y. He is the only one
who knows how to manage a hunt."

At this instant Dechartre came into the room with Count Martin, who,
after beating him at billiards, had acquired a great affection for him
and was explaining to him the dangers of a personal tax based on the
number of servants one kept.

CHAPTER XXXI. AN UNWELCOME APPARITION

A pale winter sun piercing the mists of the Seine, illuminated the dogs
painted by Oudry on the doors of the dining room.

Madame Martin had at her right Garain the Deputy, formerly Chancellor,
also President of the Council, and at her left Senator Loyer. At Count
Martin-Belleme's right was Monsieur Berthier-d'Eyzelles. It was an
intimate and serious business gathering. In conformity with Montessuy's
prediction, the Cabinet had fallen four days before. Called to the
Elysee the same morning, Garain had accepted the task of forming a
cabinet. He was preparing, while taking breakfast, the combination which
was to be submitted in the evening to the President. And, while they
were discussing names, Therese was reviewing within herself the images
of her intimate life.

She had returned to Paris with Count Martin at the opening of the
parliamentary session, and since that moment had led an enchanted life.

Jacques loved her; he loved her with a delicious mingling of passion and
tenderness, of learned experience and curious ingenuity. He was nervous,
irritable, anxious. But the uncertainty of his humor made his gayety
more charming. That artistic gayety, bursting out suddenly like a flame,
caressed love without offending it. And the playful wit of her lover
made Therese marvel. She never could have imagined the infallible taste
which he exercised naturally in joyful caprice and in familiar fantasy.
At first he had displayed only the monotony of passionate ardor. That
alone had captured her. But since then she had discovered in him a
gay mind, well stored and diverse, as well as the gift of agreeable
flattery.

"To assemble a homogeneous ministry," exclaimed Garain, "is easily said.
Yet one must be guided by the tendencies of the various factions of the
Chamber."

He was uneasy. He saw himself surrounded by as many snares as those
which he had laid. Even his collaborators became hostile to him.

Count Martin wished the new ministry to satisfy the aspirations of the
new men.

"Your list is formed of personalities essentially different in origin
and in tendency," he said. "Yet the mos