"Quite young!"
"Somewhat provincial!"
"So much the more attractive!"
"That is true, as fresh as a peach!"
She endeavored to atone by a gracious, very sincere modesty, for the enviable position in which chance had suddenly placed her. It was said of her that she accepted a compliment as timidly as a boarding-school miss receives a prize. They forgave her for retaining her rosy cheeks because of her white and exquisitely shaped hands. She was not considered to be "trop de Grenoble." Witty people called her the pretty Dauphinoise, and the flatterers the little Dauphine.
In short, her success was great! So said the chroniclers; the entrance of a fashionable woman into a salon being daily compared with that of an actress on the stage.
It was especially because Vaudrey appeared to be so happy, that his young wife was so contented. She felt none of the vainglory of power. Generally alone in the vast, deserted apartments of the ministry, with all their commonplace, luxurious appointments, she more than once regretted the home in the Chaussée-d'Antin, where they enjoyed—but too rarely—a renewal of the cherished solitude of the first months of their union, the familiar chats of the Grenoble days, the prolonged conversations, exchanges of thoughts, hopes and reminiscences—already! only recollections,—and she sometimes said to Sulpice, who was feverishly excited and glowed with delight at having reached the summit of power:
"Do you know what this place suggests to me? Why, living in a hotel!"
"And you are right," Vaudrey gaily answered; "we are at a hotel, but it is the hotel in which the will of France lodges!"
"You understand, my dear, that if you are happy—"