In Paris each ministry is a little town by itself, whence women are banished; but there is just as much detraction and scandal as though the feminine population were admitted there.  At the end of three years, Monsieur Marneffe’s position was perfectly clear and open to the day, and in every room one and another asked, “Is Marneffe to be, or not to be, Coquet’s successor?” Exactly as the question might have been put to the Chamber, “Will the estimates pass or not pass?” The smallest initiative on the part of the board of Management was commented on; everything in Baron Hulot’s department was carefully noted.  The astute State Councillor had enlisted on his side the victim of Marneffe’s promotion, a hard-working clerk, telling him that if he could fill Marneffe’s place, he would certainly succeed to it; he had told him that the man was dying.  So this clerk was scheming for Marneffe’s advancement.

When Hulot went through his anteroom, full of visitors, he saw Marneffe’s colorless face in a corner, and sent for him before any one else.

“What do you want of me, my dear fellow?” said the Baron, disguising his anxiety.

“Monsieur le Directeur, I am the laughing-stock of the office, for it has become known that the chief of the clerks has left this morning for a holiday, on the ground of his health.  He is to be away a month.  Now, we all know what waiting for a month means.  You deliver me over to the mockery of my enemies, and it is bad enough to be drummed upon one side; drumming on both at once, monsieur, is apt to burst the drum.”

“My dear Marneffe, it takes long patience to gain an end.  You cannot be made head-clerk in less than two months, if ever.  Just when I must, as far as possible, secure my own position, is not the time to be applying for your promotion, which would raise a scandal.”

“If you are broke, I shall never get it,” said Marneffe coolly.  “And if you get me the place, it will make no difference in the end.”

“Then I am to sacrifice myself for you?” said the Baron.

“If you do not, I shall be much mistaken in you.”

“You are too exclusively Marneffe, Monsieur Marneffe,” said Hulot, rising and showing the clerk the door.

“I have the honor to wish you good-morning, Monsieur le Baron,” said Marneffe humbly.

“What an infamous rascal!” thought the Baron.  “This is uncommonly like a summons to pay within twenty-four hours on pain of distraint.”

Two hours later, just when the Baron had been instructing Claude Vignon, whom he was sending to the Ministry of Justice to obtain information as to the judicial authorities under whose jurisdiction Johann Fischer might fall, Reine opened the door of his private room and gave him a note, saying she would wait for the answer.

“Valerie is mad!” said the Baron to himself.  “To send Reine!  It is enough to compromise us all, and it certainly compromises that dreadful Marneffe’s chances of promotion!”