that played in her hair as it strayed unfastened over the
pillow, the endearing caresses of her bare arms, he wished to see and
feel again. He calculated in his ferocious egotism that Adrienne's wrath
would afford him more complete liberty for a time, and that he would
have Marianne more to himself, if she were willing.

He had written to Mademoiselle Kayser, but his letter had remained
unanswered. He thought that he would go to Mademoiselle Vanda's house
the next day, after the Chamber was up. Very late, he added, since the
sitting would be prolonged. Long and decisive, as the fate of his
ministry was at stake.

Granet's interpellation did not make him unusually uneasy. He had
acquainted himself in the morning with a resume of the journals. Public
opinion seemed favorable to the Vaudrey ministry, _except in the case of
some insufferable radical organs, and with which he need not in anyway
concern himself_, read the report. Vaudrey did not remember that it was
in almost these very terms that the daily resume of the press expressed
itself on the eve of Pichereau's fall, to the Minister of the Interior,
in speaking of Pichereau's cabinet.

"I shall have a majority of sixty votes," he said to himself.
"Everything will be carried--save honor!"

He thought of Adrienne as he thus wished.

The session of the Chamber was to furnish him the most cruel deception.
Granet had most skilfully prepared his plan of attack. Vaudrey's
ministry was threatened on all sides by lines of approach laid out
without Sulpice's knowledge. Granet had promised, here and there, new
situations, or had undertaken to confirm the old. He came to the assault
of the ministry with a compact battalion of clients entirely devoted to
his fortunes, which were their own. They did not reproach Vaudrey too
strongly with anything, unless it was that these impatient ones
considered that he had given away all that he had to give, prefectures,
sub-prefectures, councillors' appointments, crosses of the Legion of
Honor, and especially for having lasted too long. Vaudrey would fall
less because he had forfeited esteem than because others were impatient
to succeed him. Granet was tired of being only the _minister of
to-morrow_, he wished to have his day. He had just affirmed his policy,
he asserted that the whole country, weary of Vaudrey's compromises,
demanded a more homogeneous ministry. Homogeneity! Nothing could be said
against such a word. Granet favored the po