f Monsieur Latournelle when Dumay held the thirteenth card
or drew out his last trump.

Her religious faith drove Modeste for a time into a singular track
of thought. She imagined that if she became sinless (speaking
ecclesiastically) she would attain to such a condition of sanctity that
God would hear her and accomplish her desires. "Faith," she thought,
"can move mountains; Christ has said so. The Saviour led his apostle
upon the waters of the lake Tiberias; and I, all I ask of God is a
husband to love me; that is easier than walking upon the sea." She
fasted through the next Lent, and did not commit a single sin; then she
said to herself that on a certain day coming out of church she should
meet a handsome young man who was worthy of her, whom her mother would
accept, and who would fall madly in love with her. When the day came on
which she had, as it were, summoned God to send her an angel, she was
persistently followed by a rather disgusting beggar; moreover, it rained
heavily, and not a single young man was in the streets. On another
occasion she went to walk on the jetty to see the English travellers
land; but each Englishman had an Englishwoman, nearly as handsome as
Modeste herself, who saw no one at all resembling a wandering Childe
Harold. Tears overcame her, as she sat down like Marius on the ruins of
her imagination. But on the day when she subpoenaed God for the third
time she firmly believed that the Elect of her dreams was within the
church, hiding, perhaps out of delicacy, behind one of the pillars,
round all of which she dragged Madame Latournelle on a tour of
inspection. After this failure, she deposed the Deity from omnipotence.
Many were her conversations with the imaginary lover, for whom she
invented questions and answers, bestowing upon him a great deal of wit
and intelligence.

The high ambitions of her heart hidden within these romances were
the real explanation of the prudent conduct which the good people who
watched over Modeste so much admired; they might have brought her any
number of young Althors or Vilquins, and she would never have stooped to
such clowns. She wanted, purely and simply, a man of genius,--talent she
cared little for; just as a lawyer is of no account to a girl who aims
for an ambassador. Her only desire for wealth was to cast it at the feet
of her idol. Indeed, the golden background of these visions was far less
rich than the treasury of her own heart, filled with womanl