nister's vanity was greatly tickled; Madame Rabourdin's
cleverness pleased him, and she had won his wife, who, delighted with
the siren, invited her to come to all her receptions whenever she
pleased.

"For your husband, my dear," she said, "will soon be director; the
minister intends to unite the two divisions and place them under one
director; you will then be one of us, you know."

His Excellency carried off Madame Rabourdin on his arm to show her a
certain room, which was then quite celebrated because the opposition
journals blamed him for decorating it extravagantly; and together they
laughed over the absurdities of journalism.

"Madame, you really must give the countess and myself the pleasure of
seeing you here often."

And he went on with a round of ministerial compliments.

"But, Monseigneur," she replied, with one of those glances which women
hold in reserve, "it seems to me that that depends on you."

"How so?"

"You alone can give me the right to come here."

"Pray explain."

"No; I said to myself before I came that I would certainly not have the
bad taste to seem a petitioner."

"No, no, speak freely. Places asked in this way are never out of place,"
said the minister, laughing; for there is no jest too silly to amuse a
solemn man.

"Well, then, I must tell you plainly that the wife of the head of a
bureau is out of place here; a director's wife is not."

"That point need not be considered," said the minister, "your husband is
indispensable to the administration; he is already appointed."

"Is that a veritable fact?"

"Would you like to see the papers in my study? They are already drawn
up."

"Then," she said, pausing in a corner where she was alone with the
minister, whose eager attentions were now very marked, "let me tell you
that I can make you a return."

She was on the point of revealing her husband's plan, when des Lupeaulx,
who had glided noiselessly up to them, uttered an angry sound, which
meant that he did not wish to appear to have overheard what, in fact, he
had been listening to. The minister gave an ill-tempered look at the
old beau, who, impatient to win his reward, had hurried, beyond all
precedent, the preliminary work of the appointment. He had carried the
papers to his Excellency that evening, and desired to take himself,
on the morrow, the news of the appointment to her whom he was now
endeavoring to exhibit as his mistress. Just then the minister's valet
approache