o him to hear the
name of Marianne Kayser, which surprised him.

Marianne! what question of Marianne could there be between these two
men?

Lissac observed that Vaudrey suddenly became very pale.

He drew still nearer, pretending to finish a cup of coffee while
standing. Then he heard these words very distinctly:

"A reporter saw you leave her house the other evening!"

Guy moved away very quickly. He felt a sort of sudden bewilderment, as
if the few words spoken by the Prefect of Police were the natural result
of his conversation with Adrienne, an immediate response thereto.

"It would be astonishing if Marianne--" thought Lissac.

Besides, he would know soon. He would merely question Vaudrey.

As soon as Jouvenet, always polite, grave and impassive, had left
"Monsieur le Ministre" in a state of visible nervousness, almost of
anxiety, he entered upon his plan.

"You know Mademoiselle Kayser intimately then?" he asked Vaudrey, who,
taken aback, looked at him for a moment without replying and endeavored
to grasp Lissac's purpose.

"Am I imprudent?" further asked Guy.

"No, but who has told you--?"

"Nothing, your Prefect of Police only spoke a little too loud. He seemed
to me to understand."

Vaudrey's hand rapidly seized Lissac's wrist.

"Hush! be silent!"

"Very well! Good!" said Lissac to himself. "Poor little Adrienne."

"I will tell you all about that later. Oh! nothing is more simple! It
isn't what you think!"

"I am sure of that!" answered Lissac, with a smile.

In a mechanical way, and as if to evade his friend, Sulpice left the
smoking-room for the salon, tritely observing:

"We must rejoin the ladies--the cigar kills conversation--"

He felt uncomfortable. It was the first time that Jouvenet had informed
him that there are agents for learning the movements of ministers. The
Prefect of Police, in a chance conversation at the Opera with the
editor-in-chief of a very Parisian journal, had suppressed a rumor which
stated that a minister hailing from Grenoble set propriety at defiance
in his visits to Rue Prony. It would have been as well to print
Vaudrey's name.

Hitherto he had been able to enjoy his passion for Marianne without
scandal and secretly. His mysterious intrigue was now known to the
police, to everybody, to a reporter who had stumbled against him on
leaving a supper-party at the house of a courtesan in the neighborhood.

The minister was bitterly annoyed. The very flattering