self
abandoning his character of the setting sun. He was not setting, he was
falling. A sovereign contempt for this man entered Warcolier's lofty
soul, Warcolier the friend of success.

"Then you do not understand, Monsieur le President?"

Vaudrey drew himself up with a sudden movement that was frequent with
him. He struck the table on which his open portfolio rested, and said:

"I understand that Granet wants that portfolio! Well, be it so! I set
little store by it, but he does not have it yet!"

"That is something like it! It is worthy of a brave man to show a
resolute front to his enemies! It is in battle that talent is
retempered, as formerly in the Styx were tempered--"

"I know," said Sulpice.

Warcolier's intelligent smile was not understood by the minister.

Sulpice, who was in despair over his shattered domestic joys, had no
wish to enter on a struggle except to bring about a reaction on himself.
To hold his own against Granet, was to divert his own present sadness.

"All right," he said to Warcolier. "Let Granet interpellate us when he
pleases--In eight days, to-morrow, yes, to-day even, I am ready!"

"Interpellate _us_!" thought Warcolier. "You should say, interpellate
_you_."

He had already got out of the scrape himself.

Vaudrey debated with himself as to whether he would try to see Adrienne.
No? What should he say to her? It would be better to let a little time
shed its balm upon the wound. Then, too, if he wished to bar the way to
Granet, he had not too much time before him. The shrewd person should
act promptly.

"I shall see him on the Budget Committee!" thought Vaudrey.

He found it necessary now to force an interest in the struggle which a
few months before would have found him eagerly panting to enter on. The
honeymoon of his love of power had passed. He had too keenly felt, one
after another, the discouragements of the office that he sought in order
to _do good_, to reform, to act, in the pursuit of which he found
himself, from the first moment, clashing with routine, old-fashioned
ideas, petty ambitions, the general welfare, all the brood of selfish
interests. It had been his to dream a sort of Chimera bearing the
country toward Progress on outstretched wings: he found himself
entangled in the musty mechanism of a worn-out and rancid-smelling
engine, that dragged the State as a broken-winded horse might have done.
Then, little by little, weariness and disgust had penetrated the hear