"I do not know. I know nothing myself. Perhaps it is wrong of me not to keep myself informed of passing events, but all that wearies me. I detest politics and journals—I am told quite enough about them. Politics! that which takes my husband from me! My uncle, Doctor Reboux, often said to me: 'Never marry a doctor; he is only half a husband.' Vaudrey is like a doctor. Always absent, with his everlasting night-sessions."
"Night-sessions?" asked Lissac.
"Yes, at the Chamber—continually—"
Guy determined to betray nothing of his astonishment; but he knew now as surely as if he had learned everything, why Sulpice neglected Adrienne. The fool! some girl from the Opéra! some office-seeker who was skilfully entangling His Excellency! That appertained to his functions then? He was exasperated at Vaudrey and alternately looked at him and at Adrienne. So perfect a woman! Ravishing. What an exquisite profile, so delicate and with such a straight nose and a delightful mouth! Was Vaudrey mad then?
The guests rose from the table, and, as usual, the men went into the smoking-room, leaving the salon half-empty. Madame Gerson profited thereby to continue distilling her little slanders about Sabine, which she did while laughing heartily. In the smoking-room the men chatted away beneath the cloud that rose from their londrès. The clarion tones of Warcolier rung out above all the other voices.
Guy, seated in a corner on a divan, was still thinking of Adrienne, of those night-sessions, of those expositions, of those agricultural competitions invented by Sulpice, and caught but snatches of the conversation, jests, and nonsensical stories which were made at the cost of the colleagues of the Chamber and political friends:
"You know how Badiche learned at the last election that he was not elected?"
"No, how?"
"He returned to his house, anxious as to the result of the ballot. And he heard, what do you think? His children, a little boy and a little girl, who on receipt of the telegram that papa was waiting for and that mamma in her feverish expectation had opened, had already composed a song to the air of The Young Man Poisoned:
Résultat très négatif,
Ballottage positif!
Badiche est ballo—
Bâté,
Est ballotté!
Oui, Badiche est ballotté;
C'est papa qu'est ballotté!