"Are political affairs going badly?"
"No—on the contrary—"
"Then why are you melancholy?"
"I am a little fatigued."
"Then," said Madame Vaudrey, "you will scold me."
"Why?"
"I have led Madame Gerson to hope—You know whom I mean, Madame Marsy's friend,—I have almost promised her that you would accept an invitation to dine at her house."
For a moment Vaudrey was put out.
Another evening taken! Hours of delight stolen from Marianne!
"I have done wrong?" asked Adrienne, as she rested her pretty but somewhat sad face on her husband's bosom. "I did it because it is so great a pleasure to me to spend an entire evening with you, even at another's house. Remember you have so many official dinners, banquets and invitations that you attend alone. When the minister's wife is invited with him, it is a fête-day for the poor, little forsaken thing. I do not have much of you, it is true, but I see you, I hear you talking and I am happy. Do not chide me for having said that we would go to Madame Gerson's. The more so, because she is a charming woman. Ah! when she speaks of you! 'So great a minister!' Don't you know what she calls you?—'A Colbert!'"