Before returning to the ministry, Vaudrey had himself driven to Rue Prony.  Jean, the domestic, told him that Madame had gone out; she had been under the necessity of going to her uncle’s.  After all, Sulpice thought this was a very simple matter; but he was determined to see Marianne, so he ordered his carriage to be driven to the artist’s studio.  Uncle Kayser opened the door, bewildered at receiving a call from the minister and, at the same time, showing that he was somewhat uneasy, coughing very violently, as if choked with emotion, or perhaps as a signal to some one.

“Is Mademoiselle Kayser here?” asked Sulpice.

“Yes—­Ah! how odd it is—­Chance wills that just now one of our friends—­a connoisseur of pictures—­”

Vaudrey had already thrust open the door of the studio and he perceived, sitting near Marianne and holding his hat in his hand, a young man with pale complexion and reddish beard, whom Mademoiselle Kayser, rising quickly and without any appearance of surprise, eagerly presented to him: 

“Monsieur Jose de Rosas!”

In the simple manner in which she had pronounced this name, she had infused so triumphant an expression, such manifest ostentation, that Vaudrey felt himself suddenly wounded, struck to the heart.

He recalled everything that Marianne had said to him about this man.

He greeted Rosas with somewhat frigid politeness and from the tone in which Marianne began to speak to him, he at once realized that she had some interest in allowing the Spaniard to surmise nothing.  She unduly emphasized the title by which she addressed him, repeating a little too frequently:  “Monsieur le Ministre.”—­Whenever Vaudrey sought to catch her glance she looked away in a strange fashion and managed to avoid carrying on any formal conversation with Sulpice.  On the contrary, she addressed Rosas affably, asking what he had done in London, what he had become and what he brought back new.

“Nothing,” Jose answered with a peculiar expression that displeased Vaudrey.  “Nothing but the conviction that one lives only in Paris surrounded by persons whom one vainly seeks to avoid and toward whom one always returns—­in spite of one’s self, at times.”

Vaudrey observed the almost proud, triumphant expression that flashed in Marianne’s eyes.  He vaguely realized an indirect confession expressed in that trite remark made by Rosas.  The Spaniard’s voice trembled slightly as he spoke.

Marianne smiled as she listened.

“You have taken a new journey, monsieur?” asked Sulpice, uncertain what bearing to assume.

“Oh! just a temporary absence!  A trip to London—­”

“Have you returned long?”

“Only this morning.”

His first call was at Simon Kayser’s house, where perhaps, he expected to see Marianne.  And the proof—­

Vaudrey instinctively thought that it was a very hasty matter to call so soon on Uncle Kayser.  This man’s first visit was not to the painter’s studio, but in reality to the woman who—­Sulpice still heard Marianne declare that—­who would not become his mistress.  There was something strange in that.  Eh! parbleu! it was perhaps Monsieur de Rosas who had sent for Marianne.