"Adrienne!" murmured Sulpice.
She closed her eyes, for this suppliant voice doubtless caused her a new grief, but neither gesture nor word escaped her. She was like a walking automaton. Even her eyes expressed neither reproach nor anger, they seemed dim.
There was something of death in her aspect.
After a few moments, she said: "I hope that my resolve will not work any prejudice to your political position. In that direction I will still do my duty to the full extent of my strength. But people will not trouble themselves to inquire whether I am at Grenoble or Paris. They trouble themselves very little about me."
By a gesture, he sought to retain her. She had already entered her room, and Vaudrey felt that between this woman and him there stood something like a wall. He had now only to love Marianne.
To love Marianne, ah! yes, the unhappy man, he still loved her. When he thought of Marianne, it was more in wrath, when he thought of Adrienne, it was more in pity; but, certainly, his wife's determination to leave Paris caused him less emotion than the thought that his mistress was to wed Rosas.
That very evening he went to Marianne's.
They told him that Madame was at the theatre. Where? With whom? Neither Jean nor Justine knew.
Vaudrey despised himself for jealously questioning the servants who, when together, would burst with laughter in speaking of him.
"Oh! miserable fool!" he said to himself. "There was only one woman who loved you:—Adrienne!"