Thinking that she knew nothing, he sent her anonymous communications.  She read them at the table before him and remained still listless and smiling.

He then persuaded himself that she gave no heed to these vague reports, and that in order to disturb her it would be necessary to enable her to verify her lover’s infidelity and treason for herself.  There were at the Ministry a number of trustworthy agents charged with secret inquiries regarding the national defence.  They were then employed in watching the spies of a neighbouring and hostile Power who had succeeded in entering the Postal and Telegraphic service.  M. Ceres ordered them to suspend their work for the present and to inquire where, when, and how, the Minister of the Interior saw Mademoiselle Lysiane.  The agents performed their missions faithfully and told the minister that they had several times seen the Prime Minister with a woman, but that she was not Mademoiselle Lysiane.  Hippolyte Ceres asked them nothing further.  He was right; the loves of Paul Visire and Lysiane were but an alibi invented by Paul Visire himself, with Eveline’s approval, for his fame was rather inconvenient to her, and she sighed for secrecy and mystery.

They were not shadowed by the agents of the Ministry of Commerce alone.  They were also followed by those of the Prefect of Police, and even by those of the Minister of the Interior, who disputed with each other the honour of protecting their chief.  Then there were the emissaries of several royalist, imperialist, and clerical organisations, those of eight or ten blackmailers, several amateur detectives, a multitude of reporters, and a crowd of photographers, who all made their appearance wherever these two took refuge in their perambulating love affairs, at big hotels, small hotels, town houses, country houses, private apartments, villas, museums, palaces, hovels.  They kept watch in the streets, from neighbouring houses, trees, walls, stair-cases, landings, roofs, adjoining rooms, and even chimneys.  The Minister and his friend saw with alarm all round their bed room, gimlets boring through doors and shutters, and drills making holes in the walls.  A photograph of Madame Ceres in night attire buttoning her boots was the utmost that had been obtained.

Paul Visire grew impatient and irritable, and often lost his good humour and agreeableness.  He came to the cabinet meetings in a rage and he, too, poured invectives upon General Debonnaire—­a brave man under fire but a lax disciplinarian—­and launched his sarcasms at against the venerable admiral Vivier des Murenes whose ships went to the bottom without any apparent reason.

Fortune Lapersonne listened open-eyed, and grumbled scoffingly between his teeth: 

“He is not satisfied with robbing Hippolyte Ceres of his wife, but he must go and rob him of his catchwords too.”

These storms were made known by the indiscretion of some ministers and by the complaints of the two old warriors, who declared their intention of flinging their portfolios at the beggar’s head, but who did nothing of the sort.  These outbursts, far from injuring the lucky Prime Minister, had an excellent effect on Parliament and public opinion, who looked on them as signs of a keen solicitude for the welfare of the national army and navy.  The Prime Minister was the recipient of general approbation.