“Gentlemen, gentlemen!”
Méjean wondered to himself over this extraordinary man Roumestan, this complicated nature whom even those who knew him most intimately could judge so differently.
“A shifty fellow!—conscientiousness itself!”
The public judged of him in the same double way. He who knew him thoroughly was conscious of the shallowness and indolence that modified his tireless ambition and made him at the same time better and worse than his reputation. But was it really true, this news of his Ministerial portfolio? Anxious to know the truth, Méjean glanced in the glass to see if he was in proper shape, and, stepping across the hall, entered the apartments of Mme. Roumestan.
From the antechamber where the footmen waited with their ladies’ wraps could be heard the hum of many voices deadened by the heavy, luxurious hangings and high ceilings. Rosalie generally received in her little drawing-room, furnished as a winter garden with cane seats and pretty little tables, the light just filtering in between the green leaves of the plants that filled the windows. That had always sufficed her in her lowly position as a simple lady overshadowed by her husband’s greatness, perfectly without social ambition and passing among those who did not know her superiority for a good-enough person of no great importance. But to-day the two large drawing-rooms were humming and crowded to overflowing; new people were constantly arriving, friends to the remotest degree, even to the slightest acquaintanceship, people to whose faces it would have puzzled Rosalie to attach a name.
Dressed very simply in a gown of violet, most becoming to her slender figure and the whole harmonious personality of her being, she received every one alike with her gentle little smile, her manner somewhat haughty—her réfréjon, or “uppish” air, as Aunt Portal had once expressed it. Not the slightest elation at her new position—rather a little surprise and uneasiness, but her feelings kept well concealed!
She went from group to group as the daylight faded rapidly in the lower story of the city house and the servants brought lamps and lighted the candles. The rooms assumed their festal air as at their evening receptions, the rich shining hangings and oriental rugs and tapestries glittering like colored stones in the light.
“Ah, Monsieur Méjean!” and Rosalie came up to him, glad to feel an intimate friend near her in this crowd of strangers. They understood each other perfectly. This Southerner who had learned to be cool and the emotional Parisian had similar ways of seeing and judging things, and together they acted as counterweights to the weaknesses and extravagances of Numa.
“I came in to see if the news were true. But there is no doubt about it,” said he, glancing at the crowded rooms. She handed him the telegram she had received from her husband and said in a low voice:
“What do you think of it?”