now, when the sun was gradually showing
itself, like two lovers bound for a country party. At the same time he
felt a desperate longing to be alone, to abandon himself to his new idea
and to the image that beset him. He felt that he was leaving Adrienne
for Marianne.

He did not hold to the suggestion, in fact, he repeated that it would be
better if he were alone. As there would be no session of the Chamber for
a whole week, he would go out with Adrienne the next day. The coachman
could drive them a long distance, even to Saint-Cloud or Ville-d'Avray.
They would breakfast together all alone, unknown, in the woods.

"Truly?" said Adrienne.

"Truly! I feel the necessity of avoiding so many demonstrations in my
honor."

Sulpice laughed.

"I am stifled by them," he said, as he kissed Adrienne, whose face was
pink with delight at the thought of that unrestrained escapade.

"How you blush!" said Sulpice, ingenuously. "What is the matter with
you?"

"With me? Nothing."

She looked at him anxiously.

"You think my complexion too ruddy! I have not the Parisian tint. Only
remain a minister for some time, and that will vanish. There is no
dispraise in that."

She again offered her brow to him.

He left her, happy to feel himself free.

At last! For an entire day he was released from the ordinary routine of
his life; from the wrangling of the assembly, the hubbub of the
corridors, the gossip of the lobbies, interruptions, interrupted
conversations, from all that excitement that he delighted in, but which
at times left him crushed and feverish at the close of the day. He
became once more master of his thoughts, of his meditation. He belonged
to himself. It was almost impossible to recover his self-mastery in the
stormy arena into which he was thrust, happy to be there, and where his
distended nostrils inhaled, as it were, the fumes of sulphur.

At times, amid the whirlwind of politics, he suffered from a yearning
for rest, a sick longing for home quiet, a desire to be free, to go
between the acts, as it were, to vegetate in some corner of the earth
and to resume in very truth an altogether different life from the
exasperating, irritating life that he led in Paris, always, so to speak,
under the lash; or, still better, to change the form of his activity, to
travel, to feed his eyes on new images, the fresh verdure, or the varied
scenes of unknown cities.

But the years had rolled by amid the excitement and nervous