Behind this species of female flower-bed the black coated ranks crowded, their sombre hue relieved here and there by the uniform of some French officer or foreign military attache.  There was a profusion of orders, crosses and strange old faces, with red ribbons at the neck, deputies evidently in dress, youthful attaches of the ministry or embassy, correct in bearing and officious, their crush-hats under their arms and holding the satin programme of the musicale soiree in their hands, some numbers of which were about to be rendered.  Under the ceilings that were dappled with painted clouds, surrounded by brilliant lights and a wealth of flowers, this crowd presented at once an aspect of luxury and oddity, with its living antitheses of old parliamentarians and tyros of the Assembly.

Intermingled with strains of music, were whisperings and the confused noise of conversations.

Guy watched with curiosity, as a man who has seen much and compares, all this gathering of guests.  From time to time he greeted some one of his acquaintance, but this was a rare occurrence.  He was delighted to see Ramel whom he had often met at Adrienne’s Wednesdays, and whom he liked.  He appeared to him to be fatigued and sick.

“I am not very well, in fact,” said Ramel.  “I have only come because I had something serious to say to Vaudrey.”

“What then?” asked Lissac.

“Oh! nothing! some advice to give him as to the course to be followed.  There is decidedly much underhand work going on about the President.”

“Who is it?”

“Most of them are here!”

“His guests?”

“You know very well that when one invites all one’s friends, one finds that three-quarters of one’s enemies will be present.”

“At least,” said Lissac.

He continued to traverse the salons, always returning instinctively toward the door at which Adrienne stood, with pale face and wandering look, and scarcely hearing, poor woman, the unfamiliar names that the usher uttered at equal intervals, like a speaking machine.

“Monsieur Durosoi!—­Monsieur and Madame Brechet!—­Monsieur the Minister of Public Works!—­Monsieur the Prefect of the Aube!—­Monsieur the Count de Grigny!—­Monsieur Henri de Prangins!—­Monsieur the General d’Herbecourt!—­Monsieur the Doctor Vilandry!—­Monsieur and Madame Tochard!”

She had vowed that she would be strong, and allow nothing to be seen of the despair that was wringing her heart.  She compelled herself to smile.  In nightmares and hours of feverish unrest, she had suffered the same vague, morbid feeling that she now experienced.  All that passed about her seemed to be unreal.  These white-cravatted men, these gaily-dressed women, the file of guests saluting her at the same spot in the salon, with the same expression of assumed respect and trite politeness, appeared to her but a succession of phantoms.  Neither a name nor an association did she attach to those countenances that beamed on her with an official smile or gravely assumed a correct seriousness.  She felt weary, overwhelmed and heavy-headed at the sight of this continued procession of strangers on whom it was incumbent that she should smile and to whom she must bow out of politeness, in virtue of that duty of state which she wished to fulfil to the last degree, poor soul!