She passed the night in reverie.

Vaudrey, in spite of the joy of the morrow,—­a long tete-a-tete with his mistress,—­thought with increasing vexation of the approaching maturity of his bill of exchange; within two months he would have to pay the hundred thousand francs which he had undertaken to pay Marianne’s creditor.

“It is astonishing how quickly time passes!”

At breakfast the following day, Adrienne saw that her husband was more than usually preoccupied.

“Are political affairs going badly?”

“No—­on the contrary—­”

“Then why are you melancholy?”

“I am a little fatigued.”

“Then,” said Madame Vaudrey, “you will scold me.”

“Why?”

“I have led Madame Gerson to hope—­You know whom I mean, Madame Marsy’s friend,—­I have almost promised her that you would accept an invitation to dine at her house.”

For a moment Vaudrey was put out.

Another evening taken!  Hours of delight stolen from Marianne!

“I have done wrong?” asked Adrienne, as she rested her pretty but somewhat sad face on her husband’s bosom.  “I did it because it is so great a pleasure to me to spend an entire evening with you, even at another’s house.  Remember you have so many official dinners, banquets and invitations that you attend alone.  When the minister’s wife is invited with him, it is a fete-day for the poor, little forsaken thing.  I do not have much of you, it is true, but I see you, I hear you talking and I am happy.  Do not chide me for having said that we would go to Madame Gerson’s.  The more so, because she is a charming woman.  Ah! when she speaks of you!  ‘So great a minister!’ Don’t you know what she calls you?—­’A Colbert!’”

Vaudrey could not restrain a smile.

“Come, after that, one cannot refuse her invitation.  It is the Monseigneur of the beggar,” said he, kissing Adrienne’s brow.  “And when do we dine at Madame Gerson’s?”

“On Monday next; I shall have at least one delightful evening to see you,” said the young wife sweetly.

The minister entered his cabinet.  Almost immediately after, a messenger handed him a card:  Molina, Banker.

“How strange it is!” thought Sulpice.  “I had him in mind.”

In the course of his troublesome reflections concerning the Gochard paper, Vaudrey persistently thought of that fat, powerful man who laughed and harangued in a loud voice in the greenroom of the ballet, as he patted with his fat fingers the delicate chin of Marie Launay.

Why! if he were willing, this Molina—­Molina the Tumbler!—­for him it is a mere bagatelle, a hundred thousand francs!

Salomon Molina entered the minister’s cabinet just as he made his way into the foyer of the Opera, with swelling chest, tilted chin and stomach thrust forward.

“Monsieur le Ministre,” he said in a clear voice, as he spread himself out in the armchair that Vaudrey pointed out to him, “I notify you that you have my maiden visit!—­I am still in a state of innocency!  On my honor, this is the first time I have set my foot within a minister’s office!”