The President came back again, and when he saw the enthusiasm with which the old mother was throwing her arms about the neck of her child he understood that their cause was won.
“Thank you, my daughter,” he murmured, very much touched. Then after a little hesitation he approached Rosalie for the usual kiss of good-night. But the brow which ordinarily was so tenderly offered moved aside and his kiss lost itself in her hair.
“Good-night, father.”
He said nothing in return, but went away hanging his head with a convulsive shudder in his high shoulders. He who during his life had accused so many people, had condemned so many—he, the First Magistrate of France, had found a judge in his turn.
CHAPTER XIX.
HORTENSE LE QUESNOY.
Through one of those sudden shiftings of the scenery which are so frequent in the comedy of Parliamentary government, the meeting of January 8th, during which it was to be expected that the good luck of Roumestan would go all to pieces, procured for him on the contrary a striking success. When he marched up the steps of the platform in order to answer the cruel sarcasms that Rougeot had been getting off concerning the management of the opera, the mess that the department of the fine arts had got into, the emptiness of those reforms which had been trumpeted abroad by the supporters of the clerical Ministry, Numa had just learned that his wife had left Paris, having renounced her lawsuit.
This happy news, which was known to him alone, filled his answer with a confidence that radiated from his whole being. He took a haughty air, then a confidential, then a solemn one; he alluded to calumnies which are whispered in people’s ears and to some scandal that was expected:
“Gentlemen, there will be no scandal!”
The tone with which he said this threw a lively disappointment over the galleries crammed with all the sensation-loving, pretty women, mad for strong emotions, who had come there in charming costumes to see the conqueror devoured. The interpellation by Rougeot was torn to bits, the South seduced once more the North, Gaul for yet another time was conquered!—and when Roumestan ran down the steps again, worn out, perspiring and almost without voice, he had the proud satisfaction of seeing his party—but a moment ago so cold and even hostile—and his colleagues in the Cabinet, who had been accusing him of having compromised them, surround him with acclamations and enthusiastic flatteries. And in the intoxication of his success the relinquishment of her vengeance on the part of his wife kept returning to him always in the light of a supreme salvation.
He felt himself relieved and gay and expansive, so much so that on returning to the city the thought passed through his mind to run around to the Rue de Londres. O, of course, entirely as a friend! in order to reassure that poor little girl who had been as anxious as he over the results of the interpellation, who bore their common exile with so much bravery, sending him in her unformed writing, dryed with face-powder, delightful little letters in which she related her existence day by day and exhorted him to patience and prudence.