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Rosas, who perhaps is her lover, but will be her husband if she wishes it! and she does!" Poor Sulpice looked at Lissac with a terrified expression which might have been comic, did it not in its depth portray a genuine sorrow. He was oblivious to everything now, where he was, if Guy spoke too loudly, or if Adrienne could hear. He was only conscious of a terrible strain of his mind.
While the little young men smiled, approved and loudly applauded, the old ambassador to whom the interests of a people were entrusted, hummed in a low tone, amid the noise of the reception: "Aoh! aoh! Je suis mélède, Bien mélède! Très mélède!" Guy de Lissac shrugged his shoulders. He had heard a great deal of this man. This diplomat of the chansonnette evoked his pity. Where was he then?
Assuredly, beyond all possible doubt, she had heard everything. She was there! she heard! She said nothing, but moved a step forward, upheld by a terrible effort. Her look was that of a whipped child, of a poor creature terrified and in despair, and expressed not anger but entire collapse. She was so wan, so sad-looking, that neither Lissac nor Vaudrey dared speak.
She saw that Sulpice was growing weary, and took advantage of the first opportunity to whisper to him: "Would you like to go?" "Yes, let us go!" he said. He sought Lissac and repeated to him that he would have something to say to him, and Guy bowed to the Minister and Madame Vaudrey, who left too early to please the Gersons.
Was Guy mad to speak of Marianne aloud in this way, and in this place, a few feet away from his wife, who could hear everything? Yes, Lissac was over-excited, furious and apparently crazy. He did not lower his tone, in spite of the sudden terror expressed by Vaudrey, who seized his hand and said to him eagerly: "Why, keep quiet! Suppose some one is listening?"
Crabot, a little man with the profile of a weasel, slowly mounted the box beside the coachman, and the Commissioner of Police took his seat next to Lissac, who had nervously plucked the rosette of the Portuguese Order of Christ from his buttonhole. "What!" he said. "Really, then, it is for this? Because I wear this ribbon without having paid five or six louis into the Chancellery?
Guy de Lissac shook through his entire frame, as he too heard it. "Monsieur Simon Kayser and Mademoiselle Kayser!" cried the usher. Still another name rang out from that clarion voice: "Monsieur le Duc de Rosas!" Neither Vaudrey nor Adrienne heard this name. Sulpice felt urged to rush toward Marianne to entreat her to leave. It is true, he had invited her.
Sabine finally thanked him by a gracious smile: her small gloved hand raised the window of the coupé, and the carriage was driven off rapidly, amid the din of horses' hoofs. "Good-bye," said Lissac to Vaudrey. "Cannot I offer you a seat in my carriage?" "Thank you, but I am not two steps away from the Rue d'Aumale." Vaudrey turned towards Madame Gerson; she and her husband bowed low.
Whatever discretion the prefect employed, Guy was near enough to him to hear the name of Marianne Kayser, which surprised him. Marianne! what question of Marianne could there be between these two men? Lissac observed that Vaudrey suddenly became very pale. He drew still nearer, pretending to finish a cup of coffee while standing.
You do not object to that?" "On the contrary! A republic cannot be founded without the aid of women." "Ah!" cried Lissac, laughing. "Politics and honors have not changed you, I see." "Changed me? With the exception that I have twenty years over my head, and alas! not so much hair as I had then upon it, I am the same as I was in 1860." "Hôtel Racine! Rue Racine!" said Lissac.
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