“Don’t pay any attention to Monsieur de Lissac.  I am very happy just as I am.”

Vaudrey had taken her hand to clasp it between his fingers with a slightly nervous grasp.  The trustful, good-natured, pure smile that Adrienne gave him, recalled the anxious, distracted expression on Marianne’s lip.

“Dear wife!”

He sought to find a word, a cry, some consolation, a sort of caress, proceeding from one heart and penetrating the other.  He could find none.

“Come!” said Guy.  “I am going to leave you, and if you will allow me, madame, I will occasionally come here and tell you all the outside tittle-tattle.”

“You will always be welcome, Monsieur de Lissac,” Adrienne said, as she extended her hand to him.

Guy bowed to Madame Vaudrey in a most profoundly respectful way.

Sulpice accompanied him through the salons as far as the hall.

“Do you want me to tell you?” said Lissac.  “Your wife is very weary, take care!  This big mansion is not very cheerful.  One must inevitably catch colds in it, and then a woman to be all alone here!  A form of imprisonment!  Do not neglect to wheedle the majority, my dear minister, but don’t forget your wife.  Come!  I will not act traitorously toward you, but I warn you that if I often find your wife melancholy, as she is to-day, I will tell her that I adore her.  Yes! yes! your wife is charming.  I would give all the orders in the world for a lock of her hair.  Adieu, Monsieur le Ministre.”

“Great idiot,” said Vaudrey, giving him a little friendly, gentle tap on the neck.

“Be it so, but if you do not love her well enough, I shall fall in love with her, and I forewarn you that it is much better that I should than any other.  Au revoir.”

“Au revoir!” Sulpice repeated.

He tried now to force a smile and went down to his cabinet, where he found heaped-up reports awaiting his attention and he turned the pages over nervously and read them in a very bad humor.

* * * * *

She was quite pale as she looked over Sulpice’s shoulder and saw him rapidly write several lines on the paper, then she spelled: 

“Adolphe Gochard—­Go-go-ch-a-r-d."_

[Illustration:  SULPICE BECOMES SURETY FOR MARIANNE]

II

Madame Vaudrey drew no real pleasure from the commonplace receptions at the ministry, or at her Wednesday at homes, except when by chance, Denis Ramel permitted himself to abandon the Batignolles to call at Place Beauvau, or when Guy enlivened this dull spot by recounting the happenings of the outside world.

Adrienne felt herself terribly isolated; she knew hardly any one in Paris.  Since Vaudrey had installed himself in Rue de la Chaussee-d’Antin, she had not had time to form acquaintances among the wives of the deputies to the Assembly, the majority of whom lived in the provinces or dwelt at Versailles for economical reasons.