He would then smile at her, and look earnestly into the depths of the timid creature's lovely blue eyes, causing her to blush as if ashamed of having seemed to be witty.
Her chief aim was to be the devoted, loving friend of this man whom she thought so superior to herself, and although she was totally ignorant of political intrigues, she was by virtue of the mere instinct of love, his best and most perspicacious adviser and felt delighted only when Vaudrey, by chance, listened to her counsel.
"I love you so dearly!" she confessed with the unlimited candor of a poor creature who has but a single affection, a single pretext for loving.
He saw in the life he led, only the penumbra: his neglected youth, his hopes fled, his fears, the disgust which at times filled him as he thought of the never-ending recommencements and trickeries of political life. So dearly cherished, so beloved, it seemed to him, nevertheless, that his life lacked something. He would have liked a child, a son to bring up, a domestic tie, since political conditions prevented him from accomplishing a civic duty. Ah! yes, a son, a being to mould, a brow to kiss, a soul to fashion after the image of his own, a child who would not know all the sorrows of life that his own generation had laid on him! Perhaps it was only a child that he needed. Something, however, he evidently lacked.
Still he smiled, always in love with that young woman of twenty-four years, delicate, slender, and full of the fears and artlessness of a child. Accustomed to the quiet solitude of the house of her guardian, she, when at Paris, in her husband's study, arranging his books, his papers, his legislative plans and reports, sought to surround her dear Sulpice with the comforting felicity of bourgeois happiness that was enjoyed calmly, like a cordial sipped at the fireside.
Then suddenly one day, the news of a startling political change broke in on this household.
Sulpice reached home one evening at one and the same time nervous, anxious, and happy.
His name was on almost every lip, in connection with a ministerial combination. His last speech on domestic policy had more than ever brought him into prominence and he was considered to have boldly contributed to the development of a fearful crisis.
A minister! he might, before the morning, be a minister! His policy was triumphant.
The advocate Collard—of Nantes—who was pointed out as the future head of the Cabinet, was one of his intimate friends. It was suggested—positively—that Sulpice should be intrusted with one of the most important portfolios, that of the Interior or of Foreign Affairs, the lesser portfolios being considered those of Public Instruction and of Agriculture and Commerce, the former of which concerns itself with the spiritual welfare of the people, and the latter with their food supply.
Sulpice told all this to Adrienne while eating his dinner mechanically and without appetite.
There was to be a meeting of his coterie at eight o'clock. It was already seven. He hurried.
Adrienne saw that he was very pale. She experienced a strange sensation, evidently a joyful one although mingled with anxiety. Politics drew him away from his wife so frequently, and for so long a time, that she was already compelled to live in such solitude that the secluded creature wondered if in future she would not be condemned to still greater isolation. But all anxiety disappeared under the influence of Sulpice's manifest joy. He was feverishly impatient. It seemed to him that never had he known so decisive a moment in his life.
The sound of the bell, suddenly ringing out its clear note in the silence, caused him to start.
The dining-room door was opened by a servant, who handed a letter to Vaudrey, bearing on one corner of the envelope the word: Urgent.
Sulpice recognized the writing.
It was from Collard of Nantes.
Adrienne saw her husband's cheek flush as he read this letter, which Sulpice promptly handed her, while his eyes sparkled with delight.
"It is done! Read!"
Adrienne turned pale.
Collard notified his "colleague" that the ministerial combination of which he was the head had succeeded. The President awaited at the Élysée the arrival of the new ministers. He tendered Vaudrey the portfolio of the Interior.
"A minister!" said Adrienne, now overcome with delight.
Vaudrey had risen and, a little uneasy, was mechanically searching for something, still holding his napkin in his hand.
"My hat," he said. "My overcoat. A carriage."
Adrienne, with her hands clasped in a sort of childish admiration, looked at him as if he had become suddenly transformed. All his being, in fact, expressed complete satisfaction. He embraced Adrienne almost frantically, kissed her again and again, and left her, then descended the staircase with the speed of a lover hastening to a rendezvous.
This political honeymoon was still at its height at the moment when the delighted Vaudrey, seeing everything rosy-hued, was satisfying his astonished curiosity in the greenroom of the ballet. He entered office, animated by all the good purposes inspired by absolute faith. It seemed to him that he was about to save the world, to regenerate the government, and to destroy abuses.
"It is very difficult to become a minister," he said, smiling, "but nothing is easier than to be a great minister. It only demands a determination to do good!"
"And the power to do it," replied his friend Granet, somewhat ironically.
What! power? Nothing was more simple, since Vaudrey held the reins of power!—If others wrecked the hopes of their friends, it was because they had not dared, because they had not the will!
They would now see what he would do himself! Not to-morrow either, nor in a month—but at once.
He entered the ministry boldly, like a good-natured despot, determined to reform, study and rearrange everything; and a victim to the feverish and glorious zeal of a neophyte, he was a little surprised to encounter, at the very outset, the obstinate resistance of routine, ignorance, and the unyielding mechanism of that vast machine, more eternal than empires: Ad-min-is-tra-tion.
Bah! he would have satisfaction! Patience would overcome all. After all, time is on one's side.
"Time? Already!" replied Granet, who was a perpetual scoffer.
Adrienne, overwhelmed with surprise, enjoyed the reflections from the golden aurora of power that so sweetly tinted Sulpice's life. She shared her husband's triumphs without haughtiness, and now, however she might love her domestic life, it was incumbent upon her to pass more of her time in society than formerly, to show herself, as Sulpice said, and, surrounded by the success and flattery she enjoyed, she felt that that obligation was only an added joy, whose contentment she reflected on her husband.
When she entered a salon, she was greeted with a flattering murmur of admiration and good-natured curiosity. The women looked at her and the men surrounded her.
"Madame Vaudrey?"
"The minister's wife!"
"Charming!"
"Quite young!"
"Somewhat provincial!"
"So much the more attractive!"
"That is true, as fresh as a peach!"
She endeavored to atone by a gracious, very sincere modesty, for the enviable position in which chance had suddenly placed her. It was said of her that she accepted a compliment as timidly as a boarding-school miss receives a prize. They forgave her for retaining her rosy cheeks because of her white and exquisitely shaped hands. She was not considered to be "trop de Grenoble." Witty people called her the pretty Dauphinoise, and the flatterers the little Dauphine.
In short, her success was great! So said the chroniclers; the entrance of a fashionable woman into a salon being daily compared with that of an actress on the stage.
It