When Justine had left the room, she went straight to a small, black, Italian cabinet inlaid with ivory, of which one drawer was locked.  In opening it, the sound of gold coins rattling on the wood caused her to smile; then, with the tips of her white fingers, she spread out the louis at the bottom of the drawer, which she abruptly closed, making a wry face, and folding her arms, she returned to her seat in front of the fire, beating her right foot nervously upon the wrought-iron fender.

“The Dujarrier’s money will not go much further,” she thought.  “It is finished.”

She thought of striking a decisive blow.  Up to the present time, her relations with Sulpice had floated in the regions of the sentimentalities of the novel, or of romance.  The minister believed himself loved for love’s sake.  He saw in Marianne only an eccentric girl free from all prejudices and every duty, who disposed of her life as seemed best to her, without being under the necessity of accounting to either husband or lover.  Free, she made of her liberty pleasure or passion according to her fancy.  The frightful, practical questions, the daily necessities, were lost sight of by this man who was burdened with the governmental question of France.  Again, he never asked himself the source of Marianne’s luxury.  He delighted in it without thinking of analyzing anything or of knowing anything, and this ingenuously.  Mademoiselle Kayser’s first word must necessarily awaken him to the situation.

She knew that Vaudrey was to come, and suddenly leaving the fire, she arrayed herself for him in a black satin peignoir lined with red surah, with lapels of velvet thrown widely apart and allowing the whiteness of her neck and chest to be seen under folds of old lace.  Her fair hair fell upon her velvet collar, and surmounting this strange costume, her pale face against the background of the red-draped salon assumed the disturbing charm of an apparition.

On seeing her, Sulpice could not refrain from stopping short and looking at her in admiration.  Seated there, in the centre of her salon, she was awaiting him and arranging bundles of papers in a basket with gilded feet and lined with pink satin.  She extended her hand to him.  It was a pale hand, as inanimate as the hand of a dead person, and she languidly asked him why he remained there stupefied without approaching her.

“I am looking,” said the minister.

“You are always the most gallant of men,” said Marianne, and she added: 

“You are not already tired then of looking at me?  Usually, caprices do not last so long.”

“The affection that I have for you is not a caprice.”

“What is it, then?  I am curious—­”

“It is a passion, Marianne, an absolute, deep, mad passion—­”

“Oh! nonsense! nonsense!” said Marianne.  “I know that you speak wonderfully well, I have heard you in the tribune.  A declaration of love costs you no more than a ministerial declaration.  But to-day, my dear minister, I am not disposed to listen to it even from you.”