M. La Rouquette distinctly heard what was said; still, this did not prevent him from entering the minister's room with a smiling face. 'How is your excellency?' he said, offering his hand. 'It's my sister who has sent me. You seemed a little tired at the Tuileries yesterday. You know that a proverb is to be acted in the Empress's apartments next Monday. My sister is taking a part in it. Combelot has designed the costumes. You will come, won't you?'
He stood there for a whole quarter of an hour prattling away in wheedling fashion, addressing Rougon sometimes as 'your excellency,' and sometimes as 'dear master.' He dragged in a few stories of the minor theatres, praised a ballet girl, and begged for a line to the director of the tobacco manufactory so that he might get some good cigars. And he concluded by saying some abominable things about M. de Marsy, though still continuing to jest.
'Well, he's not such a bad fellow, after all,' remarked Rougon, when the young deputy had taken himself off. 'I must go and dip my face in the basin. My cheeks feel as if they were burning.'
He disappeared for a moment behind a curtain, and then a great splashing of water, accompanied by snorting and blowing, was heard. Meantime, M. d'Escorailles, who had finished classifying his letters, took a little file with a tortoise-shell handle from his pocket, and began to trim his nails. M. Béjuin and the colonel were still gazing up at the ceiling, so buried in their easy-chairs that it seemed doubtful whether they would ever be able to get out of them again. M. Kahn, however, was going through a heap of newspapers on a table near him. He just turned them over, glanced at their titles, and then threw them aside. Then he got up.
'Are you going?' asked Rougon, who now reappeared, wiping his face with a towel.
'Yes,' replied M. Kahn, 'I've read the papers, so I'm off.'
Rougon, however, asked him to wait a moment. And then, taking him aside, he told him that he hoped to go down to Deux-Sèvres during the following week, to attend the inauguration of the operations for the new line from Niort to Angers. He had several reasons, he said, for wishing to visit the district. At this M. Kahn manifested great delight. He had succeeded in getting the grant early in March, and was now floating the scheme. And he was conscious of the additional importance which the minister's presence would lend to the initial ceremony, the details of which he was already arranging.
'Then I may reckon upon you to fire the first mine?' he said, as he took his leave.
Rougon had returned to his writing-table, where he was consulting a list of names. The crowd in the ante-room was now growing more and more impatient. 'I've barely got a quarter of an hour,' he said. 'Well, I'll see such as I can.'