and the same time of the provisional domicile and the furnished apartment,—­with its defaced gilded panels, and here and there a crack in the ceiling, and those vulgar ornaments, those wearisome imitation Chardins with their cracked colors and those old-fashioned pictures of Roqueplan, giving to everything at once one date, a bygone style.  With what a truly melancholy smile Adrienne greeted the friends who came to see her on her reception day, when they remarked to her:  “Why, you are in a palace!”

“Yes, but I much prefer my accustomed furniture and my own house.”

Sulpice, free at last from that Council and the morning receptions, as he alighted from his carriage, caused Madame to be informed that he had returned.

Adrienne, who was looking pretty in a tight-fitting, black velvet gown, approached him with a smile and was suddenly overcome with sadness on seeing him absorbed in thought.  She dared not question him, but being somewhat anxious, she, nevertheless, inquired the cause of his frowning expression.

“You have your bad look, my good Sulpice,” she smilingly said.

He then quickly explained the Warcolier business.

“Is that all?  Bah!” she said, “you will have many other such annoyances.”

She was smiling graciously.

“That is politics!—­And then you like it—­At least, confine your likes to that, Sulpice,” she said, drawing near to Vaudrey.

She was about to present her forehead for his kiss, as formerly, but she drew back abruptly.  A valet entered with a dignified air and ceremoniously announced that breakfast was served.

Vaudrey ate without appetite.  Adrienne watched him tenderly, her eyes were kind and gentle.  How nervous he was and quickly disturbed!  Truly, Warcolier’s appointment was not worth his giving himself the least anxiety about.

She was going to speak to him about it.  Vaudrey imposed silence by a sign.  The motionless domestics were listening.

Like Sulpice, Adrienne suffered the annoyance of a constant surveillance.  She was hungry when she sat down to table, but her appetite had vanished.  The viands were served cold, brought on plates decorated with various designs and marked with the initials of Louis Philippe, L.P., intertwined, or with the monogram of the Empire, N.; the gilt was worn off, the fillets of gold half obliterated:  a service of Sevres that had been used everywhere, in imperial dwellings, national palaces, and was at last sent to the various ministries as the remnant of the tables of banished sovereigns.

Instead of eating, Adrienne musingly looked at the decorations.  It seemed to her that she was in a gloomy restaurant where the badly served dishes banished her appetite.  Sulpice, sad himself, scarcely spoke and in mute preoccupation, in turn confused the shrewd, sly Granet, the intriguing Warcolier, and Marianne Kayser, whose image never left him.  He was discontented with himself and excited by the persistency with which the image of this woman haunted him.