He no longer thought of anything but what he saw: salutations, bowed heads, inclinations that succeeded each other with the regularity of a clock, that succession of homages to the little Grenoble advocate, now become Prime Minister. Oblivious of everything else, he had lost the recollection of his mistress, and he suddenly grew pale and looked instinctively with terror at Adrienne, who was as pale as a corpse.--A visitor had just been announced by the usher, in his metallic voice, and the name that he cried mechanically, as he had uttered all the others, echoed there like an insult. Guy de Lissac shook through his entire frame, as he too heard it. "Monsieur Simon Kayser and Mademoiselle Kayser!"--cried the usher. Still another name rang out from that clarion voice: "Monsieur le Duc de Rosas!" Neither Vaudrey nor Adrienne heard this name. Sulpice felt urged to rush toward Marianne to entreat her to leave. It is true, he had invited her. In spite of Jouvenet who knew all, and in spite of so many others who suspected the truth, she desired to be present at that fete at the ministry and to show herself to all. Vaudrey had warned her, however. He had written to her a few hours before, entreating her, nay, almost commanding, her, not to come, and she was there. She entered, advancing with head erect, leaning on the arm of her uncle, his white cravat hidden by his artist's beard and on his lips a disdainful smile. Adrienne asked herself whether she was really dreaming now. Approaching her, she saw, crossing the salon with a queenly step, that lovely, insolent creature, trailing a long black satin skirt, her superb bosom imprisoned in a corsage trimmed with jet, and crossed, as it were, with a blood-red stripe formed by a cordon of roses. Marianne's fawn-colored head seemed to imperiously defy from afar the pale woman who stood with her two hands falling at her side as if overwhelmed. The vision, for vision it was, approached like one of the nightmares that haunt people's dreams. Adrienne's first glance encountered the direct gaze of Marianne's gray eyes. Behind Mademoiselle Kayser came De Rosas, his ruddy Castilian face that was ordinarily pensive beamed to-day, but Madame Vaudrey did not perceive him. She saw only this woman, the woman who was approaching her, in her own house, insolently, impudently, to defy her after having outraged her, to insult her after having deceived her! Adrienne felt a violent wrath rising within her and suddenly her entire being seemed longing to bound toward Marianne, to drive her out after casting her name in her teeth. Instinctively she looked around her with the wild glance of a wretched woman who no longer knows what to do, as if seeking for some assistance or advice.