ure of seeing Madame here some Wednesday?"
said the countess. "Pray bring her; it will give me pleasure."

"Madame Rabourdin herself receives on Wednesdays," interrupted des
Lupeaulx, who knew the empty civility of an invitation to the official
Wednesdays; "but since you are so kind as to wish for her, you will soon
give one of your private parties, and--"

The countess rose with some irritation.

"You are the master of my ceremonies," she said to des
Lupeaulx,--ambiguous words, by which she expressed the annoyance she
felt with the secretary for presuming to interfere with her private
parties, to which she admitted only a select few. She left the room
without bowing to Rabourdin, who remained alone with des Lupeaulx;
the latter was twisting in his fingers the confidential letter to
the minister which Rabourdin had intrusted to La Briere. Rabourdin
recognized it.

"You have never really known me," said des Lupeaulx. "Friday evening
we will come to a full understanding. Just now I must go and receive
callers; his Excellency saddles me with that burden when he has other
matters to attend to. But I repeat, Rabourdin, don't worry yourself; you
have nothing to fear."

Rabourdin walked slowly through the corridors, amazed and confounded by
this singular turn of events. He had expected Dutocq to denounce him,
and found he had not been mistaken; des Lupeaulx had certainly seen the
document which judged him so severely, and yet des Lupeaulx was fawning
on his judge! It was all incomprehensible. Men of upright minds are
often at a loss to understand complicated intrigues, and Rabourdin was
lost in a maze of conjecture without being able to discover the object
of the game which the secretary was playing.

"Either he has not read the part about himself, or he loves my wife."

Such were the two thoughts to which his mind arrived as he crossed the
courtyard; for the glance he had intercepted the night before between
des Lupeaulx and Celestine came back to his memory like a flash of
lightning.

CHAPTER VI. THE WORMS AT WORK

Rabourdin's bureau was during his absence a prey to the keenest
excitement; for the relation between the head officials and the clerks
in a government office is so regulated that, when a minister's messenger
summons the head of a bureau to his Excellency's presence (above all at
the latter's breakfast hour), there is no end to the comments that are
made. The fact that the present unusual summons