I no longer recognize the Melchior of yesterday." "Because Melchior has discovered a spirit of ambition in you which--" Modeste looked at him from head to foot with an imperial eye.
"But I shall be peer of France and ambassador as well as he," added Canalis.
"Do you take me for a bourgeois," she said, beginning to mount the steps of the portico; but she instantly turned back and added, "That is less impertinent than to take me for a fool.

The change in your conduct comes from certain silly rumors which you have heard in Havre, and which my maid Francoise has repeated to me." "Ah, Modeste, how can you think it ?" said Canalis, striking a dramatic attitude.

"Do you think me capable of marrying you only for your money ?" "If I do you that wrong after your edifying remarks on the banks of the Seine can you easily undeceive me," she said, annihilating him with her scorn.
"Ah!" thought the poet, as he followed her into the house, "if you think, my little girl, that I'm to be caught in that net, you take me to be younger than I am.

Dear, dear, what a fuss about an artful little thing whose esteem I value about as much as that of the king of Borneo.
But she has given me a good reason for the rupture by accusing me of such unworthy sentiments.

Isn't she sly?
La Briere will get a burden on his back--idiot that he is! And five years hence it will be a good joke to see them together." The coldness which this altercation produced between Modeste and Canalis was visible to all eyes that evening.