nd anxiously watched Sulpice's mortified
countenance. Since his entry on his ministerial functions, this was the
first occasion, probably, that he had been so preoccupied.

"There is something the matter with you, is there not, my dear?"

"No--nothing--Besides--"

The minister's glance was a sufficient conclusion to his remark.
Moreover, how could he, even if he had some trouble to confide, make it
known before the ever watchful lackeys? Before these impassive
attendants, who, though apparently obsequious, might in reality be
hostile, and who looked at them with cold glances? What a distance
separated them from the old-time intimacies, the cherished interchange
of thought interrupted by piquant kisses and laughter, just like a
young husband and wife!

In truth, Adrienne had not thought of it: Sulpice could not talk.

"You will serve the coffee at once," she said.

She made haste in order that she might take refuge in her own apartment
to be alone with her husband. He, however, as if he shunned this
tete-a-tete, eager as he was for solitude, quickly attributed his
unpleasant humor to neuralgia or headache. Too much work or too close
application of mind.

"At the Ministerial Council perhaps?" remarked Adrienne inquiringly.

"Yes, at the Council,--I must take a little fresh air--I will take a
round in the Bois--The day is dry--That will do me good!"

"Will you take me?" she said gayly.

"If you wish," he replied. Then, in an almost embarrassed tone, he
added:

"Perhaps it will be better for me to go alone--I have to think--to
work--There is no sitting at the Chamber to-day; and the day is entirely
at my own disposal."

"Just as you please," Adrienne replied, looking at Sulpice with a tender
and submissive glance. "It would, however, have been so delightful and
beneficial to have gone to the Bois together on such a bright day! But
you and your affairs before everything, you are right; take an airing,
be off, come, breathe--I shall be glad to see you return smiling
cheerfully as in the sweet days."

Sulpice looked at his young wife with a fondness that almost inspired
him with remorse. In her look there was so complete an expression of her
love. Then her affection was so deep, and her calm like the face of a
motionless lake was so manifest, and she loved him so deeply, so
intelligently. And how trustful, too!

He was impelled now to beg her don her cloak and to have a fur robe put
into the coupe and set out