She stood near a kind of wooden landing jutting out over the water.  Over her black dress she had flung a short cloak of satin, embroidered with jet which sparkled in the sunlight.  The light wind gently waved a black feather that hung from her hat, in which other feathers were entwined with a fringe of old gold bullion.  Vaudrey noted every detail of this living statuette of a Parisian woman:  between a little veil knotted behind her head and the lace ruching of her cloak, light, golden curls fell on her neck, and in that frame of light, this elegant woman, this silhouette standing out in full relief against the sky and the horizon line of the water, with a pencil of rays gilding her fair locks, seemed more exquisite and more the “woman” to Sulpice than in the decollete of a ball costume.

When she heard the crushing of the sand by Sulpice’s footsteps as he approached her with timid haste, she turned abruptly.  Under her small black veil, drawn tightly over her face, and whose dots looked like so many patches on her face, Vaudrey at first observed Marianne’s almost sickly paleness, then her suddenly joyous glance.  A furtive blush mounted even to the young girl’s cheek.

“You here?” she said—­“you, Monsieur le Ministre?”

She had already imparted an entirely different tone to these questions.  There was more abandon in the first, which seemed more like a cry, but the second betrayed a sudden politeness, perhaps a little affected.

Vaudrey replied by some commonplace remark.  It was a fine day; he was tired; he wished to warm himself in this early sunshine.  But she?—­

“Oh!  I—­really I don’t know why I am here.  Ask the—­my coachman.  He has driven me where he pleased.”

She spoke in a curt, irritated tone, under which either deception or grief was hidden.

She was still mechanically throwing crumbs of bread around her, which were eagerly snatched at by the many-colored ducks, white or gray, black, spotted, striped like tulips, marbled like Cordovan leather, with iridescent green or blue necks, whose tone suggested Venetian glassware, all of them hurrying, stretching their necks, opening their bills, or casting themselves at Marianne’s feet, fighting, then almost choking themselves to swallow the enormous pieces of bread that were sold by a dealer close at hand.

“Ah! bless me!  I did not think I should have the honor of meeting you here,” she said.

“The honor?” said Vaudrey.  “I, I should say the joy.”

She looked straight into his eyes, frankly.

“I do not know what joy is, to-day,” she said.  “I come from the Continental Hotel, where I hoped to see—­”

“What is that?”

“Nothing—­”

“If it were nothing, you would not have frowned so.”

“Oh! well! a friend—­a friend whom I have again found—­and who has disappeared.  Just so,—­abruptly—­No matter, perhaps, after all!  What happens, must happen.  In short—­and to continue my riddle, behold me feeding these ducks.  God knows why!  I detest the creatures.  The state feeds them badly, Monsieur le Ministre, I tell you:  they are famished.  Well? well?” she said to a species of Indian duck, bolder than the others, who snapped at the hem of her skirt to attract attention and to demand fresh mouthfuls.