune. Monsieur Vilquin had a son and two daughters, one of whom was married to Monsieur Althor, junior. Prudence kept La Briere from seeming anxious about the Vilquins; the postmaster was already looking at him slyly.
"Is there there any one staying with them at the present moment," he asked, "besides the family?"
"The d'Herouville family is there just now. They do talk of a marriage between the young duke and the remaining Mademoiselle Vilquin."
"Ha!" thought Ernest; "there was a celebrated Cardinal d'Herouville under the Valois, and a terrible marshal whom they made a duke in the time of Henri IV."
Ernest returned to Paris having seen enough of Modeste to dream of her, and to think that, whether she were rich or whether she were poor, if she had a noble soul he would like to make her Madame de La Briere; and so thinking, he resolved to continue the correspondence.
Ah! you poor women of France, try to remain hidden if you can; try to weave the least little romance about your lives in the midst of a civilization which posts in the public streets the hours when the coaches arrive and depart; which counts all letters and stamps them twice over, first with the hour when they are thrown into the boxes, and next with that of their delivery; which numbers the houses, prints the tax of every tenant on a metal register at the doors (after verifying its particulars), and will soon possess one vast register of every inch of its territory down to the smallest parcel of land, and the most insignificant features of it,--a giant work ordained by a giant. Try, imprudent young ladies, to escape not only the eye of the police, but the incessant chatter which takes place in a country town about the veriest trifles,--how many dishes the prefect has at his dessert, how many slices of melon are left at the door of some small householder,--which strains its ear to catch the chink of the gold a thrifty man lays by, and spends its evenings in calculating the incomes of the village and the town and the department. It was mere chance that enabled Modeste to escape discovery through Ernest's reconnoitring expedition,--a step which he already regretted; but what Parisian can allow himself to be the dupe of a little country girl?
Incapable of being duped! that horrid maxim is the dissolvent of all noble sentiments in man.
We can readily guess the struggle of feeling to which this honest young fellow fell a prey when we read the letter that he now indited, in which every stroke of the flail which scourged his conscience will be found to have left its trace.
This is what Modeste read a few days later, as she sat by her window on a fine summer's day:--
Mademoiselle,--Without hypocrisy or evasion, YES, if I had been certain that you possessed an immense fortune I should have acted differently. Why? I have searched for the reason; here it is. We have within us an inborn feeling, inordinately developed by social life, which drives us to the pursuit and to the possession of happiness. Most men confound happiness with the means that lead to it; money in their eyes is the chief element of happiness. I
should, therefore, have endeavored to win you, prompted by that social sentiment which has in all ages made wealth a religion. At least, I think I should. It is not to be expected of a man still young that he can have the wisdom to substitute sound sense for the pleasure of the senses; within sight of a prey the brutal instincts hidden in the heart of man drive him on. Instead of that lesson, I should have sent you compliments and flatteries. Should I have kept my own esteem in so doing? I doubt it. Mademoiselle, in such a case success brings absolution; but happiness? That is another thing. Should I have distrusted my wife had I won her in that way? Most assuredly I should. Your advance on me would sooner or later have come between us. Your husband, however grand your fancy may make him, would have ended by reproaching you for having abased him. You, yourself, might have come, sooner or later, to despise him. The strong man forgives, but the poet whines. Such, mademoiselle, is the answer which my honesty compels me to make to you.