MONSIEUB LE MINISTRE.
25
ted brusquely,  seeing the expression of
,epenishment on Vaudrey's face.
•   -aught up a handful of the papers she bad
into her open work-box, and said in a
thrown
Tnf angry disgust:
ki»,\?on see theseT?   They :
poi
are all bills from im-
>e creditors—upholsterers,   locksmiths,
rin9 and dear knows what."
"frf; your house?"
«Did you suppose I had paid for it?   It is
¦    r rented and I owe for every article of fur-
°t within its walls."
And she laughed a harsh, unmusical laugh.
¦ * "How do you suppose Kayser's niece can
, [[jgluxurious existence in which you found
ifr? I have not a penny, not a single penny;
m for all that, I was guilty of the inexcusable
<?Uv of ordering all you see around me, and
w they must be paid for. That is the situa-
?-°r. You would insist that I should tell you
" this. These are my troubles, but not yours,
T, j beg your pardou, my dear Vaudrey. Let
Stalls of something else. What took place in
tie Chamber to-day?"
«Let us talk only of yourself, my near Mari-
anne" said the minister, gazing at her with the
affected compassion a physician feels in look-
jog at a patient.
She twisted her fingers nervously and again
heat a feverish tattoo with her foot.
He drew still nearer, trying to calm her, and
to sain some explanation or information from
2 but Marianne—as if she bad merely obeyed
the' impulse of the moment in revealing her
secvet—absolutely refused to say any more.
She repeated that nothing of a sordid or un-
oleasant nature should be allowed to trouble
one's friends. Besides, the secret of her life
ns involved, so she had a right to be silent,
and Yaudrey was only torturing her by his ques-
tions.
"And you, Marianne, torture me still more
hy refusing to answer me, who am interested
in the slightest details of your life, and who
would shrink from nothing to spare you pain."
"She turned hastily toward him, and her gray
eyes, with their golden lights seemed to fairly
dazzle bim, as she exclaimed, as if in obedience
to a sudden and irresistible impulse:
"Then you insist upon knowing the miseries
of my life? So be it. But I warn you that you
will not find the recital very amusing. Then
she paused for a'moment, and Sulpice shivered
under her look.
Ab, whatever this woman might have to tell
him, Vaudrey knew that it could only increase
the love he already felt for her. She had risen
from her chair, and now stood with ber arms
tightly folded over her black dress, with those
dashes of vivid scarlet and her eyes lighting up
her pale face, while her nostrils seemed to quiver
with suppressed anger.
. In this attitude she began to relate to Vau-
drey, who sat looking up at her with adoration
in his gaze, a long, sad story of an unhappy
childhood, unguided adolescence, griefs, errors,
falls, followed by frenzied attempts to return to
the path of virtue and honor, disappointed
hopes, and cruel deceptions—the old story of a
woman's ruined life, but so cruelly true that it
Went straight to Vaudrey's heart, which swelled
with unspeakable pity.
"I weary you, perhaps," she said suddenly.
"Yoa!"
She saw tears in his eyes; a strange light
flashed in hers.
"And that has been my life," she exclaimed.
"I have loved and I have been betrayed. I
trusted blindly, and awoke one fine morning
with this alternative before me: either to fall
neep into the mire as so many others have done,
w to accept a lover—for the world is more in-
digent to success than to repentance. So I
resolved to achieve success at any cost. You,
«course, know Monsieur de Rosas?"
"No," stammered Vaudrey,  before whom
unbearded face of the Duke suddenly rose.
"But you heard him the other evening."
' I mean that I have no personal acquaint-
ance with him.   Well, what of Monsieur de
Kosas?"
"Monsieur de Rosas loved me, at least he
,t ,that he l°veu me- He was rich. Why
™tild I not accept him as my lover? It was
10entertain him that I committed the folly of
«CKleasly ordering these things."
And Monsieur de Rosas?" asked Vaudrey,
, He?" said Marianne, with a nervous laugh;
lewent away, I have already told you that,
¦m Perhaps it was all for the best.    I regretted
«for
a moment, but I should have soon sent
him away without even having allowed him to
touch the tips of my fingers. And do you
know why I should have done so?"
"No," Sulpice answered, trembling violently.
" Simply because I did not love him, and I
loved another."
She uttered these last words slowly, and in a
tone that sent a delicious thrill through Vau-
drey's veins.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, springing to her side,
"was that the reason? Tell me, Marianne,
was that truly the reason?"
She had not said that she loved him; only
her eyes had spoken, but that was enough.
Clasping her close in a passionate embrace, he
whispered:
"Do you not know that I adore you, Mari-
anne? Is it true? Do you love me? Ah, do
you not think that I can do all this great noble-
man did not do? You are in your own house
here, your own home, Marianne. Do you un-
derstand me?"
Then, with his lips close to her delicate ear,
he added, softly:
"In our home; ours, if you will."
He felt the exquisite form tremble in his close
embrace, as his lips wandered from her ear to
her cheek, and from her cheek to her lips,
where they lingered in along, bewildering kiss,
until she smilingly disengaged herself, all
flushed with joy. Then, with sparkling eyes,
and an expression of strange delight on her
lovely face, she exclaimed:
" The compact is sealed now."
Never before had Sulpice experienced an emo-
tion as intoxicating as that whicli now over-
whelmed him. It was a complete abandonment,
a total forgetfulness of everything. He forgot
the assembly, the public, even his home, where
Adrienne sat by the window awaiting him.
With the strange fatuity of all fickle and extreme-
ly susceptible persons, it seemed to him that his
horizon was now bounded by the silk-hung
walls of this dainty drawing-room.
Then a feeling of pride took passession of his
heart. He experienced a feeling of intense
satisfaction at the thought that he, an obscure
citizen of Grenoble, had taken the woman from
a Duke, and could pay the obligations she had
contracted like some great nobleman. A feel-
ing of gratified vanity made him straighten him-
self up proudly.
" What shall I do to silence these creditors?"
he said to Marianne, whose hands he still held.
"Nothing," she replied.    " Your promise is
sufficient.    Now I am safe ; and if they do not
believe me when I tell them their claims shall
be settled------"
"They shall believe youl" cried Vaudrey.
"We must devise some means to convince
them. No one will refuse to loan me money."
It would seem that Marianne had only waited
for this opportunity to tell Vaudrey that Claire
Dujarrier, an old friend, was well acquainted
with a certain Adolphe Gochard, who had one
hundred thousand francs which he was ready
to loan on good security. It would suffice to
give Gochard a note for one hundred thousand
francs, payable in three months, at only five per
cent, interest, for this Gochard was a very hon-
est capitalist, not a usurer by any means, and
Marianne would have taken advantage of his
offer before if she had been able to fix upon any
time for paying the note.
"Where does this Monsieur Gochard live?"
asked Vaudrey, abruptly.
"Oh, it would not be necessary for you to
see him," was Marianne's quick reply. "Ma-
dame Dujarrier can easily obtain the money for
me."
"One hundred thousand francs, payable in
three months," Vaudrev said to himself. ' ' There
can be no possible difficulty in making that
amount in a place like Paris." Besides, there
w.as his private fortune, and the estate in Dau-
phiny; and, if necessary, he could mortgage the
farm at Saint-Laurent du Pont without letting
Adrienne know anything about it.
"Monsieur de Rosas would not have hesi-
tated but there would be no special merit in
that in a man of his wealth," remarked Mile.
Kayser.                              .       , , .               .j
The name and recollection of this man acted
upon Vaudrey as a spur, and decided him.
That wealthy nobleman evidently would not
bave waited long before releasing this woman
from the clutches of her creditors. One hun-
dred thousand francs would have been nothing
to him. Ah, well, be, Vaudrey, would give it
to her as the Spaniard would have clone. He
could ' obtain   the   money  in less than three
months.    It is true, he scarcely knew how, but
that did not matter.
" Have you a pen, Marianne?"
" What do you wish to do, mon amit"
The name of a minister will be all that i»
necessary, I think," he said, smiling.
And he began to write.
" What was the name? Gochard?" he asked.
Pale with anxiety, she looked over his shoul-
der and spelled :
"Adolphe Gochard.    Go-c-h-a-r-d."
"There!" he   exclaimed,  handing her   the
folded sheet.
"I wish to know what you have written here.
I will not consent------"
She made a movement as if to tear the paper
in two, but he checked her.
" No," said he, " I insist upon your keeping
this. It is the best answer you can make to
these people.    Trust me."
" You insist?" said Marianne, gently.
"Absolutely. It is pure selfishness," he
added. " I wish to feel â little at home here."
He seized her soft, dimpled hands and lifted
them to his lips, then covered her face, throat
and mouth with passionate kisses, while Mari-
anne, still holding the paper the minister had
just signed, said laughingly, as she feebly de-
fended herself:
"Enough, enough! Oh, what a big baby!
You will not leave any for another time."
He left this house so thoroughly impregnated
with penetrating perfumes, dizzy and bewil-
dered, threw himself into the fiacre that was in
waiting, and ordered the coachman to leave
him at a place only about half way to the min-
isterial mansion.
As soon as Marianne was alone she glanced
at the lines he had so hastily penned, and a
smile of gratified vanity curved her lips.
"I will give Monsieur Adolphe Gochard my
note, payable in three months, if he will con-
sent to advance the money desired by Mademoi-
selle Kayser!"
Madame Dujarrier was right!" she said to
herself. "Men are easy victims to a woman's
wiles."
With a a slight shake of the head, and the
smile still on her lips, she opened one of the
drawers of the little Italian cabinet, and placed
in it the carefully folded paper upon wliich the
minister had written his name. She knew this
signature was equivalent to so mucli money,
a thousand times more valuable than the little
pile of gold remaining there. Then, returning
slowly to her arm chair, she sunk into it, and
with her hands clasped above her head and her
eyes fixed on the ceiling, she began to indulge
in roseate dreams of the future.
She was as thoroughly mistress of herself as
Vaudrey was dazzled and bewildered. It
seemed to him that his brain was on fire. He
saw a host of future joys awaiting him. It was
delightful to be powerful ; but it was far better
to be loved. Still, the utmost confusion reigned
in his mind. It seemed to him he could still
hear Denis Ramel talking, then Marianne's
smiling face suddenly appeared before bim in
the glass of the carriage window, like a half-
faded pastel smiling from its frame.
He was glad to have a walk before him when
the carriage deposited him on the asphalt that
surrounds the Madeleine. The air did him
good. He instinctively straightened himself
up, and expanded his chest. It seemed to him
that he attracted a great deal of attention, and
that people he met turned to look at him.
He was not so well pleased when he reached
home. The papers and dispatches that awaited
him, the public business that was to be trans-
acted, seemed most distasteful to him in his
present mood, for he was still with Marianne
in spirit, her attitude and her smile still haunted
him, the caressing tones of her voice still lin-
gered in his ears. He did not go to his cabinet
at once. Strange to say, he was anxious to see
Adrienne. There was perhaps some remorse
in this eagerness. It is quite possible he wished
to convince himself that he had caused her no
suffering, and to atone for his infidelity by re-
doubling his affectionate attentions.
Adrienne was in her private parlor. Sulpice
heard voices through the half open door.
"Hasmadame a visitor?" he inquired of the
servant.                               ^r     .
"Yes, your Excellency, Monsieur de Lissac.
Pushing open the door Vaudrey entered tho
room, and cordially extended his hand to his
friend, exclaiming: "You were very kind to
come." Guy had risen to take leave, and was
standing with his hat in his hand.    Vaudrey
' 4)4 i