They laughed heartily.

“How they laugh afterward,” thought Lissac, “at the electors whose shoes they would blacken beforehand.”

“The course that I have followed is very simple,” said another.  “I desired to become sub-prefect so as to become a prefect and a prefect to become a deputy, and a deputy so as to reach a receiver-generalship.  The salaries assured, why, there’s the crowning of a career.”

“Why, that fellow plays the whole gamut,” again thought Guy, “but he is frank!”

“I read very little,” now replied Crepeau to Warcolier—­“I do not much care for pure literature—­we politicians, we need substantial reading that will teach us to think.”

“I believe you!—­” murmured this Parisian Guy, still smoking and listening.  “Go to school, my good man!”

The conversation thus intermingled and confused, horrified and irritated this blase by its gravity and selfishness.  He summed up an entire character in a single phrase and shook his head as he very shrewdly remarked:  “Suppose Universal Suffrage were listening?”

Lissac did not take any part in these conversations.  It was his delight to observe.  He drew amusement from all these wearisome commonplaces, according to his custom as a curious spectator.

He was about, however, to rise and approach Vaudrey, who was instinctively coming toward him, when the Prefect of Police, Monsieur Jouvenet, without noticing it, placed himself between the minister and his friend.

Jouvenet spoke in a low tone to Vaudrey, smiling at the same time very peculiarly and passing his fingers through his whiskers.  Whatever discretion the prefect employed, Guy was near enough to him to hear the name of Marianne Kayser, which surprised him.

Marianne! what question of Marianne could there be between these two men?

Lissac observed that Vaudrey suddenly became very pale.

He drew still nearer, pretending to finish a cup of coffee while standing.  Then he heard these words very distinctly: 

“A reporter saw you leave her house the other evening!”

Guy moved away very quickly.  He felt a sort of sudden bewilderment, as if the few words spoken by the Prefect of Police were the natural result of his conversation with Adrienne, an immediate response thereto.

“It would be astonishing if Marianne—­” thought Lissac.

Besides, he would know soon.  He would merely question Vaudrey.

As soon as Jouvenet, always polite, grave and impassive, had left “Monsieur le Ministre” in a state of visible nervousness, almost of anxiety, he entered upon his plan.

“You know Mademoiselle Kayser intimately then?” he asked Vaudrey, who, taken aback, looked at him for a moment without replying and endeavored to grasp Lissac’s purpose.

“Am I imprudent?” further asked Guy.

“No, but who has told you—?”