Guy watched with curiosity, as a man who has seen much and compares, all
this gathering of guests. From time to time he greeted some one of his
acquaintance, but this was a rare occurrence. He was delighted to see
Ramel whom he had often met at Adrienne's _Wednesdays_, and whom he
liked. He appeared to him to be fatigued and sick.

"I am not very well, in fact," said Ramel. "I have only come because I
had something serious to say to Vaudrey."

"What then?" asked Lissac.

"Oh! nothing! some advice to give him as to the course to be followed.
There is decidedly much underhand work going on about the President."

"Who is it?"

"Most of them are here!"

"His guests?"

"You know very well that when one invites all one's friends, one finds
that three-quarters of one's enemies will be present."

"At least," said Lissac.

He continued to traverse the salons, always returning instinctively
toward the door at which Adrienne stood, with pale face and wandering
look, and scarcely hearing, poor woman, the unfamiliar names that the
usher uttered at equal intervals, like a speaking machine.

"Monsieur Durosoi!--Monsieur and Madame Brechet!--Monsieur the Minister
of Public Works!--Monsieur the Prefect of the Aube!--Monsieur the Count
de Grigny!--Monsieur Henri de Prangins!--Monsieur the General
d'Herbecourt!--Monsieur the Doctor Vilandry!--Monsieur and Madame
Tochard!"

She had vowed that she would be strong, and allow nothing to be seen of
the despair that was wringing her heart. She compelled herself to smile.
In nightmares and hours of feverish unrest, she had suffered the same
vague, morbid feeling that she now experienced. All that passed about
her seemed to be unreal. These white-cravatted men, these gaily-dressed
women, the file of guests saluting her at the same spot in the salon,
with the same expression of assumed respect and trite politeness,
appeared to her but a succession of phantoms. Neither a name nor an
association did she attach to those countenances that beamed on her with
an official smile or gravely assumed a correct seriousness. She felt
weary, overwhelmed and heavy-headed at the sight of this continued
procession of strangers on whom it was incumbent that she should smile
and to whom she must bow out of politeness, in virtue of that duty of
state which she wished to fulfil to the last degree, poor soul!

The distant music of Fahrbach's polkas or Strauss's waltzes seemed like
an added accompanime