er, intend to give her the opportunity to choose
between the celebrity which has been a beacon to her, and the poor
reality which the irony of fate has flung at her feet. Ought she not
to choose between Canalis and yourself? I rely upon your honor not to
repeat what I have told you as to the state of my affairs. You may each
come, I mean you and your friend the Baron de Canalis, to Havre for the
last two weeks of October. My house will be open to both of you, and my
daughter must have an opportunity to study you. You must yourself bring
your rival, and not disabuse him as to the foolish tales he will hear
about the wealth of the Comte de La Bastie. I go to Havre to-morrow, and
I shall expect you three days later. Adieu, monsieur."

Poor La Briere went back to Canalis with a dragging step. The poet,
meantime, left to himself, had given way to a current of thought out
of which had come that secondary impulse which Monsieur de Talleyrand
valued so much. The first impulse is the voice of nature, the second
that of society.

"A girl worth six millions," he thought to himself, "and my eyes were
not able to see that gold shining in the darkness! With such a fortune
I could be peer of France, count, marquis, ambassador. I've replied
to middle-class women and silly women, and crafty creatures who wanted
autographs; I've tired myself to death with masked-ball intrigues,--at
the very moment when God was sending me a soul of price, an angel with
golden wings! Bah! I'll make a poem on it, and perhaps the chance will
come again. Heavens! the luck of that little La Briere,--strutting about
in my lustre--plagiarism! I'm the cast and he's to be the statue, is
he? It is the old fable of Bertrand and Raton. Six millions, a beauty,
a Mignon de La Bastie, an aristocratic divinity loving poetry and the
poet! And I, who showed my muscle as man of the world, who did those
Alcide exercises to silence by moral force the champion of physical
force, that old soldier with a heart, that friend of this very young
girl, whom he'll now go and tell that I have a heart of iron!--I, to
play Napoleon when I ought to have been seraphic! Good heavens! True, I
shall have my friend. Friendship is a beautiful thing. I have kept him,
but at what a price! Six millions, that's the cost of it; we can't have
many friends if we pay all that for them."

La Briere entered the room as Canalis reached this point in his
meditations. He was gloom personified.

"Well, w