She was still mechanically throwing crumbs of bread around her, which were eagerly snatched at by the many-colored ducks, white or gray, black, spotted, striped like tulips, marbled like Cordovan leather, with iridescent green or blue necks, whose tone suggested Venetian glassware, all of them hurrying, stretching their necks, opening their bills, or casting themselves at Marianne's feet, fighting, then almost choking themselves to swallow the enormous pieces of bread that were sold by a dealer close at hand. "Ah! bless me! I did not think I should have the honor of meeting you here," she said. "The honor?" said Vaudrey. "I, I should say the joy." She looked straight into his eyes, frankly. "I do not know what joy is, to-day," she said. "I come from the Continental Hotel, where I hoped to see--" "What is that?" "Nothing--" "If it were nothing, you would not have frowned so." "Oh! well! a friend--a friend whom I have again found--and who has disappeared. Just so,--abruptly--No matter, perhaps, after all! What happens, must happen. In short--and to continue my riddle, behold me feeding these ducks. God knows why! I detest the creatures. The state feeds them badly, Monsieur le Ministre, I tell you: they are famished. Well? well?" she said to a species of Indian duck, bolder than the others, who snapped at the hem of her skirt to attract attention and to demand fresh mouthfuls. She commenced to laugh nervously, and said: "That one isn't afraid." She threw him a morsel that he swallowed with a greedy gulp. "Do you know, Monsieur le Ministre, that the story of these ducks is that of the human species? There are some that have got nothing of all the bread that I have thrown them, and there are others who have gorged enough to kill them with indigestion. How would you classify that? Poor political economy." "Oh, oh!" said Vaudrey. "You are wandering into the realms of lofty philosophy!--" "Apropos of that, yes," said Marianne, as she pointed to the line of birds that hurried on all sides, left the water, waddled about, uttering their noisy cries. "You know that when one is sad, one philosophizes anent everything." "And you are sad?" asked Sulpice, in a voice that certainly quivered slightly. She threw away, without breaking it, the piece of bread that was left, brushed her gloved fingers, and, turning toward the minister, said with a smile that would make the flesh creep: "Very sad. Oh! what would you have? The black butterflies, you know, the blue devils." He saw her again, just as she had appeared before him yesterday, with arms and shoulders bare, lovely and seductive, and now, with her shoulders hidden under her cloak, her face half-veiled and quite pale, he thought her still more disquietingly charming. Moreover, the strangeness of the situation, the chance meeting, imparted something of mystery to their conversation and the attraction of an assignation.