Senator Loyer made a wry face.  He wanted the Seals.  It was a long-cherished desire.  A teacher of law under the Empire, he gave, in cafes, lessons that were appreciated.  He had the sense of chicanery.  Having begun his political fortune with articles skilfully written in order to attract to himself prosecution, suits, and several weeks of imprisonment, he had considered the press as a weapon of opposition which every good government should break.  Since September 4, 1870, he had had the ambition to become Keeper of the Seals, so that everybody might see how the old Bohemian who formerly explained the code while dining on sauerkraut, would appear as supreme chief of the magistracy.

Idiots by the dozen had climbed over his back.  Now having become aged in the ordinary honors of the Senate, unpolished, married to a brewery girl, poor, lazy, disillusioned, his old Jacobin spirit and his sincere contempt for the people surviving his ambition, made of him a good man for the Government.  This time, as a part of the Garain combination, he imagined he held the Department of Justice.  And his protector, who would not give it to him, was an unfortunate rival.  He laughed, while moulding a dog from a piece of bread.

M. Berthier-d’Eyzelles, calm and grave, caressed his handsome white beard.

“Do you not think, Monsieur Garain, that it would be well to give a place in the Cabinet to the men who have followed from the beginning the political principles toward which we are directing ourselves to-day?”

“They lost themselves in doing it,” replied Garam, impatiently.  “The politician never should be in advance of circumstances.  It is an error to be in the right too soon.  Thinkers are not men of business.  And then—­let us talk frankly—­if you want a Ministry of the Left Centre variety, say so:  I will retire.  But I warn you that neither the Chamber nor the country will sustain you.”

“It is evident,” said Count Martin, “that we must be sure of a majority.”

“With my list, we have a majority,” said Garain.  “It is the minority which sustained the Ministry against us.  Gentlemen, I appeal to your devotion.”

And the laborious distribution of the portfolios began again.  Count Martin received, in the first place, the Public Works, which he refused, for lack of competency, and afterward the Foreign Affairs, which he accepted without objection.

But M. Berthier-d’Eyzelles, to whom Garain offered Commerce and Agriculture, reserved his decision.

Loyer got the Colonies.  He seemed very busy trying to make his bread dog stand on the cloth.  Yet he was looking out of the corners of his little wrinkled eyelids at the Countess Martin and thinking that she was desirable.  He vaguely thought of the pleasure of meeting her again.

Leaving Garain to his combination, he was preoccupied by his fair hostess, trying to divine her tastes and her habits, asking her whether she went to the theatre, and if she ever went at night to the coffee-house with her husband.  And Therese was beginning to think he was more interesting than the others, with his apparent ignorance of her world and his superb cynicism.