Hardly was she installed in Rue Prony than she reminded him of his promise to call on her.  He hastened to her with strange eagerness and he left her more disturbed, as if he had just taken a peep at an unknown world.  The feminine elegance of the Hotel de Vanda had suddenly intoxicated him.  Marianne played her part very calmly in producing the daily ravage that passion was making on Sulpice.  She studied its rapid progress with all the sang-froid of a physician.  She regulated the doses of her toxicant, the poison of her glance instilled into the veins of this man.  Determined to become his mistress, she desired to fall in the guise of a woman madly in love, and not as an ordinary courtesan.  With any other man than Vaudrey, she would, perhaps, have yielded more quickly.  But she acted with Vaudrey as formerly she had done with Rosas.  Seeing that these idealists caressed their dreams, she coquetted with platonic love, besides, she preferred to remain free for a short time, without the burden of those pleasures of which she had grown tired, and which had always caused her more disgust than delight.

Moreover, she said to herself that it was necessary in Sulpice’s case to have the appearance of playing frankly, of loving truly, as in the case of Rosas.  But, this time, she would not let Vaudrey escape her by flight, as the duke did.  She would yield at the desired moment, certain that Sulpice would not leave her the next day.

“Rosas would be here,” she said to herself self-confidently, “if he had been my lover.”

After a moment of regretful preoccupation, she shrugged her shoulders and said quickly: 

“Bah! what is written is written, as he said.  If I haven’t him, I have the other.”

The “other” grew day by day more deeply enamored.  He rushed off in hot haste to visit Marianne; his hired hack, in which he sometimes left his minister’s portfolio peacefully at rest, pending his return, stood before the little door in the Avenue Prony.  He was happier when he thought he had made a forward step in Marianne’s affections than when he had acquired new votes from the minority in the Chamber.  Ambitious projects yielded to the consuming desire that he felt toward this woman.  At the ministry, during the familiar conversations at table with Adrienne and even during the hurly-burly attendant on private receptions and morning interviews, he sometimes remained silent, lost in thought, his mind wandering and, in reality, with Marianne.

Adrienne, at such times, with a sweet smile which made Sulpice shudder with remorse, would beseech him to work less, to take some recreation, and not allow himself to be so absorbed in politics.

“You are extremely pale, I assure you.  You look worn out.  You work too hard.”

“It is due to administrative changes.  There are so many documents to examine.”

“I know that very well, but isn’t Monsieur Warcolier there?  In what way does he help you?”