. The valet who passed him the dishes
watched over Monsieur le Ministre. He imagined that _his attendants_ in
their silent reflections compared the present minister with those that
had gone before him. On one occasion, one of the domestics replied to a
remark made by Adrienne: "Monsieur Pichereau, who preceded Monsieur le
Ministre, and Monsieur le Comte d'Harville, who preceded Monsieur
Pichereau, considered my service very proper, madame."

Adrienne accepted as well as she could the necessities of her new
position. Since that was power, let power rule! She was resigned to
those wastes whose luxury was apparent, since the political fortunes of
her husband cast her there, like a prisoner, in that huge, commonplace,
ministerial mansion, wherein none of the joys of home or of that
Parisian apartment that she had furnished with such refined taste were
left her. She felt half lost in those vast, cold salons of that ancient
Hotel Beauvau,--cold in spite of their stoves, and which partook at one
and the same time of the provisional domicile and the furnished
apartment,--with its defaced gilded panels, and here and there a crack
in the ceiling, and those vulgar ornaments, those wearisome imitation
Chardins with their cracked colors and those old-fashioned pictures of
Roqueplan, giving to everything at once _one date_, a bygone style. With
what a truly melancholy smile Adrienne greeted the friends who came to
see her on her reception day, when they remarked to her: "Why, you are
in a palace!"

"Yes, but I much prefer my accustomed furniture and my own house."

Sulpice, free at last from that Council and the morning receptions, as
he alighted from his carriage, caused _Madame_ to be informed that he
had returned.

Adrienne, who was looking pretty in a tight-fitting, black velvet gown,
approached him with a smile and was suddenly overcome with sadness on
seeing him absorbed in thought. She dared not question him, but being
somewhat anxious, she, nevertheless, inquired the cause of his frowning
expression.

"You have your bad look, my good Sulpice," she smilingly said.

He then quickly explained the Warcolier business.

"Is that all? Bah!" she said, "you will have many other such
annoyances."

She was smiling graciously.

"That is politics!--And then you like it--At least, confine your likes
to that, Sulpice," she said, drawing near to Vaudrey.

She was about to present her forehead for his kiss, as formerly, but she
d