desires.

Vaudrey's arm, however, was not to be despised. The new minister was
the leading figure in the assembly. She looked at Sulpice full in the
face as if to inquire the cause of his eagerness in placing himself at
her side, and observing that this somewhat mocking interrogation
disconcerted him, she smiled at him graciously.

She passed on smiling, amid the double row of guests who bowed as she
passed. She suddenly felt a sort of bewilderment, it seemed to her that
all these salutations were for her benefit. She believed herself created
for adoration. Inwardly she felt well-disposed towards Sulpice now,
because he had so gallantly chosen and distinguished her among all these
women.

After all, she would easily find Rosas again. And who knows? It would
perhaps be better that the duke should seek her. Meanwhile, she crossed
the salons, leaning on the arm of the minister. It was a kind of
triumph.

Good-naturedly and politely, but without pride, the minister received
all these attentions, becoming as they were to him in his official
capacity, and as he moved on he uttered from time to time some
commonplace compliment to Marianne, reserving his more intimate remarks
for the immediate future.

Before the buffet, brilliant with light and the gleaming of crystal, the
golden-tinted champagne sparkling in the goblets, the ruddy tone of the
punch, the many fruits, the bright-colored _granite_ and the ices,
Vaudrey stopped, releasing the arm of the young girl but remaining
beside her and passing her the sherbet which a lackey handed him over
the piled-up plates.

Groups were always encircling him; searching, half-anxious glances
greeted his. An eager hunt after smiles and greetings accompanied the
hunt for _tutti frutti_. But the minister confined his attentions to
Marianne, chafing under the eagerness of his desires, though bearing
them with good grace, as if he were really the lover of the pretty girl.

Marianne stood stirring the sherbet with the point of a silver-plated
spoon, examining this statesman, as seductive as a fashionable man, with
that womanly curiosity that divines a silent declaration. A gold weigher
does not balance more keenly in his scales an unfamiliar coin than a
woman estimates and gauges _the value_ of a stranger.

Marianne readily understood that she had fascinated Vaudrey. This
Vaudrey! Notwithstanding that he possessed a charming wife, he still
permitted himself to recognize beauty in oth