found himself old, worn-out, broken by his combats, face to face with the folly of his hopes and the worthlessness of his will. Never had his nervous hand been able to grasp in its transition, the fragment of morocco of a portfolio and now that his parchment-like fingers were old and feeble, they would never cling to that shred of power! And now this Prangins avenged himself for the contempt or the injustice of his colleagues and the folly of circumstances, by criticism, defiance, mockery, denial and by loudly expressing his opinion: "The defect of every government is that it will try to play new airs on an old violin! Your violin is cracked, Monsieur Vaudrey! I do not reproach you for that, you did not make it!" Vaudrey laughed at the sally, but Warcolier felt that he was choking. How could the minister allow his policy to be thus attacked at table? Ah! how Warcolier would have clinched the argument of this Prangins. Madame Gerson was delighted. The dinner was served sumptuously and went off without a hitch. The _maitre d'hotel_ directed the service admirably. The soiree that was to follow it would be magnificent. The journals would most certainly report it. Gerson had invited one reporter in spite of his dislike of journalists. Ah! those gossipers and foolish fellows, they never forgot to describe the toilettes worn by "the pretty Madame Gerson" at _first nights_, at the Elysee or at Charity Bazaars. Occasionally, her husband pretended to be angered by the successes of his wife: "Those journalists! Just imagine, those journalists! They speak about my wife just as they would about an actress! 'The lovely Madame Gerson wore a gown of _crepe de Chine_!' The lovely Madame Gerson! What has my wife's beauty or her toilette to do with them?" In truth, however, he felt flattered. He was only sincerely annoyed when people respected the devilish wall of private life, the cement of which he would have stripped off himself, in order to show his wife's beauty. To be quoted in the paper, why! that is _chic_. Adrienne felt a little stunned by the noise of the conversation which increased in proportion as the dinner advanced. She was also very much astonished and not a little grieved when Madame Gerson abruptly spoke in a loud voice before all the guests concerning Madame Marsy, at whose house it was, in fact, that she made the acquaintance of Vaudrey. Madame Gerson showed her pretty teeth in a very charming manner as she tore her old friend Sabine to pieces, as it were. In a tenderly indulgent tone which was the more terrible, she repeated the tales that were formerly current: the affecting death of Philippe Marsy, the painter of _Charity_, and a particular escapade in which Sabine was involved with Emile Cordier, one of the leaders of the _intransigeante_ school of painters. "What! you did not know that?" said the pretty Madame Gerson in astonishment.