[Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac]@TWC D-Link bookModeste Mignon CHAPTER XI 15/16
I will take the letter on Monday; Monday I shall probably go to Paris." Modeste was so afraid that Canalis and Dumay would meet that she started hastily for the house to write to her poet and put off the rendezvous. "Mademoiselle," said Dumay, in a very humble manner and barring Modeste's way, "may your father find his daughter with no other feelings in her heart than those she had for him and for her mother before he was obliged to leave her." "I have sworn to myself, to my sister, and to my mother to be the joy, the consolation, and the glory of my father, and _I shall keep my oath_!" replied Modeste with a haughty and disdainful glance at Dumay. "Do not trouble my delight in the thought of my father's return with insulting suspicions.
You cannot prevent a girl's heart from beating--you don't want me to be a mummy, do you ?" she said.
"My hand belongs to my family, but my heart is my own.
If I love any one, my father and my mother will know it.
Does that satisfy you, monsieur ?" "Thank you, mademoiselle; you restore me to life," said Dumay, "but you might still call me Dumay, even when you box my ears!" "Swear to me," said her mother, "that you have not engaged a word or a look with any young man." "I can swear that, my dear mother," said Modeste, laughing, and looking at Dumay who was watching her and smiling to himself like a mischievous girl. "She must be false indeed if you are right," cried Dumay, when Modeste had left them and gone into the house. "My daughter Modeste may have faults," said her mother, "but falsehood is not one of them; she is incapable of saying what is not true." "Well! then let us feel easy," continued Dumay, "and believe that misfortune has closed his account with us." "God grant it!" answered Madame Mignon.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|