“Yes, exactly.”

“Well, I will accompany you!—­Ah, since you are no longer minister, my dear friend, and that one does not appear to be a flatterer or a seeker of patronage, one can speak to you—­You have faults enough!—­You are too confident, too moderate—­It is necessary to have a firm hand—­And then that could not last.  Those situations are all very fine but they are too easily destroyed!—­They are like glass, my old friend!—­A place is wanted for everybody, is it not?—­Bah! must I tell you?—­Why, you are happier!  I like you better as it is!”

Vaudrey felt strongly inclined to shake off this pretentious ninny who was clinging to his arm.

“That is like me!” continued Jeliotte.  “I like my friends better when they are down!  What would you have?  It is my generous nature.  By the way, do you know that the reason I have not seen you before is because I have not been in Paris!  I have returned from Isere!”

“Ah!” said Vaudrey, thinking of Adrienne.

“Well, you know, I have still some good news for you.  If you have had enough of politics, you can retire at the approaching election!”

“How?” asked Sulpice.

“Why, Thibaudier is stirring up Grenoble.  He has got the whole city with him.  He is very much liked and is a model mayor.  He is a very mere—­mother—­that mayor!—­Jeliotte laughed heartily, believing that he was funny.—­If there is a list balloted for, and there certainly will be, Thibaudier will head the list.  If they had maintained the scrutin d’arrondissement, he would have been capable of passing muster, all the same!”

“Against me?”

“Against you.  Thibaudier is very popular!—­And as firm as a rock!—­He thinks you moderate, too moderate, as everybody else does!”

“He?—­He was a member of the Plebiscite Committee under the Empire!”

“Exactly!  He is an extreme Republican, just as he was an extreme Bonapartist.  Oh!  Thibaudier is a man, there is no concession with him.  Never!  He is always the same.  He will beat you.  Moreover, in Isere, they want a homogeneous representation—­”

“Again!” said Vaudrey, who felt that he was pursued by this word.

After all, what did Thibaudier matter to him, or the deputation, the election or politics?  Denis Ramel had sounded its depths in his grave in the cemetery of Saint-Ouen.

“Let us drop Thibaudier.  By the way,” said Jeliotte, “I saw your wife at Grenoble.”

Vaudrey grew pale.

He again repeated:  “Ah!”

“She is greatly changed.  She doesn’t leave the house of her uncle, the doctor, nor does she receive any one.”

“Is she sick, then?”

“Yes, slightly.”

“And you are separated, then?”

“No,” replied Sulpice.

Jeliotte smiled.

“Ah! joker, I understand!—­Your wife was too strict!—­Bless me, a provincial!  Bah! that will come right!  And if it doesn’t, why, you will be free, that’s all!  But, say, then, if you are not re-elected, you will rejoin her at Grenoble.  Oh! your clients will return to you.  You are highly esteemed as an advocate, but as a minister, I ought to say—­”