His Excellency the Minister Part 16

"And you still live at--?"

"Rue Boursault, Boulevard des Batignolles."

"Till then, my dear Ramel! If occasion require, you will not refuse to give me your advice?"

"Nor my devotion. But without office, remember without office," said Ramel, still smiling.

Vaudrey took great delight in chatting with his old friend, but for a moment he had been seized with an eager desire to find amid the increasing crowd that thronged the salons, the pretty girl who had appeared to him like a statue of Desire, whetted desire, but even in her charms somewhat unwholesome, yet disturbing and appetizing.

He had come to Sabine Marsy's only by chance and as if to display in public the joy of his triumph, just as a newly decorated man willingly accepts invitations in order to show off his new ribbon, but he now felt happy for having done so. He had promised himself only to put himself in evidence and then disappear with Adrienne to the enjoyment of their usual chats, to taste that intimacy that was so dear to him, but which, since his establishment on Place Beauvau, had vanished.

He habitually disliked such receptions as that in which he now took part, those soirees as fatiguing as those crowds where one packs six hundred persons in salons capable of holding only sixty: commonplace receptions, where the master of the house is as happy when he refuses invitations as a theatre-manager when his play is the rage; where one is stifled, crushed, and where one can only reach the salon after a pugilistic encounter, and where the capture of a gla.s.s of syrup entails an a.s.sault, and the securing of an overcoat demands a battle. He held in horror those salons where there is no conversation, where no one is acquainted, where, because of the hubbub of the crowd or the stifling silence attending a concert, one cannot exchange either ideas or phrases, not even a furtive handshake, because of the packing and crus.h.i.+ng of the guests. It was a miracle that he had just been able to exchange a few words with Mademoiselle Kayser and Ramel. The vulgarity of the place had at once impressed him,--the more so because he was the object of attraction for all those crowded faces.

All that gathering of insignificant, grave and pretentious young men, who, while they crowded, made their progress in the ranks of the sub-prefects, councillors of prefectures, picking up nominations under the feet of the influential guests as they would cigar stumps, disgusted him; men of twenty years, born, as it were, with white cravats, pretentious and pensive, creatures of office and not of work, haunting the Chambers and the antechambers, mere collectors of ideas, repeaters of serious commonplaces, salon democrats who would not offer their ungloved hand to a workman on the street; staff-majors ambitious of honors and not of devotion, whom he felt crowding around him, with smiles on their lips and applications in their pockets. How he preferred the quiet pleasure of reading at the fireside, a chat with a friend, or listening to one of Beethoven's sonatas, or a selection from Mendelssohn played by Adrienne, whose companions.h.i.+p made the unmarked flight of the hours pa.s.s more sweetly.

It was for that that he was created. At least he thought so and believed it. And now this salon that he had simply desired to traverse, at once seemed altogether delightful to him. And all this was due to his meeting a divine creature in the midst of this crowd. He was eager to find Marianne, to see her again. She aroused his curiosity as some enigma might.

What, then, was this woman, was she virtuous or of questionable status?

Ah! she was a woman, or rather ten women in one, at the very least! A woman from head to foot! A woman to her finger tips, a refined, Parisian woman, perverse even in her virginity, and a virgin perhaps in her perversity. A problem in fair flesh.

As Vaudrey hurriedly left the buffet, every one made way for him, and he crossed the salons, eagerly looking out for Marianne. As he pa.s.sed along, he saw Guy de Lissac sitting on a chair upholstered in garnet satin, his right hand resting on the gilded back and chatting with Adrienne who was fanning herself leisurely. On noticing Sulpice, the young woman smiled at him even at a distance, the happy smile of a loving woman, and she embraced him with a pure glance, asking a question without uttering a word, knowing well that he habitually left in great haste.

"Do you wish to return?" was the meaning of her questioning glance.

He pa.s.sed before her, replying with a smile, but without appearing to have understood her, and disappeared in another salon, while Lissac said to Adrienne:

"What about the ministry, madame?"

"Oh! don't speak to me of it!--it frightens me. In those rooms, it seems to me that I am not at home. Do you know just what I feel? I fancy myself travelling, never, however, leaving the house. Ministers certainly should be bachelors. Men have all the honor, but their wives endure all the weariness."

"There must, however, be at the bottom of this weariness, some pleasure, since they so bitterly regret to take leave of it."

"Ah! _Dieu!_" said Adrienne. "Already I believe that I should regret nothing. No, I a.s.sure you, nothing whatever."

She, too, might have desired,--as Vaudrey did formerly--to leave the soiree, to be with her husband again, and she thought that Sulpice found it necessary to remain longer, since he had not definitely decided on going away.

The new salon that he entered, communicated with a smaller, circular one, hung with j.a.panese silk draperies, and lighted by a Venetian chandelier that cast a subdued light over the divans upon which some of the guests sat chatting. Sulpice immediately divined, as if by instinct, that Marianne was there. He went straight in that direction, and as he entered the doorway, through the opening framed by two pale blue portieres, he saw in front of him, sitting side by side, the pretty girl and the Duc de Rosas to whom she had listened so attentively, almost devotedly, a little earlier; he recalled this now.

The light fell directly on Mademoiselle Kayser's shoulders and played over her fair hair. The duke was looking at her.

Vaudrey took but a single step forward.

He experienced an altogether curious and inexplicable sensation. This tete-a-tete displeased him.

At that moment, on half-turning round,--perhaps by chance--she perceived the minister and greeting him with a sweet smile, she rose and beckoned to him to approach her.

The sky-blue satin hangings, on which the light fell, seemed like a natural framework for the beautiful blonde creature.

"Your Excellency," she said, "permit me to introduce my friend, the Duc de Rosas, he is too accomplished not to appreciate eloquence and he entertains the greatest admiration for you."

Rosas had risen in his turn, and greeted the minister with a very peculiar half-inclination, not as a suitor in the presence of a powerful man, but as a n.o.bleman greeting a man of talent.

Vaudrey sought to discover an agreeable word in the remarks of this man but he failed to do so. He had, nevertheless, just before applauded Rosas's remarks, either out of condescension or from politeness. But it seemed to him that here the duke was no longer the same man. He gave him the impression of an intruder who had thrust himself in the way that led to some possible opportunity. He nevertheless concealed all trace of the ill-humor that he himself could not define or explain, and ended by uttering a commonplace phrase in praise of the duke, but which really meant nothing.

As he was about to move away, Marianne detained him by a gesture:

"Well, your Excellency," she remarked, with a charming play of her lips as she smiled, "you see,"--and she pointed to the blue draperies of the little salon, as dainty as a boudoir--"you see that there are some women who like blue."

"Yes, Madame Marsy!--" Vaudrey answered, with an entirely misplaced irony that naturally occurred to him, as a reproach.

"So do I," said Marianne. "We have only chatted together five minutes, but I have found that time enough to discover that you and I have many tastes in common. I am greatly flattered thereby."

"And I am very happy," replied Vaudrey, who was disturbed by her direct glances that pierced him like a blade.

She had resumed her place on the divan, but Vaudrey had already forgiven her tete-a-tete with Rosas--and in truth, what had he to forgive?--This burning glance had effaced everything. He bore it away like a bright ray and still shuddered at the sensation he experienced.

He was in a hurry to leave. He now felt a sudden attack of nervousness.

He was at the same moment charmed and bored. Again he resumed--amid the throng that made way for him, humbly performing its duty as a crowd--his role of minister, raising his head, and greeting with his official smile, but, at the bottom of his heart, really consumed by an entirely different thought. His brain was full of blue, of floating clouds, and he still heard Marianne's voice ringing in his ears with an insinuating tone, whispering: "We have many tastes in common," together with all kinds of mutual understandings which, as it were, burned like a fire in his heart.

He saw Adrienne still seated in the same place and smiling sweetly at him,--a smile of ardent devotion, but which seemed to him to be lukewarm. He leaned toward her, reached his hands out and said to De Lissac, hurriedly, as he grasped his hand: "We meet later, do we not, Guy?" Then he disappeared in the antechamber, while the servants hurried toward Madame Vaudrey, bearing her cloak, and as Vaudrey put on his overcoat, a voice called out:

"His Excellency's carriage."

"I am exhausted," said Adrienne, when she had taken her place in the carriage. "What about yourself?"

"I? not at all! I am not at all tired. It was very entertaining! One must show one's self now--"

"I know that very well," the young wife replied.

Like a child who is anxious to go to sleep, she gently rested her hood-covered head on Sulpice's shoulder. Her tiny hands sought her husband's hand, to press it beneath her cloak, as warm as a nest; and after she had closed her eyes, overcome as she was by weariness, her breathing seemed to become gradually almost as regular as in slumber, and Sulpice Vaudrey recalled once more, beneath the light of the chandeliers, that pretty blonde, with her half-bare arms and shoulders, and strange eyes, who moistened her dry lips and smiled as she swallowed her sherbet.

VI

In the pretty little j.a.panese salon, with its panels of sky-blue satin, framed with gilded bamboo, Marianne was seated on the divan, half-facing the duke as if to penetrate his inward thoughts, and she seemed to the Castilian as she did to Vaudrey, to be a most charming creature amid all those surroundings that might have been made expressly to match her fair beauty. Moreover, with Rosas, her freedom of manner was entirely different from that which she manifested to Sulpice, and she embraced the young man with a pa.s.sionate, fervent glance.

Jose felt himself grow pale in the presence of this exquisite creature whose image, treasured in the depths of his heart, he had borne with him wherever his fancy had led him to travel. He gazed at her as a man looks at a woman whom he has long desired, but whom some urgent necessity has kept out of his way, and who by chance is suddenly brought near him, fate putting within our reach the dream--

She was prettier than ever, graceful and blooming, "more matured," like a fruit whose color is more tempting to the appet.i.te. Sabine had just before very naturally brought these two together and instinctively, as if they had to exchange many confidences, they had immediately sought a retired spot away from that crowd and were seated there in that salon where Vaudrey, already half-jealous, guessed that Marianne would be.

Yes, indeed, she had many confidences to impart to that man who had suddenly entered the sphere of her life and had suddenly disappeared, remaining during several years as if dead to her. It seemed to her as they sat face to face that this flight of wasted time had made her still younger, and Rosas, notwithstanding his cold demeanor, allowed his former pa.s.sion to be divined: the women one loves unmask one's secret before a man can himself explain what he feels.

She felt a profound, sincere joy. She recalled a similar conversation with Jose in his studio, that Oriental corner hidden in the Rue de Laval. The j.a.panese satin enhanced the illusion.

"Do you know that it seems to me," she said, "that I have been dreaming, and that I am not a whit older?"