ency_. On reaching the door as you leave the salon, you
should again bow respectfully.' That is amusing, ah! how amusing it
is!--Then they respect you as much as that? Your Excellency!
Monseigneur! Shall I be obliged to courtesy to you?--Your lips, give me
your lips, Monseigneur! I adore you!--You are my own minister; my
finance minister, my lover, my all! I do not respect you, but I love
you, I love you!"

He trembled to the very roots of his hair when she spoke to him thus. He
felt transports of joy in clasping her in his arms and genuine despair
when he left her. Leave her! leave her there under that lamp alone, in
that low bed where he had just forgotten that there existed anything
else in the world besides that apartment, warm with perfumes. He would
have liked to pass the whole night beside her, separating only when
satiated and overwhelmed with caresses. But how could he leave Adrienne
alone over there in the ministerial mansion? However trustful this young
wife might be, and innocent, credulous and incapable of suspicion, if he
had passed a night absent from her, she would have been terrified and
warned.

He easily invented prolonged receptions and night sessions that detained
him until an advanced hour.

"One would say that the evening sessions grow more frequent than
formerly," Adrienne remarked gently at breakfast.

"Don't talk to me about it," replied Sulpice. "In order to reach the
vacation sooner, the deputies talk twice as long."

Adrienne never opened the _Officiel_, which Vaudrey received in his
private office, pretending that the sight of a newspaper too vividly
recalled the fatiguing political life that absorbed him. One day,
however, he allowed the journals to be brought into the salon and to lie
about in Madame's room. He informed Adrienne that he was going to pass
the day in Picardy, at Guise or at Vervins, where an important deputy
had invited him to visit his factory. He would leave in the morning and
could not return until the following day toward noon.

"What a long time!" said Adrienne.

"It is still longer for me than for you, since you remain here, in our
home."

"Oh! our home! we have only one home: in Chaussee-d'Antin, or the house
at Grenoble, you know."

"Dear wife!" cried Vaudrey, as he embraced her tenderly,--sincerely,
perhaps.

And he left. He set out for Guise, returned in the evening and ordered
the Director of the Press to send to all the journals by the Havas
agency