One month after this glorious determination she came to express her gratitude to me, saying that, though this new life was deadly wearisome, it had made a tremendous sensation, and wagers were laid as to whether she would persist in her conversion or not. As to the minister, she said, since he had passed from the stupidity of jealous irritation to the stupidity of blind adoration, she neither gained nor lost in no longer tormenting him. Consequently, the rumours which had been current about Madame de V---- and myself soon ceased, and I was accused of having deserted her. I could not avoid smiling sometimes when I observed the obsequiousness of those around me, for I continued, as I may say, in sheer idleness my work at M. de Sérigny's. Cernay, whom I sometimes met, concealed his envy under the semblance of the most exaggerated admiration. "You are a very able man," he said; "you should have, and you will have, all kinds of success. You are now a statesman, intimate with ministers and ambassadors. The king even takes notice of you; you are considered, my good fellow, and you can have all you wish for, for you have such tact! if you will excuse the word, such cunning!" "What do you mean?" "Come, now, don't play the innocent. At that ball at the Tuileries, where you had in turn two interviews at once so remarkable and so much remarked, the one with Lord Stuart and the other with the king, who remained in conversation some time with you, instead of taking his departure in accordance with his expressed desire, what did you do, you shrewd fellow? Instead of doing as so many others who would have foolishly remained to strut after receiving such distinction, you quickly disappeared. That was shrewdness, or rather genius, and your absence created a prodigious effect." "The cause of this disappearance was very simple, my dear De Cernay; I had a frightful headache, and wanted to get home." "Nonsense," said Cernay, with charming naïveté; "you cannot make me believe that any one has the headache when the king has been talking with him for an hour." A fortnight had passed since I had last met Madame de Fersen at the Tuileries ball, when one of my business agents came to me one morning with an air of consternation. It was a question of preventing a disastrous failure, by which I might lose about fifty thousand dollars, which had been invested in one of the most esteemed business houses at Havre. The failure had not yet been declared, but it was imminent, and was already suspected. My agent therefore proposed that I should at once start with him, and go to rescue my funds from this house. The amount was so considerable, that I did not hesitate one moment about going to Havre. A power of attorney, however wide its scope, could never provide for all the eventualities that might occur; under such circumstances, the presence of the interested party is often of the greatest consequence.