ent was to
take a rest.

"What joy! Not to be away from you for the whole of the day!" remarked
Vaudrey.

"Well then, till to-morrow!"

She felt intense pleasure in being alone again, wrapped in her sheets,
with the light of the lamp that ordinarily shone upon her hours of love
with Sulpice, still burning, and to be free to dream of her Spanish
grandee who had said, plainly, with the trembling of passion on his
lips: "I should esteem you enough to become your husband!"

She passed the night in reverie.

Vaudrey, in spite of the joy of the morrow,--a long tete-a-tete with his
mistress,--thought with increasing vexation of the approaching maturity
of his bill of exchange; within two months he would have to pay the
hundred thousand francs which he had undertaken to pay Marianne's
creditor.

"It is astonishing how quickly time passes!"

At breakfast the following day, Adrienne saw that her husband was more
than usually preoccupied.

"Are political affairs going badly?"

"No--on the contrary--"

"Then why are you melancholy?"

"I am a little fatigued."

"Then," said Madame Vaudrey, "you will scold me."

"Why?"

"I have led Madame Gerson to hope--You know whom I mean, Madame Marsy's
friend,--I have almost promised her that you would accept an invitation
to dine at her house."

For a moment Vaudrey was put out.

Another evening taken! Hours of delight stolen from Marianne!

"I have done wrong?" asked Adrienne, as she rested her pretty but
somewhat sad face on her husband's bosom. "I did it because it is so
great a pleasure to me to spend an entire evening with you, even at
another's house. Remember you have so many official dinners, banquets
and invitations that you attend alone. When the minister's wife is
invited with him, it is a fete-day for the poor, little forsaken thing.
I do not have much of you, it is true, but I see you, I hear you talking
and I am happy. Do not chide me for having said that we would go to
Madame Gerson's. The more so, because she is a charming woman. Ah! when
she speaks of you! 'So great a minister!' Don't you know what she calls
you?--'A Colbert!'"

Vaudrey could not restrain a smile.

"Come, after that, one cannot refuse her invitation. It is the
_Monseigneur_ of the beggar," said he, kissing Adrienne's brow. "And
when do we dine at Madame Gerson's?"

"On Monday next; I shall have at least one delightful evening to see
you," said the young wife sweetly.

The minister