Her intimate friend, pretty Madame Gerson, who assisted her in doing the honors of her salon until the time when she herself would have a rival salon and take Sabine's guests away from her, sought in vain to comfort her by assuring her that Pichereau would be sure to come. He had promised to do so. He was a sincere man, and his word could be relied on. He would, moreover, bring his former colleagues from the Departments of Public Instruction, and Post and Telegraph. He had promised. Oh! yes, Pichereau! Pichereau, however, mattered very little to Sabine now! Ex-ministers, indeed! she could always have enough of them. It was not that kind that she wanted. She did not care about her salon being called the Invalides as that of a rival was called the Salon des Refuseès. No, certainly not, that was something she would never consent to.
Granet's impatience had upset all her plans.
So Madame Marsy, side by side in her box with Madame Gerson, whose dark, brilliant beauty set off her own fair beauty, had listened with a bored and sulky manner to the first act of L'Africaine, while Monsieur Gerson conversed timidly, half under his breath, with Guy de Lissac, who made the fourth occupant of the box.
At the end of the second act, however, Lissac suddenly caught sight of Vaudrey's smiling countenance beside Granet's waxed moustaches in the manager's box.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "there is Vaudrey!"
Madame Marsy, however, had already caught sight of him. She turned her opera-glass upon the new Cabinet Minister, whose carefully arranged blonde beard was parted in the middle and spread out in two light tufts over his white necktie, his silky moustaches turned jauntily upwards against his fleshy cheeks. Sabine, continuing to look at the newcomer through her glass, saw as he moved within the shadow of the box, this man of forty, with a very agreeable and still youthful face, and as he leaned over the edge of the box to look at the audience, she noted that he had a slight bald spot on the top of his skull between the fair tufts that adorned the sides of his head.
"Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly, "I thought that he was a dark man."
"No, no," answered Lissac, "on the contrary, he was a fair, handsome youth when we both studied law here in Paris together."
Madame Marsy, as if she had been touched by an electric spark, turned quickly round on her chair to look at Guy, displaying to him as she did so, a lovely face, surmounting the most beautiful shoulders imaginable.
"What! you know the minister so intimately?"
"Very intimately."
"Then, my dear Lissac, you can do me the greatest favor. No, I do not ask you to do it, I insist on it."
Over the pretty Andalusian features of Madame Gerson, a mocking smile played.
"I have guessed it," she exclaimed.
"And so have I," said Lissac. "You wish me to present the new Minister of the Interior to you? You have a friend you want appointed to a prefecture."
"Not at all. I only want him to take Pichereau's place at my reception. My dear Lissac, my kind Lissac," she continued in dulcet tones, and clasping her little gloved hands entreatingly, like a child begging for a toy, "persuade Monsieur Vaudrey to accept this invitation of mine and you will be a love, you understand, Lissac, a love!"
But Guy had already risen and with a touch of his thumb snapping out his crush hat, he opened the door of the box, saying to Sabine as he did so:
"Take notice that I ask nothing in return for this favor!"
Madame Marsy began to laugh.
"Ah!" she cried, "that is discreet, but I am willing to subscribe to any condition!"
"Selika is cold beside you," said Lissac as he disappeared through the open doorway, "I will bring you your minister in ten minutes."
Sabine waited nervously. The curtain had just fallen on the third act. The manager's box was empty. Guy would doubtless be obliged to rejoin Vaudrey, and neither the minister nor his friend would be seen again. Just then some one knocked at the door of the box. Monsieur Gerson, overcome by fatigue, and weary as only a man can be who is dragged against his will night after night to some place of amusement, was dozing in the rear of the box. At a word from his wife he got up and hastened to open the door. It proved to be an artist, an old friend of Philippe Marsy, who came to invite Sabine to his studio to "admire" his Envoy that he had just finished for the Salon. Sabine received him graciously, and promised him somewhat stiffly that she would do so. She tapped impatiently with her fan upon her fingers as the orchestra began to play the prelude to the fourth act. It was quite certain that Lissac had failed in his mission.
Suddenly, in the luminous space made by the open door, Guy's elegant figure appeared for a moment, disappearing immediately to allow a man to pass who entered, smiling pleasantly, and at whom a group of people, standing in the lobby behind, were gazing. He bowed as Lissac said to Sabine:
"Allow me, madame, to present to you His Excellency the Minister of the Interior."
Sabine, suddenly beaming with joy, saw no one but Sulpice Vaudrey amongst the group of men in dress-clothes who gave way to allow the dignitary to pass. She had eyes only for him!
She arose, pushing back her chair instinctively, as the Minister entered, Monsieur and Madame Gerson standing at one side and Sabine on the other and bowing to him—Sabine triumphant, Madame Gerson curious, Monsieur Gerson flattered though sleepy.
Sulpice seated himself at Madame Marsy's side, with the amiable condescension of a great man charmed to play the agreeable, and to visit, at the solicitation of a friend, a fair woman whom all the world delighted to honor. It seemed to him to put the finishing touch to that success and power which had been his only a few days.
He went quite artlessly and by instinct wherever he might have the chance to inhale admiring incense. It seemed to him as if he were swimming in refreshing waters. Everything delighted him. He wished to be obliging to every one. It seemed to him but natural that a woman of fashion like Sabine should wish to meet him and offer him her congratulations, as he himself, without knowing her, should desire to listen to her felicitations. To speak in complimentary terms was as natural to him as to listen to the compliments of others.
He delighted in the atmosphere of adulation which surrounded him, these two pretty women who smiled upon him with a gratitude so impressive, pleased him. Sabine appeared especially charming to him when, speaking with the captivating grace of a Parisian, she said:
"I hardly know how to thank my friend Monsieur de Lissac for inducing you to listen to the entreaties of one who solicits—"
"Solicits, madame?" said the minister with an eagerness which seemed already to answer her prayer affirmatively.
"I hope your Excellency will consent to honor with your presence a reunion of friends at my house—a reunion somewhat trivial, for this occasion, but clever enough."
"A reunion?" replied Vaudrey, still smiling.
"Monsieur de Lissac has not told you then, what my hopes are?"
"We are too old friends, Lissac and I, for him not to allow me the pleasure of hearing from your own lips, madame, in what way I may be of service to you, or to any of your friends."
Sabine smiled at this well-turned phrase uttered in the most gallant tone.
Who then, could have told her that Vaudrey was a provincial? An intimate enemy or an intimate friend. But he was not at all provincial. On the contrary, Vaudrey was quite charming.
"Monsieur de Rosas has had the kindness, your Excellency, to promise to come to my house next Saturday