She asked him to stop at a station, and he did not attempt to disguise his anxiety to leave her.
“I must go to the Chambre,” he said. “I do not know what they have been doing to-day.”
“Ah, they were sitting to-day?”
“Yes,” he replied, “but there was nothing of importance, I believe—an increase of tariff. But one never knows. I had better just look in.”
They took leave of one another easily and amicably. As Madame Worms-Clavelin stepped into a fiacre in the Boulevard de Courcelles, near the fortifications, she heard the newsboys crying the evening papers, and holding them out to the passers-by as they hurried along. She caught sight of a heading in huge letters—“Fall of the Government.”
Madame Worms-Clavelin stood for a moment looking at the men, and listening to the voices dying away in the rainy night. She reflected that, if Loyer were really going to send in his resignation to the President of the Republic, there would be in all probability no notice in to-morrow’s Officiel of the new appointments in the Church. She reflected that her husband’s decoration would not be included in the last will and testament of the Minister of the Interior, and that hence the half-hour she had spent in the blue-curtained fiacre was of no avail. She had no regret over what had happened, but did not like doing things to no purpose.
“Neuilly,” she said to the driver, “Boulevard Bineau, the Convent of the Dames du Saint-Sang.”
And she sat pensive and solitary, while the cries of the newsvendors filled her ears, and she tried to convince herself that the news was true. She would not buy a paper, however, partly out of mistrust and contempt for all newspaper matter, and partly because she was determined not to rob herself of so much as a half-penny. She reflected that if the Ministry really had fallen, just at the moment when she was being so prodigal of her favours, it was a striking example of the irony of things and the spite that hovers ceaselessly about us, like the very atmosphere we breathe. She asked herself whether Loyer’s secretary-in-chief had not known the news that was now being shouted abroad while he waited for her at the park gates. At this thought she grew scarlet, as though her chastity had been outraged and her faith betrayed, for if that were the case Maurice Cheiral had been making game of her, and that she could not endure. However, her sound common sense and wide experience soon came to her aid, assuring her that it was never safe to trust the newspapers. She thought of Abbé Guitrel without a qualm, and congratulated herself on having contributed in ever so small a degree to the elevation of the excellent priest to the See of the Blessed Saint Loup. She arranged a few little details of her toilet the while, so that she might present a good appearance in the parlour of the Dames du Saint-Sang who were charged with the education of her daughter.
The fog was paler and less dense in the deserted avenues, and the low, damp streets of Neuilly. Through the gentle rain, the strong, graceful outlines of the great bare trees were visible. Madame Worms-Clavelin caught a glimpse of some poplars, and they reminded her of the country which she loved more dearly every day.
She reached the barred doorway crowned with a stone shield bearing the glove in which Joseph of Arimathea received the sacred blood of the Saviour, and rang the bell. At her request, the portress sent for Mademoiselle de Clavelin, and Madame Worms-Clavelin entered the bright parlour with its horsehair chairs. As she sat there before a picture of the Virgin extending her blessing-laden hands, the préfet’s wife was filled with a strong, sweet feeling of religion. She was not wholly a Christian, because she had never been baptized. But her daughter had been baptized, and was being brought up in the Catholic faith. Together with the Republic, Madame Worms-Clavelin felt strong leanings towards a conventional piety, and with a sincere uplifting of the heart she saluted the kind, blue-veiled Virgin, to whom well-to-do ladies like herself poured out their troubles and necessities. She thanked Providence for all her blessings, as she sat before the picture of Mary, with her outstretched arms, and she thanked the Virgin with a mystical intensity that the Jewish religion had never been able to satisfy. She was full of gratitude to God, who had guided her from the miserable days of her childhood in Montmartre, when she had run about the greasy streets of the outer boulevards in her worn-out shoes, until the present time, when she mixed in the best society, belonged to the ruling classes, and had a share in the affairs that governed the country; and she thanked God that in all her negotiations—for life is difficult, and one often needs the help of others—she had, at any rate, never had to come into contact with any but men of position in the world.