Shortly after Emmanuel Macron won a landslide victory in the French presidential elections on Sunday, ostensibly staving off the onslaught of a far-right pandemic across Europe, at least for the moment, Hillary Clinton decided to share her relief on what may now be the most presidential platform of all: Twitter. “Victory for Macron, for France, the EU, & the world,” she wrote. “Defeat to those interfering w/democracy. (But the media says I can’t talk about that).”

Clinton’s remark, however cheeky, appeared to be an extension of what has seemed like an escalating flirtation with a re-emergence into public life. After her surprising and devastating defeat to Donald Trump in November, Clinton was initially reticent. She solemnly attended Trump’s Jacksonian inauguration, and appeared in photographs only during the occasional walk in the woods or lunch out. But then, signs of restlessness inevitably began to return: rumors of a run for mayor, for instance, or suggestions that she was pondering another gasp at the presidency in 2020. More recently, Clinton appeared onstage in a conversation with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof for Tina Brown’s Women in the World Summit, and offered a slight tease to her most fervent supporters. “As a person,” she told Kristof, “I’m O.K. As an American, I’m pretty worried.”

From there, the whisper campaign and intrigue took an interesting turn. Last week, Clinton appeared onstage with Christiane Amanpour as part of the Women to Women International event, during which she simultaneously took the blame for her electoral college loss while also implicating James Comey, the Russians, and the general prevalence of misogyny. Days later, Axios reported that Clinton had been working for months on a political action committee that would focus on helping Democratic candidates during the midterms, and would not serve as a 2020 war chest for herself. By the time that the French results poured in, Clinton seemed more like a political kingmaker than one in retirement.

Clinton, indeed, appears to be out of the woods, and what happens next is already a cause for concern within the concentric circles of Clintonworld advisers, well-wishers, hangers-on, and true believers. As one person close to the Clintons told me last month, “She’s trying to navigate what’s appropriate. Does it look like sour grapes? Does it look like she’s positioning for something?” This person continued: “She can’t look like a politician or someone who’s trying to position herself. Those days are over. I think they’re very mindful of not looking like she’s looking for a comeback. She’s trying to resurrect her image, as well as resurrect her name.”