the dust from the carpet
trodden upon by so many people, either applicants or functionaries. The
gaslight burning in broad day as in the offices in London was reflected
on the cold walls that shone like marble. Doors ornamented with gilt
nails and round, ivory knobs and without locks, were noiselessly
swinging to and fro. Wearied office-seekers with tired countenances were
spread out upon the garnet-colored velvet chairs, which were like those
of a middle-class, furnished house.

From time to time, the tiresome silence was broken by the sound of near
or distant electric bells. Vaudrey, who arrived before his colleagues,
studiously contemplated the surroundings ironically. An estafette, a
gendarme, arrived with a telegram; the usher signed a receipt for it.
That was all the life that animated this silent palace. A man with a
military air, tall, handsome and in tightly-buttoned frock-coat, passed
and saluted the President of the Council; then, Jouvenet, the Prefect of
Police, looking like a notary's senior clerk, his abundant black hair
plastered on his head, a large, black portfolio under his arm,
approached the minister and bowed. Vaudrey, having Lissac in mind,
returned his salutation coldly.

"I will speak to you presently, Monsieur le Prefet."

"Good! Monsieur le Ministre!"

In spite of the foot-soldier and the Parisian guard on duty at the door
of the palace, all that now seemed to Vaudrey to lack official
solemnity, and resembled rather a temporary and melancholy occupation.

"Bah! And if I should never set my foot in this place again," he
thought, as he remembered Granet's interpellation, "what would it matter
to me?"

He was informed first at the Council and then at the Chamber, that
Granet would not introduce his question until the next day. Vaudrey had
the desired time to prepare himself. In the Budget Committee, where he
met Granet, the _minister of to-morrow_ asked him an inopportune
question concerning the expenses of the administration. Vaudrey was
angered and felt inclined to treat it as a personal question. It now
only remained for his adversaries to begin to suspect him! To appear so
was even now too much. Sulpice took Granet up promptly, the latter
assured him that "his colleague and friend, the President of the
Council," had entirely misconstrued the meaning of his words.

"Well and good!" said Vaudrey.

He was not sorry that the interpellation was not to take place at once.
Before to-morrow,