applause that
the women bestowed upon him when he returned to the salon could not
dissipate his ill-humor. He tried to chat and respond to the affected
remarks of Madame Gerson and to the smiles of the women; but he was
embarrassed and nervous. Adrienne thought he looked ill.

Everything was spoken of in the light but pretentious, easy tone of the
conversation of those second-rate salons where neither ideas nor men are
made, where, on the contrary, they are accepted, ready-made and _en
bloc_. On every question, the picture in vogue, the favorite book, the
man of the hour, they expressed themselves by the same stereotyped,
expected word, borrowed from the ceaseless repetition of current
polemics. Nothing was new. The conversation was as well worn as an old
farthing. Adrienne was pained to see a man of Vaudrey's intelligence
compelled to listen to these truisms and wondered if he would presently
reproach her for having brought him into the suffocating void of this
Parisian establishment where all was superficial, glittering and _chic_.

She was in a hurry to get away. She saw that Sulpice was growing weary,
and took advantage of the first opportunity to whisper to him:

"Would you like to go?"

"Yes, let us go!" he said.

He sought Lissac and repeated to him that he would have something to say
to him, and Guy bowed to the Minister and Madame Vaudrey, who left too
early to please the Gersons.

Adrienne, out of heart and discouraged by commonplace gossip and
slander, was eager to be again with her husband, to tell him that
nothing could compensate her for the deep joy of the tete-a-tete, their
evenings passed together as of old--he remembered them well,--when he
read to her from the works of much-loved poets.

"Poetry!" said Vaudrey. "Will you be quiet! The Gersons would find me as
antiquated as Ramel. It is old-fashioned."

"I am no longer surprised," added the young wife, "at being so little
fashionable. Morally speaking, those hot-houses of platitudes stifle
one. Never fear, Sulpice, I shall not be the one to ever again drag you
into salons. Are you tired? Are you weary?"

"No, I was thinking of something else," replied Vaudrey, who really was
thinking of Marianne.

Madame Vaudrey had not left Madame Gerson's salon before that pretty
little Parisian whispered imprudently enough in the ear of a female
friend:

"Our ministers' wives are always from Carpentras, Pont-a-Mousson, or
Moulins; don't you think so?"