Part 28 (1/2)

”Stop,” said Sulpice.

He desired to tread on the russet-colored bramble.

”You will tear my gown,” said Marianne. ”The bramble clings too tightly.”

Then he stooped, gently removed the thorn, and Marianne, her bosom turned toward him and half-stooping, looked at that man--a minister--almost kneeling before her in this wood.

He cast the bramble away from him.

”There,” he said.

”Thanks.”

As he rose, he felt Marianne's fresh breath on his forehead. It fell on his face, as sweet as new-mown hay. He became very pale and looked at her with so penetrating an expression that she blushed slightly--from pleasure, perhaps,--and until they reached the carriage where her coachman was still sleeping, they said nothing further, fearing that they had both said too much.

At the moment when she entered her carriage, Sulpice, suddenly, with an effort at boldness, said to her, as he leaned over the door:

”I must see you again, Marianne.”

”What is the use?” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on his.

”Where shall I see you?” he asked, without replying to her question.

”I do not know--at my house--”

”At your house?”

”Wait,” she added abruptly, ”I will write to you.”

”You promise me?”

”On my word of honor. At the ministry, _Personal_, isn't that so?”

”Yes!--Ah! you are very good!” he cried, without knowing what he was saying, while Marianne's coachman whipped his horses and the carriage disappeared in the direction of Paris.

It seemed to Vaudrey, who remained standing, that little gloved fingers appeared behind the window and that he caught glimpses of a face hidden under a black, dotted veil.

The carriage disappeared in the distance.

”To the ministry!” said the minister, as he got into his carriage.

He stretched himself out as if intoxicated. He looked at all the carriages along the drive of the Bois de Boulogne, the high life was already moving toward the Lake. In caleches, old ladies in mourning appeared with pale nuns, and old men with red decorations stretched out under lap-robes. Pretty girls with pale countenances pierced with bright eyes, like fragments of coal in flour, showed themselves at the doors of the coupes, close to the muzzles of pink-nosed, well-combed, white-haired little dogs. Vaudrey strove to find Marianne amid that throng, to see her again. She was far away.

He thought only of her, while his coupe went down the Avenue des Champs-elysees, bustling with noise and movement and flooded with light.

The coachman took a side street and the carriage disappeared through an open gateway between two high posts surmounted by two lamps, in a pa.s.sage leading to a huge white mansion whose slate roof was ablaze with sunlight. An infantry soldier in red trousers, with a shako on his head, mounted guard and stood motionless beside a brown-painted sentry-box that stood at the right. Above the gateways a new tricolor flag, in honor of the new ministry, waved in the suns.h.i.+ne.

Against the ministerial edifice were two gas fixtures bearing two huge capital letters: R.F., ready to be illuminated on important reception nights.