his to Adrienne while eating his dinner mechanically
and without appetite.

There was to be a meeting of his coterie at eight o'clock. It was
already seven. He hurried.

Adrienne saw that he was very pale. She experienced a strange sensation,
evidently a joyful one although mingled with anxiety. Politics drew him
away from his wife so frequently, and for so long a time, that she was
already compelled to live in such solitude that the secluded creature
wondered if in future she would not be condemned to still greater
isolation. But all anxiety disappeared under the influence of Sulpice's
manifest joy. He was feverishly impatient. It seemed to him that never
had he known so decisive a moment in his life.

The sound of the bell, suddenly ringing out its clear note in the
silence, caused him to start.

The dining-room door was opened by a servant, who handed a letter to
Vaudrey, bearing on one corner of the envelope the word: _Urgent_.

Sulpice recognized the writing.

It was from Collard of Nantes.

Adrienne saw her husband's cheek flush as he read this letter, which
Sulpice promptly handed her, while his eyes sparkled with delight.

"It is done! Read!"

Adrienne turned pale.

Collard notified his "colleague" that the ministerial combination of
which he was the head had succeeded. The President awaited at the Elysee
the arrival of the new ministers. He tendered Vaudrey the portfolio of
the Interior.

"A minister!" said Adrienne, now overcome with delight.

Vaudrey had risen and, a little uneasy, was mechanically searching for
something, still holding his napkin in his hand.

"My hat," he said. "My overcoat. A carriage."

Adrienne, with her hands clasped in a sort of childish admiration,
looked at him as if he had become suddenly transformed. All his being,
in fact, expressed complete satisfaction. He embraced Adrienne almost
frantically, kissed her again and again, and left her, then descended
the staircase with the speed of a lover hastening to a rendezvous.

This political honeymoon was still at its height at the moment when the
delighted Vaudrey, seeing everything rosy-hued, was satisfying his
astonished curiosity in the greenroom of the ballet. He entered office,
animated by all the good purposes inspired by absolute faith. It seemed
to him that he was about to save the world, to regenerate the
government, and to destroy abuses.

"It is very difficult to become a minister," he said, smiling, "but
n