His Excellency the Minister Part 27

"You are feverish," he said.

"I should be, at any rate."

Her voice was still harsh, as if she were distressed.

"The departure of--of that friend--has, then, caused you much suffering?"

"Suffering? No. Vexation, yes--You have built many castles of cards in your life--Come! how stupid I am!" she said bitterly. "You still build many of them. Well! there it is, you see!"

She had withdrawn her hands from Sulpice, and walked away slowly from the border of the lake, going toward the end of the path where her coachman awaited her, his eyes closed and his mouth open.

"Where are you going on leaving the Bois?" asked Vaudrey.

"I? I don't know."

He had made a movement.

"Oh! once more I tell you, don't be afraid," she said. "I want to live.

Fear nothing, I will go home, _parbleu_."

"Home?"

"Or to my uncle's."

"But, really, Monsieur le Ministre," she said, "you are taking upon yourself the affairs of Monsieur Jouvenet, your Prefect of Police. I know him well, and certainly he asks fewer questions than Your Excellency."

"That, perhaps," said Vaudrey, with a smile, "is because he has less anxiety about you than I have."

"Ah! bah!" said Marianne.

She had by this time got close to her hackney coach and looked at the coachman for a moment. "Don't you think it would be very wrong to waken him?" she said. "Will you accompany me for a moment, Monsieur le Ministre?"

Vaudrey paled slightly, divining under this question a seductive prospect.

Marianne's gray eyes were never turned from him.

They walked along slowly, followed by the coupe whose lengthened shadow was projected in front of them along the yellow pathway, moving beside the lake where the swans floated with their pure white wings extended and striking the water with their feet, raising all around them a white foam, like snow falling in flakes. The blue heavens were reflected in the water. The gra.s.s, of a burnt-green, almost gray color, looked like worn velvet here and there, showing the weft and spotted with earth.

Side by side they walked, Vaudrey earnestly watching Marianne, while she gazed about her and pointed out to him the gray, winter-worn rocks, the smooth ivy, and on the horizon some hinds browsing, in the far distance, as in a desert, the bare gra.s.s as yellow as ripe wheat, around a pond, in a gloomy landscape, russet horizons against a pale sky, presenting a forlorn, mysterious and fleeting aspect.

"One would think one's self at the end of the world," said Sulpice, with lowered voice and troubled heart.

A slight laugh from Marianne was her only reply, as she pointed with the tip of her finger to an inscription on a sign:

"_To Croix-Catelan!_" she said. "That end of the world is decidedly Parisian!"

"Nevertheless, see how isolated we are to-day."

It seemed as if she had divined his thought, for she took a path that skirted a road and there, in the narrowest strip of soft, fresh soil, on which the tiny heels of her boots made imprints like kisses upon a cheek, she walked in front of him, the shadows of the small branches dappling her black dress, while Vaudrey, deeply moved, still looked at her, framed as she was by trees with moss-covered trunks and surrounded with brambles, a medley of twisted branches.

And Sulpice felt, at each step that he took, a more profound emotion.

Along this russet-tinted wood, stood out here and there the bright trunks of birch-trees, and far above it, the pale blue sky; the abyss of heaven, strewn with milky clouds and throughout the course of this pathway arose like a Cybelean incense, a healthful and fresh odor that filled the lungs and infused a desire to live.

To live! and, thought Sulpice, but a moment ago this lovely, slender girl spoke of dying. He approached her gently, walking by her side, at first not speaking, then little by little returning to that thought and almost whispering in her ear--that rosy ear that stood out against the paleness of her cheek:

"Is it possible to think of anything besides the opening spring, in this wood where everything is awakening to life? Is it really true, Marianne, that you really wished to die?"

He did not feel astonished at having dared to call her by name. It seemed as if he had known her for years. He forgot everything, as if the world was nothing but a dream and that this dream presented this woman's face.

"Yes," she replied. "Upon my honor, I was weary of life, but I see that most frequently at the very moment when one despairs--"

She stopped suddenly.

"Well?" he asked, as he waited for her to continue.

"Nothing. No, nothing!"

She commenced to laugh, calling his attention to the end of the path, to a broader alley which brought them back to the edge of the lake, whose blue line they saw in the distance.

"Blue on blue," she said, pointing to the sky and the water. "You reproach me for not liking blue, Monsieur le Ministre, see! I am taking an azure bath. This horizon is superb, is it not?"

Vaudrey debated with himself if she were jesting. Why should she give him that t.i.tle which here and at such a moment, had such an out-of-place ring?

She glanced at him sidelong with a little droll expression, her pretty mouth yielding to a smile that enticed a kiss.

"We shall soon have returned to my carriage," she said. "Already!"

"That _already_ pleases me," said Sulpice.

"It is true. This short promenade is nothing, but it suffices to make one forget many things."

"Does it not?" exclaimed Vaudrey.

The shadow of his coupe was still projected between them along the ochre-colored road.

"Do you come to the Bois often?" asked the minister.

"No. Why?"

"Because I shall frequently return here," he said in a trembling voice.

"Really!--Then, oh! why then, it would be love-making?" said Marianne, who pierced him with her warm, tender glances.

He wished to seize this woman's hand and print a kiss thereon, or to press his lips upon her bare neck upon which the golden honey-colored ringlets danced in the bright sunlight.

"On these clear, fine days," she said in an odd tone, emphasizing every word, "it is very likely that I shall return frequently to visit this pathway. Eh! what is that?" she said, turning around.

She was dragging a dry bramble that had fastened its thorns to the folds of her satin skirt and she stopped to shake it off.