Part 56 (1/2)

”Very well, Monsieur Eugene, I will announce you.” Lissac explained that his visit was not official, he called on a personal matter.

”Is the minister in his apartments?”

”Yes, monsieur, but to-day, you know--”

What was going on to-day, then? Lissac had not noticed, in fact, that a marquee with red stripes was being erected at the entrance to the hotel, and that upholsterers were bringing in wagons benches covered with red velvet with which they were blocking the peristyle. There was a reception at the ministry.

”That will not prevent Monsieur Vaudrey from seeing me,” he said.

One of the messengers opened the doors in front of him and conducted him to the floor above, where Monsieur le Ministre was then resting near the fire and glancing over the papers after breakfast.

He appeared pleased but a little astonished at seeing Lissac.

”Eh! my dear Guy, what a good idea!--Have you arrived already for the soiree? You received your invitation?”

”No,” answered Lissac, ”I have received nothing, or if the invitation arrived, the agents of Monsieur Jouvenet have taken it away with many other things.”

”The agents! what agents?” asked the minister.

He had risen to receive Guy and remained standing in front of the fireplace looking at his friend, who questioned him with his glance to discover if Vaudrey could really be in ignorance as to such a matter.

”Ah, so! but,” said Lissac with trembling voice and in a tone of angry bitterness, ”do you not know then, what takes place in Paris?”

”What is happening?” asked Sulpice, who had turned slightly pale.

”They arrest men for nothing, and keep them in close confinement for two days in order to have time to search their correspondence for a doc.u.ment that compromises certain persons. It is very proper, no doubt; but that smacks too much of romanticism and the Bridge of Sighs. It is very old-fas.h.i.+oned and worn-out. I would not answer for your long employing such methods of government.”

”Come, are you mad? What does it all signify?” asked the minister, in astonishment.

He appeared as if he really did not understand. It was clear that he did not know what Guy meant.

”Don't you read the papers, then?” Lissac asked him.

”I read the reports of the Director of the Press.”

”Well, if those reports have not informed you of my arrest in the heart of the Exposition des Mirlitons, on Wednesday, they have told you nothing!--”

”Arrested! you?”

”By the agents of Monsieur Jouvenet, your Prefect of Police, to gratify your mistress, Mademoiselle Kayser!”

”Ah! my dear Guy!” said the minister, whose cheek became flushed in spots. ”I should be glad if you--”

He paused for a phrase to express clearly and briefly that he required Lissac to be silent, but could not frame one. He received, as it were, a sudden and violent blow on the head. Beyond question, he did not know a word of all that Lissac had informed him. And yet this was the gossip of Paris for two days! Either naming in full, or in indicating him sufficiently clearly, the newspapers had related the adventure on their front page. Moreover, much attention had been attracted to an article in a journal with which Lucien Granet was intimately connected, wherein, in well-turned but perfidious phrases, a certain Alkibiades--Lissac had guessed that this name was applied to him--had been arrested by the orders of the archon Sulpicios at the instance of a certain Basilea, one of the most charming hetaires of the republic of Perikles. Under this Greco-Parisian disguise it was easy for everyone to discover the true names and to see behind the masks the faces intended.

At the very moment that Lissac called to ask the minister for an explanation of the acts of the Prefect Jouvenet, Madame Vaudrey was opening a copy of a journal in which these names travestied by some h.e.l.lenist of the boulevard were underlined in red pencil. The article ent.i.tled _The Mistress of an Archon_, had been specially sent to her under a cover bearing the address in a woman's handwriting, Sabine Marsy or Madame Gerson! Some friend. One always has such.

It was of Adrienne that Vaudrey thought while Lissac was giving vent to his ironical, blunt complaint. 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?”

He felt himself, moreover, impelled by a violent rage. If what Guy told him were correct, Marianne had made use of him and of the t.i.tle of mistress that she ought to have concealed. She had played it in order to compel Jouvenet to commit an outrage.