ave purchases to make!"

Sulpice could not accompany her, so he waited for her at the entrance on
Place du Palais-Royal, nestled in a corner of the carriage, the blinds
of which were lowered in order that he might not be seen. He felt very
cold.

Marianne slowly crossed between the stalls on the ground floor, hardly
looking at the counters bearing the Japanese goods, the gloves and the
artificial flowers. She ascended a winding iron stairway draped with
tapestries, her tiny feet sinking into the moquette that covered the
steps, and entered a noiseless salon where men and women were silently
sitting before three tables, writing or reading, just as in the
_drawing-room_ of a hotel. At a large round table, old ladies and young
girls sat looking at the pictures in _Illustration_, the caricatures in
the _Journal Amusant_, and the sketches in _La Vie Parisienne_. Others,
at the second table, were reading the daily papers, some of which were
rolled about their holders like a flag around its staff, or the _Revue
des Deux Mondes_. Further on, at a red-covered table furnished with
leather-bound blotters and round, glass inkstands in which the ink
danced with a purple reflection, people were writing, seated on chairs
covered in worn, garnet-colored velvet, with mahogany frames. This
gloomy apartment was brightened by broad-leaved green plants, and was
lighted from the roof by means of a flat skylight.

Marianne walked direct to the table on which the paper was symmetrically
arranged in a stationery rack, and quickly seating herself, she laid her
muff down, half-raised her little veil, and beat a tattoo with her tiny
hand on the little black leather blotter before her, then taking off her
gloves, she took at random some sheets of paper and some envelopes
bearing the address of the establishment on the corners. As she looked
around for a pen, Marianne could not refrain from smiling, she thought
of that poor Sulpice down there, waiting in the carriage and probably
shivering in the draughts issuing from the disjointed doors. And he a
minister!

"Such is adultery in Paris!" she said to herself, happy to make him
suffer.

She did not hurry. She was amused by her surroundings. A uniformed man
promenaded the salon, watching the stationery in the cases and replacing
it as it was used. If required, he sold stamps to any one present. A
letter-box was attached near the tall chimney, bearing the hours of
collection.

Beside Marianne, e