serve it. His whole frame trembled
with emotion at the recollection of that lovely form that he had left
whiter than the sheet of the bed, in the dim light that filtered through
the opal-shaded lamp.

Then he thought that he must forget, and invent some tale for Adrienne.
Again he opened his eyes and trembled in spite of himself, as he saw, on
both sides of the cab, workmen slowly trudging along the sidewalks with
their hands in their pockets, their noses red, a wretched worn-out silk
scarf about their necks and swinging on their arms the supply of food
for the day, or again with their fingers numb with the cold, holding
some journal in their hands in which they read as they marched along,
the speech of "Monsieur le Ministre de l'Interieur," that magnificent
speech not made during the night session as Sulpice had told Adrienne,
but the day before yesterday, in broad day, when the majority,
faithfully grouped about him, had applauded this phrase: _I, whose hours
are consecrated to the amelioration of the lot of the poor and who can
say with the poet,--I shall be pardoned for this feeling of vanity:_

"What I steal from my nights, I add to my days!"

Sulpice heard again the applause that he received. He saw those devoted
hands reached out to him as he descended from the tribune; he again
experienced a feeling of pride, and yet he felt dissatisfied with
himself now that he saw the other hands, the servile hands of the
applauders, hidden by the red, cold hands of a mason who held this
speech between his horny fingers.

Sulpice returned to the ministry, shaking himself as if to induce
forgetfulness, busy, weary, and still,--eternally,--as if immovably
fixed in an antechamber of Place Beauvau, he found the inevitable
place-hunters, the hornets of ministries.

Vaudrey caused these urgent people, as well as some others, to be
received by Warcolier, who asked nothing better than to make tools, to
sow the seed of his clientage. Guy de Lissac and Ramel had
simultaneously called Vaudrey's attention to the eagerness which
Warcolier manifested in toying with popularity.

"He is not wholly devoted to you, is this gentleman who prefers every
government!" said Guy.

"He will undermine you quietly!" added Ramel.

"I am satisfied of that. But I am not disturbed: I have the majority.
Oh! faithful and compact."

"Woman often changes," muttered Ramel.

Guy was troubled about Vaudrey for another reason. He vaguely suspected
that