"I beg your pardon, Monsieur le Préfet, there is one."
"Oh! my glass is a wretched one!—But even so, I do not believe Monsieur de Lissac is authorized by the Grand Chancellor to wear his decoration. That is easily ascertained!—I will nevertheless not fail to insert in the Officiel to-morrow a note relative to the illegality of wearing certain foreign decorations—"
"Is this note directed against Lissac?"
"Not at all. But he reminds me of a step that I have wished to take for a long time: the enforcement of the law."
The entr'acte was over. Jouvenet withdrew, repeating all kinds of remarks with double meanings that veiled declarations of love; that if the occasion arose, he would place himself entirely at her service, and that some day she might be very glad to meet him—
"I thank you, Monsieur le Préfet, and I will avail myself of your kindness," replied Marianne, out of courtesy.
Something suggested to her that Guy would pay his respects to her during the next entr'acte, were it only to jest about Jouvenet's visit, seeing that he was regarded as a compromising acquaintance, and she was not wrong.
Behind his monocle, his keen, mocking glance seemed like a taunting smile.
"Well," he said, in a somewhat abrupt tone, as he sat near Marianne, "I congratulate you, my dear friend."
"Why?" she answered with surprise.