Adrienne had at first read the journal that had been sent to her without understanding anything about it.  Alkibiades, Basilea, the mistress of the Archon, what signified that to her?  What did it mean?  Then suddenly her thought rested on the name of Sulpice, travestied in the Greek of parody, Sulpicios.  Was it of her husband that they intended to speak?  She immediately felt a bitter anguish at heart, but it was a matter only of allowing one’s self to be impressed by a journalistic pleasantry, as contemptible as an anonymous letter!  She would think no more about it.  She must concentrate her thoughts on the evening’s reception.  There was to be an official repast, followed by a soiree.  She had nothing to concern herself about in regard to the menu; Chevet undertook that.  For the ministerial dinners there was a fixed price as in restaurants.  Hosts and guests live au cabaret, they dine at so much a head.  Adrienne endeavored to occupy herself with the musical soiree, with the programmes that they brought her, with the names of comedians and female singers, printed on vellum, and with those bouquets with which the vases of her little salon were decorated.  Ah! well, yes, in spite of the feverish activity, she could think only of that article in the journal, that miserable article, every line of which flamed before her eyes just as when one has looked too long at a fire.  She had been seized with the temptation there and then to openly ask Sulpice what these veiled illusions meant.

“I hope, indeed,” she thought, with her contempt of all lying, “that he will not charge me with suspecting him.  No, certainly, I do not suspect him.”

She went to the little cabinet where Sulpice sometimes read or worked after breakfast, and there, as if she had thrown herself upon an open knife, she suddenly heard those sinister words which pierced her very flesh like pointed blades.

They were speaking of another woman.  Lissac said in a loud tone:  Your mistress! and Vaudrey allowed it to be said!—­

A mistress! what mistress?  Marianne Kayser!  Oh, that woman of whom Sulpice had so often spoken in an indifferent manner, that pretty creature, so often seen, seductive, wonderfully beautiful, terrifyingly beautiful, it was she!  Your mistress!  Sulpice had a mistress!  He lied, he deceived.  He?  She was betrayed!  Was it possible?  If it were possible?  But it was true!  Eh! parbleu, yes, it was true—­And this, then, was why they had sent her this horrible article!  She knew now.

She had been tempted to enter the room suddenly, to throw herself between these men and interrupt their conversation.  She had not the strength.  And then, what Lissac said had the effect of consoling her!—­Guy’s reproaches to Sulpice were such as she would have liked to cast at him, if she could have found speech now.  But not a word could she frame.  She was stunned, dumb and like a crushed being.  She knew only one thing, that she suffered horribly, as she had never before suffered.