Chapter 11

"And has she loved you--a little?"

"Not at all."

"That is not what she has just told me."

"Ah!" said Lissac, as he threw away his cigar. "You spoke of me, then?"

"She told me that she believed she loved you sincerely."

"That is just what I had the pleasure of telling you."

"And--Marianne?--"

"Marianne?" repeated Lissac, who perfectly understood the question from De Rosas's hesitation.

"My dear friend, when a man feels sufficiently anxious, or sufficiently weak, or sufficiently smitten, whichever you please, to stake his life on the throw of the dice, he is permitted to put one of those misplaced questions to which I have just referred. Well! you can tell me what, perhaps, none other than I would dare to ask you: Have you been Marianne's lover?"

Before replying, Guy took the arm of the duke in a friendly way, and, leaning upon it, felt that it trembled nervously. Then, touching his hand by chance, he observed that Rosas was in a burning fever.

"My dear fellow, it is the everlasting question of honor between men and of duty to a woman that you put before me. Had I been Marianne's lover, I should be bound to tell you that Marianne had never been my mistress. These falsehoods are necessary. No; I have not been Marianne's lover, but I advise you, if you do not wish to be perfectly miserable, not to seek to become so. You are one of those men who throw their hearts open as wide as a gateway. She is a calculating creature, who pursues, madly enough I admit, without consistency or constancy in her ideas, any plan that she may have in view. She might be flattered to have you as a suitor, as I was, or as a lover, as I have been assured others were. I do not affirm this, remember; but she will never be moved by your affection. She is a pure Parisian, and is incapable of loving you as you deserve, but you could not deceive her, as they say she has been."

"Deceived?" asked Rosas, in a tone of pity that struck Lissac.

"Deceived! yes! deceit is the complementary school of love."

"Then--if I loved Marianne?" asked Rosas.

"I would advise you to tell it to her at first, and prove it afterward, and finally to catalogue it in that album whose ashes are sprinkled at the bottom of the marriage gifts."

"You speak of Mademoiselle Kayser as you would speak of a courtesan," said the duke, in a choking voice.

"Ah! I give you my word," said Lissac, "that I should speak very differently of Mademoiselle Alice Aubry, or of Mademoiselle Cora Touchard. I would say to you quite frankly: They are pretty creatures; there is no danger."

"And Marianne, on the contrary, is dangerous."

"Oh! perfectly, for you."

"And why is she not dangerous for you?"

"Why, simply, my dear duke, because I am satisfied to love her as you have hitherto done and because I had, as I told you, the good fortune not to be her lover."

"But you brought her to Madame Marsy's this evening?"

"Oh! her uncle accompanied us, but I was there."

"You offer your arm then to a woman whom, as you have just told me, you consider dangerous?"

"Not for Sabine!--and then, that is a drop of the absinthe, a little of the hasheesh of which I spoke to you. One sees only concessions in Paris, and even when one is dead, one needs a further concession, but in perpetuity. One only becomes one's self"--and Guy's jesting tone became serious,--"when a worthy fellow like you puts one a question that seems terribly like asking advice. Then one answers him, as I have just answered you, and cries out to him: 'Beware!'"

"I thank you," said Rosas, suddenly stopping short on the pavement. "You treat me like a true friend."

"And if I seem to you to be too severe," added Lissac, smiling, "charge that to the account of bitterness. A man that has loved a woman is never altogether just toward her. If he has ceased to love her, he slights her, if he still loves her, he slanders her. I have perhaps, traduced Marianne, but I have not slighted you, that is certain. Now, take advantage of this gossip. But when?"

"I don't know," replied the duke. "I will write you. I shall perhaps leave Paris!"

"What is that?"

"Just what I say."

"The deuce!" said Lissac. "Do you know that if you were to fly from the danger in question, I should be very uneasy? It would be very serious."

"That would not be a flight. At the most, a caprice," the duke replied.

They separated, less pleased with each other than they were at the commencement of their interview. Lissac felt that in some fashion or other, he had wounded Rosas even in adopting the flippant tone of the lounger, without any malice, and the Spaniard with his somewhat morose nature, retired within himself, almost gloomy, and reproached Guy for the first time for smiling or jesting on so serious a matter.

Discontented with himself, he entered his house. His servant was waiting for him. He brought him a blue envelope on a card-tray.

"A telegram for monsieur le duc."

Rosas tore it open in a mechanical way. It was from one of his London friends, Lord Lindsay, who having learned of Rosas's return, sent him a pressing invitation. If he did not hasten to Paris to welcome him, it was simply because grave political affairs demanded his presence in London.

The duke, while taking off his gloves, looked at the crumpled despatch lying under the lamp. He was, like most travellers, superstitious. Perhaps this despatch had arrived in the nick of time to prevent him from committing some act of folly.

But what folly?

He still felt Marianne's kiss on his lips, burning like ice. To-morrow,--in a few hours,--his first thought, his only thought would be to find that woman again, to experience that voluptuous impression, that dream that had penetrated his heart. A danger, Lissac had said. The feline eyes of Marianne had a dangerous ardor; but it was their charm, their strength and their adorable seductiveness, that filtered like a flame through her long, fair lashes.

He closed his eyes to picture Mademoiselle Kayser, to inhale the atmosphere, to enjoy something of the perfume surrounding her.

A danger!

Guy was perhaps right. The best love is that which is never gathered, which remains immature, like a blossom in spring that never becomes a fruit. Lord Lindsay's despatch arrived seasonably. It was a chance or a warning.

In any case, what would Rosas risk by passing a few days in London, and losing the burning of that kiss? The sea-breezes would perhaps efface it.

"I am certainly feverish," the duke thought. "It was assuredly necessary to speak to Lissac. It was also necessary to speak to her," he added, in a dissatisfied, anxious, almost angry tone.

A danger!

Lissac had acted imprudently in uttering that word, which addressed to such a man as Rosas, had something alluring about it. What irritated the duke was Guy's reply, asserting that he had not been Marianne's lover, but that Marianne had had other lovers. Others? What did Lissac know of this? A species of jealous frenzy was blended with the feverish desire that Marianne's kiss had injected into Rosas's veins. He would have liked to know the truth, to see Marianne again, to urge Guy to further confidences. And, then, he felt that he would rather not have come, not have seen her again, not have gone to Sabine's.

"Well, so be it! Lord Lindsay is right, I will go."

The following morning, Guy de Lissac found in his mail a brief note, sealed with the arms of the duke, with the motto: _Hasta la muerte_.

José wrote to him as he was leaving Paris:

"You are perhaps right. I am a little intoxicated with _Parisine_. I am going to London to visit a friend and if I ever recount my voyages there, it will only be to the serious-minded members of the Geographical Society. There, at least, there is no 'danger.' With many thanks and until we meet again.

"Your friend, "J. DE R----"

"Plague on it," said Lissac, who read the letter three times, "but our dear duke is badly bitten! _Ohimé!_ Marianne Kayser has had a firm and sure tooth this time!--We shall see!--" he added, as he broke the seal of another letter, containing a request for a loan on the part of someone richer than himself.

VII

The soirée at Sabine Marsy's had caused Vaudrey to feel something like the enervation that follows intoxication. The next morning he awoke with his head heavy, after a night of feverish sleep, interrupted by sudden starts, wherein he saw that pretty, fair girl standing before him devouring sherbet and smiling gayly.

Every morning since he had been at the ministry, Sulpice had experienced a joyous sensation at finding himself again on his feet and rejoicing in life. He paced about his apartments, feeling a sort of physical delight, opening his window and looking out on the commonplace garden through which so many ministers had passed and which he called, as so many before him had done: _My garden_. His thoughts took him back then to that little convent garden at Grenoble. What a distance he had travelled since then! and how good it was to live!

That morning, on the contrary, the black and bare trees in the garden appeared to him to be very gloomy. He felt morose. He had been awakened early so that the despatches from the provinces might be laid before him. The information in them was quite insignificant. But then his spirit was not present. Once again he was at Sabine's, beside Marianne, so lovely in her sky-blue gown, and with her wavy locks.

If he had been free, he would have gladly sought the opportunity to see that woman again as soon as the morning commenced. He felt a kind of infantile joy in being thus perturbed and haunted. It seemed to him that this emotion made him feel younger. Formerly, on awakening, the dream of the night had followed him like some intoxication.

Formerly! but "formerly" he was not the important man, the distinguished personage of to-day.--He had not the charge of power as some others have the charge of souls. A minister has something else to do than to be under the sway of a vision. Sulpice dressed hurriedly, went down to his office, where a huge log-fire flamed behind an antique screen. He sat down in front of his large mahogany bureau, covered with papers, and on which was lying a huge black portfolio stuffed with documents bearing this title in stamped letters: _Monsieur le Ministre de l'Intérieur_. In the centre of the bureau had been placed a leather portfolio filled with sheets of paper bearing the title: _Documents to be signed by Monsieur le Ministre_. Beside this were spread out various reports, bearing upon one corner of the sheet a printed headline: _Office of the Prefect of Police_ and _Director-General of the Press_.

Vaudrey settled down in his chair with the profound satisfaction of a man who has not grown weary of an acquired possession. This huge salon with its blackened pictures, cold marbles, and large, severe-looking bookcases, presented a sober bourgeois harmony that pleased him. It was like the salon of a well-to-do notary, with its tall windows overlooking the courtyard, already full of the shadows of importunate callers and favor seekers whom the secretary-general received in a room adjoining the ministerial cabinet. The minister inhaled once more the atmosphere of his new domicile before settling down to work. Every morning it was his custom to read the reports of the Director of the Press and of the Prefect of Police before all else.

He took up the report of the Prefect. Nothing serious. A slight accident on the Vincennes line near the fortifications of Paris. A train derailed. A few injured. In the Passage de l'Opéra, the previous evening, the early speech of the Minister of the Interior upon general policy, and that of the Finance Minister, who was to reply to the rumor, falsely or prematurely announcing the conversion of the five per cents, had caused an upward movement in value. All was satisfactory, all was quiet. The new minister enjoyed public confidence. Perfect.

Sulpice was delighted and passed on to the report of the Director of the Press. Except a small number of disgruntled and irreconcilable party journals, all the French and foreign papers warmly praised and supported the newly-created ministry. The _Times_ declared that the coalition perfectly met the requirements of the existing situation. The Berlin papers did not take umbrage at it, although Monsieur Vaudrey had more than once declared his militant patriotism from the tribune. "In short," the daily report concluded, "there is a concert of praise, and public opinion is delighted to have finally secured a legitimate satisfaction through the choice of a homogeneous ministry, such as has long been desired."

"What strange literature," muttered Sulpice, almost audibly, as he threw the report with the other documents.

He recalled how, on that morning when Sulpice Vaudrey sat there for the first time, the morning following Pichereau's sudden dismissal from office, the editor of this daily press bulletin, like an automaton, mechanically and indifferently laid on the table of the minister a report wherein he said in full:

"Public opinion, by the mouth of the accepted journals, has for too long a time reposed confidence in the Pichereau administration, for the ministry to be troubled about the approaching and useless interpellation announced some days ago by Monsieur Vaudrey--of Isère--."

And it was to Vaudrey, the elected successor of Pichereau, that the report was handed naturally and as was due.

"The compilers of these little chronicles are very optimistic," thought Sulpice. "After all, probably, it is the office that is responsible for this, as, doubtless, ministers do not like to know the truth. I will see, however, that I get it."

He had, this time, a burdensome morning. Prefects were arriving by the main entrance to the ministry, the vast antechambers on the left; and friends, more intimate suitors, waited on the right, elbowing the ushers, in order to have their cards handed to the secretary-general or to the minister. There were some who, in an airy sort of way, said: "Monsieur Vaudrey," in order to appear to be on familiar terms.

Sulpice felt himself attacked on both sides at once; blockaded in his office; and he despatched the petitioners with all haste, extending his hand to them, smiling, cheerfully making them promises, happy to promise them, but grieved in principle to see humbug depicted on the human face. From time to time, in the midst of his ministerial preoccupations and conversations, the disturbing smile of Marianne suddenly appeared like a flash of lightning in a storm; and though shaking his head, to give the appearance of listening and understanding, the minister was in reality far away, near a brilliant buffet and watching a silver spoon glide between two rosy lips.

In that procession, which was to be a daily one, of petitioners, of deputies urging appointments in favor of their constituents, asking the removal of mayors, the decoration of election agents, harassing the minister with recommendations and petitions which, although couched in a humble tone, always veiled a threat, Vaudrey did not often have to do with his friends. It was a wearisome succession of lukewarm friends or recognized enemies, who rallied around a successful man. This man, although a minister for so short a time, had already a vague, disquieting impression that the administration was the property of a great number of clients, always the same, frequenters of these corridors, guests in these antechambers, well known to the ushers, and who, whoever the minister might be, had the same access and the same influence with the ministry.

There were some whom the clerks saluted in a familiar way, as if they were old acquaintances: intrepid office-seekers, unmoved by any changes in ministerial combinations. Such entered Vaudrey's cabinet in a deliberate, familiar manner, and as if feeling at home. Sulpice had once heard one of them greet an usher by his first name: "Good-morning, Gustave."

The minister asked Gustave: "Who is that gentleman?" The usher replied, with a tinge of respect in his tone: "It is one of our visitors, Monsieur le Ministre, Monsieur Eugène Renaudin. We call him only Monsieur _Eugène_. We have known him a long time."

This "Monsieur Eugène" had already petitioned for a prefecture, or a sub-prefecture, or--it mattered little--whatever place the minister might choose to give him.

His claims? None: he was an office-seeker.

The minister was already overwhelmed by this vulgar procession of petitioners and intermediaries, when an usher brought him a card bearing this name: _Lucien Granet_.

In the Chamber it was thought that Granet did not like Vaudrey too well, and Sulpice vaguely scented in him a candidate for his office. The more reason, then, that he should make himself agreeable.

"What does he want?" the minister thought.

This Granet was, moreover, a typical politician; by the side of the minister of to-day, he was the inevitable minister of to-morrow, the positive reformer, the man appointed to cleanse the Augean stables, whose coming, it was said, would immediately mark the end of all abuses, great and small.

"Ah! when Granet is minister!"

The artist without a commission consoled himself with the prospect of the Granet ministry. He would decorate the monuments when Granet became minister. The actress who looked with longing eyes toward the Comédie Française, and dreamed of playing in Molière, had her hopes centered in Granet. Granet promised to every actress an engagement at the Rue de Richelieu. _I am waiting for the Granet ministry!_ was the consolatory reflection, interrupted by sighs, of the licentiates in law. Meanwhile those office-seekers danced attendance on Granet, and their smile was worth to the future Excellency all the sweets of office.

Granet had thus everywhere a host of clients, women and men, sighing for his success, working to bring about his ministry, intriguing in advance for his advent, and working together for his glory.

"Ah! if Granet were in power!"

"Such abuses would not exist under a Granet ministry!"

"All will be changed when Granet becomes minister!"

"That dear Granet! that good Granet! Long live Granet!"

Vaudrey was not ignorant of the fact that for some time past, Lucien Granet had been manoeuvring for his appointment to any office whatever, the most important obtainable. He was within an ace of becoming a member of the last Ministerial Coalition. He might have been Vaudrey's colleague instead of his rival. Sulpice was as glad to have him as an opponent in the Chamber as a colleague in the ministerial council. He was, however, not an adversary to be trifled with. Granet was a power in himself.

"Well!" said the minister to Granet, who entered smiling, and with a very polite greeting, "you come then to inspect your future office? Already!--"

"I?" said Granet, who did his best to be agreeable, "God prevent me from thinking of this department. It is too well filled."

"That is very gallant, my dear Granet."

"Far from disputing your portfolio, I come, on the contrary, to give you some advice as to strengthening your already excellent position."

"Advice from you, my dear colleague, should be excellent. Let us hear it."

"My dear minister, it is about the appointment of an Under Secretary of State for the Interior. Well! I have come to urge the claims of my friend, our colleague Warcolier."

While speaking, Granet, who was seated near the bureau of the minister, with his hat on his knee, was watching Vaudrey through his eyeglass; he saw that his lips twitched slightly as he hesitated before replying.

"But I am bound to Jacquier--of l'Oise," Vaudrey said abruptly.

Granet smiled. Certainly Jacquier would be a most excellent choice. He was a cool, solid and remarkable man. But he had little influence with the Chamber, frequented society rarely, was morose and exclusive, while Warcolier was a most amiable man, an excellent speaker and one who was well-known in the Chamber. He was a fine orator. He was highly esteemed by the Granet group.

"My personal friend, too, my dear minister. You would, I assure you, displease me if you did not support Warcolier this morning at the Ministerial Council, at which the nomination of under secretaries should take place. It is this morning, isn't it?"

"Certainly, in an hour's time."

Granet left the minister, repeating with considerable emphasis, which Vaudrey could not fail to remark, that the nomination of Warcolier would be favorably viewed by the majority of the deputies. A hundred times more so than that of Jacquier--of l'Oise.

"Jacquier is a bear. They don't like bears," said Granet, tapping his thumb lightly with his eyeglass.

He left Vaudrey out of humor, and very much disgusted at finding that Warcolier had already exploited the field.

In truth, Vaudrey liked Warcolier as little as he did Granet. Warcolier took life easily. He was naturally of a contented disposition. He liked people who were easily pleased. An Imperialist under the Empire, he was now a Republican under the Republic. Epicurean in his tastes, he was agreeable, clever and fond of enjoyment, and he approved of everything that went the way he desired. He sniffed the breeze light-heartedly and allowed it to swell his sail and his self-love. He did not like ill-tempered people, people who frowned or were discontented or gloomy. Having a good digestion, he could not understand the possibility of disordered stomachs. A free-liver, he could not realize that hungry people should ever think of better food. Everything was good; everything was right; everything was beautiful. Of an admirably tranquil disposition, he felt neither anger nor envy. Thinking himself superior to every one else, Warcolier never made comparisons, he did not even prefer himself: he worshipped himself. The world belonged to him, he trod the ground with a firm step, swinging his arms, his paunch smooth, his head erect and his shoulders thrown forward. He seemed to inhale, at every step, the odor of triumph. He was not the man to compromise with a defeated adversary.

Of Warcolier's literary efforts, people were familiar with his _History of Work and Workers_ that he had formerly dedicated to His Majesty Napoléon III. in these flattering terms: "To you, sire, who have substituted for the nobility of birth, that of work, and for the pride of ancestry, that of shedding blood for one's country."

Later, in 1875, Warcolier had re-issued his _History of Work_ and his dedication was anxiously awaited. It did not take him long to get over the difficulty. He dedicated his work to another sovereign: "To the People, who have substituted the nobility of work for that of birth, and that of blood shed for the country for that of blood shed by ancestors."

And that very name which was formerly read at the foot of professions of faith:--_Appeal to Honest People. The Revolution overwhelms us!_ is now found at the foot of proclamations wherein this devil of a Warcolier exclaims:--_Appeal to Good Citizens. Reaction now threatens us!_

This was the man whom Granet and his friends had worked so hard to thrust into the position of Undersecretary of State of the Interior. Vaudrey reserved his opinion on this subject to be communicated to the President by and by.

The hour for the meeting of the Council drew near. Sulpice saw, through the white curtains of the window, his horses harnessed to his coupé and prancing in the courtyard, although it was but a short distance from Place Beauvau to the Élysée. He slipped the reports of the Prefect of Police and the Director of the Press into his portfolio and was about to leave, when the usher brought him another card.

"It is useless, I cannot see any one else."

"But the gentleman said that if the minister saw his name, he would most assuredly see him."

Vaudrey took the card that was extended to him on the tray:

"Jéliotte! He is right. Show him in."