s the porter.

The apartment was still topsy-turvy. The valet de chambre had not dared
to put the things in order, as if there reigned, amid the scattered
packages and the yawning drawers, the majesty of the official seal.

They had examined everything, forced locks and removed packets of
letters.

The small Italian cabinet, that contained Marianne's letter, had had its
drawers turned over, like pockets turned inside out. Marianne's letter
to Lissac, the scrap of paper which the police hunted, without knowing
whose will they were obeying, that confession of a crazy mistress to a
lover who was smitten to his very bones, was no longer there.

"Ah! I will see Vaudrey! I will see him and tell him!" said Lissac
aloud.

"Will monsieur breakfast?"

"Yes, as quickly as possible. Two eggs and tea, I am in a hurry."

He was anxious to rush off to the ministry. Was the Chamber sitting
to-day? No. He would perhaps then find Sulpice at his first call. The
messengers knew him.

He speedily hastened to Place Breda, looking for a carriage. On the way,
he stumbled against a man who came down on the same side, smoking a
cigar.

"Oh! Monsieur de Lissac!"

Guy instinctively stepped back one pace; he recognized Uncle Kayser.
Then, suddenly, his anger, which up to that time he had been able to
restrain, burst forth, and in a few words energetic and rapid, he told
Simon, who remained bewildered and somewhat pale, as if one had tried
to force a quarrel on him, what he thought of Marianne's infamy.

The uncle said nothing, regretted that he had met Lissac, and contented
himself with stammering from time to time:

"She has done that?--What! she has done that?--Ah! the rogue."

"And what do you say about it, you, Simon Kayser?"

"I?--What do I say about it?--Why--"

Little by little he recovered his sang-froid, looking at matters from
the lofty heights of his artist's philosophy.

"It is rather too strong. What do you want?--It is not even moral, but
it has _character!_ And in art, after the moral idea comes _character!_
Ah! bless me! character, that is something!--Otherwise, I disapprove. It
is brutal, vulgar, that lack of ideal. I defy you to symbolize that.
_Love Avenging Itself Against Love_--_Jealousy Calling the Police to Its
Aid in Order to Triumph over Dead Love!_ It is old, it lacks
originality, it smacks of Prud'hon!--The Correggio of the decollete!--It
is like Tassaert, it is of the sprightly kind!--I would never pa