His Excellency the Minister Part 69

"Well, you know, I have still some good news for you. If you have had enough of politics, you can retire at the approaching election!"

"How?" asked Sulpice.

"Why, Thibaudier is stirring up Gren.o.ble. He has got the whole city with him. He is very much liked and is a model mayor. He is a very _mere_--mother--that mayor!--Jeliotte laughed heartily, believing that he was funny.--If there is a list balloted for, and there certainly will be, Thibaudier will head the list. If they had maintained the _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_, he would have been capable of pa.s.sing muster, all the same!"

"Against me?"

"Against you. Thibaudier is very popular!--And as firm as a rock!--He thinks you moderate, too moderate, as everybody else does!"

"He?--He was a member of the Plebiscite Committee under the Empire!"

"Exactly! He is an extreme Republican, just as he was an extreme Bonapartist. Oh! Thibaudier is a man, there is no concession with him.

Never! He is always the same. He will beat you. Moreover, in Isere, they want a h.o.m.ogeneous representation--"

"Again!" said Vaudrey, who felt that he was pursued by this word.

After all, what did Thibaudier matter to him, or the deputation, the election or politics? Denis Ramel had sounded its depths in his grave in the cemetery of Saint-Ouen.

"Let us drop Thibaudier. By the way," said Jeliotte, "I saw your wife at Gren.o.ble."

Vaudrey grew pale.

He again repeated: "Ah!"

"She is greatly changed. She doesn't leave the house of her uncle, the doctor, nor does she receive any one."

"Is she sick, then?"

"Yes, slightly."

"And you are separated, then?"

"No," replied Sulpice.

Jeliotte smiled.

"Ah! joker, I understand!--Your wife was too strict!--Bless me, a provincial! Bah! that will come right! And if it doesn't, why, you will be free, that's all! But, say, then, if you are not re-elected, you will rejoin her at Gren.o.ble. Oh! your clients will return to you. You are highly esteemed as an advocate, but as a minister, I ought to say--"

"I shall be re-elected," said Vaudrey, in a decisive tone, so as to cut short Jeliotte's interminable phrases.

He was exceedingly unnerved. This man's stupidity would exasperate him.

He would never come across any but subjects of irritation or disheartenment. He felt inclined to seek a quarrel with some one. He would have liked to wrench Marianne's wrist with his fingers.

As he entered the hall leading to the a.s.sembly, he unwittingly stumbled against a gentleman who was walking rapidly and without saluting him, although he thought that he recognized him.

"Yet I know him!"

He had not gone three steps before he perfectly recalled this eternal lobbyist, always bending before him and clinging to the armchairs of the antechambers, like an oyster to a rock, and whom the messengers, accustomed to his soliciting, bowing and sc.r.a.ping for years past, called _Monsieur Eugene_--out of courtesy.

It was too much! And, in truth, this strange fellow's impoliteness was ill-timed.

Sulpice suddenly turned round, approached Renaudin, and said to him sharply:

"You bowed more obsequiously to me a short time since, monsieur! It seems to me that you were in the ministerial antechambers every morning!"

He expected a haughty reply from Renaudin, and that this man would have compensated him for the others.

_Monsieur Eugene_ smiled as he answered:

"Why, I am still there, monsieur!"

Vaudrey looked at him with a stupefied air, then in an outburst of anger, as if he conveyed in the reply that he hurled at this contemptible fellow, all the projects of his future revenge upon the fools, the knaves, the dull valets and the ungrateful horde, he said, boldly:

"Well, you will salute me again, for I shall return there."

He turned on his heels away from this worthless fellow, and entered the Chamber.

He heard an outburst of bravos; a perfect tempest of enthusiasm reached him. He looked on and bit his lips.

Lucien Granet was in the tribune, and the majority were applauding him.

IX

Marianne Kayser had the good taste, and perhaps the good sense not to desire a solemnized marriage. It mattered little to her if she entered her duchy surrept.i.tiously, provided she was sovereign there. She would have time later to a.s.sume a lofty air under her ducal coronet; meanwhile, she would act with humility while wearing the wreath of orange blossoms. She had discharged Jean and Justine with considerable presents, thinking it undesirable to keep any longer about her people who knew Vaudrey. She had advised Justine to marry Jean.

"Marriage is amusing!" she had said.

"Madame is very kind," answered Justine, "but she sees, herself, that it is better to wait sometimes. There is no hurry, one does not know what may happen."

The future d.u.c.h.ess showed that she was but little flattered by the girl's reflections. It was scarcely worth while not to put on airs even with servants, to meet such fools who become over-familiar with you immediately. So, in future, she would strive to be not such a kind-hearted girl. She would keep servants at a distance. They would see. Meanwhile, she was delighted to have made a clean sweep in the house, she could now lie to Rosas as much as she pleased.

Besides, the duke, who was madly in love and whose desire was daily whetted by Marianne, would have been capable, as Lissac said, of accepting everything and forgetting all, so that he might clasp the woman in his arms. She held him entirely in her grasp, under the domination of her intoxicating seductiveness, skilfully granting by a kiss that kindled the blood in Jose's veins the promise of more ardent caresses. In this very exercise, she a.s.sumed a pa.s.sionate tenderness like a courtesan accustomed to easy defeat who resists her very disposition so that she may not be too soon vanquished. She had ungovernable impulses that carried her toward Rosas as to an unknown pleasure.

The ivory-like pallor of this red-haired man with sunken eyes and trembling lips, almost cold when she sought them under his tawny moustache, pleased her. She sometimes said to him that under his gentle manner he had the appearance of a tiger. "Or of a cat, and that pleases me, for I am myself of that nature. Ah! how I love you!" She felt herself tremble with fear of that being whom she felt that she had conquered and who was entirely hers, but she was strangely troubled in divining some of his secret thoughts.

She was in a hurry to have the marriage concluded. Secretly if it were desired, but legally and positively. She dreaded Jose's reawakening, as it were. She did not know how, perhaps an anonymous letter, a chance meeting with Guy, an explanation, who knows?

"Although, after all," she thought, "I have been foolish to trouble myself about this Guy. Word threats, that's all!"

The duke had treated her as a virtuous girl, requiring her to declare that she had never loved any but him, or that, at least, no living person had the right to say that he had possessed her. She had sworn all that he desired, saying to Uncle Kayser: "Oaths like that are like political promises, they bind one to nothing!"

The uncle began to entertain an extravagant admiration for his "little Marianne." There is a woman, sure enough! Wonderful elegance! She had promised to have a studio built for him, in which he could, instead of painting, take his ease, stretched on a divan, smoking his pipe, and pa.s.s his days in floating to the ceiling his theories of high and moral art! An ideal picture!

He also was in favor of prompt action in respect to the marriage. As little noise as possible. The least hitch and all was lost. What a pity!