CHAPTER XXI. MODESTE PLAYS HER PART
The game opened with the baron and the duke, Gobenheim and Latournelle as partners. Modeste took a seat near the poet, to Ernest’s deep disappointment; he watched the face of the wayward girl, and marked the progress of the fascination which Canalis exerted over her. La Briere had not the gift of seduction which Melchior possessed. Nature frequently denies it to true hearts, who are, as a rule, timid. This gift demands fearlessness, an alacrity of ways and means that might be called the trapeze of the mind; a little mimicry goes with it; in fact there is always, morally speaking, something of the comedian in a poet. There is a vast difference between expressing sentiments we do not feel, though we may imagine all their variations, and feigning to feel them when bidding for success on the theatre of private life. And yet, though the necessary hypocrisy of a man of the world may have gangrened a poet, he ends by carrying the faculties of his talent into the expression of any required sentiment, just as a great man doomed to solitude ends by infusing his heart into his mind.
“He is after the millions,” thought La Briere, sadly; “and he can play passion so well that Modeste will believe him.”
Instead of endeavoring to appear more amiable and wittier than his rival, Ernest imitated the Duc d’Herouville, and was gloomy, anxious, and watchful; but whereas the courier studied the freaks of the young heiress, Ernest simply fell a prey to the pains of dark and concentrated jealousy. He had not yet been able to obtain a glance from his idol. After a while he left the room with Butscha.
“It is all over!” he said; “she is caught by him; I am more disagreeable to her, and moreover, she is right. Canalis is charming; there’s intellect in his silence, passion in his eyes, poetry in his rhodomontades.”
“Is he an honest man?” asked Butscha.
“Oh, yes,” replied La Briere. “He is loyal and chivalrous, and capable of getting rid, under Modeste’s influence, of those affectations which Madame de Chaulieu has taught him.”
“You are a fine fellow,” said the hunchback; “but is he capable of loving,—will he love her?”
“I don’t know,” answered La Briere. “Has she said anything about me?” he asked after a moment’s silence.