elbow,” he muttered, slightly disturbed. “Yes indeed, it's true. A speck or two, I must have come in for them on my way down from my office.”
Several people were taking their departure. It was close on midnight. Two footmen were noiselessly removing the empty cups and the plates with cakes. In front of the hearth the ladies had re-formed and, at the same time, narrowed their circle and were chatting more carelessly than before in the languid atmosphere peculiar to the close of a party. The very room was going to sleep, and slowly creeping shadows were cast by its walls. It was then Fauchery spoke of departure. Yet he once more forgot his intention at sight of the Countess Sabine. She was resting from her cares as hostess, and as she sat in her wonted seat, silent, her eyes fixed on a log which was turning into embers, her face appeared so white and so impassable that doubt again possessed him. In the glow of the fire the small black hairs on the mole at the corner of her lip became white. It was Nana's very mole, down to the color of the hair. He could not refrain from whispering something about it in Vandeuvres's ear. Gad, it was true; the other had never noticed it before. And both men continued this comparison of Nana and the countess. They discovered a vague resemblance about the chin and the mouth, but the eyes were not at all alike. Then, too, Nana had a good-natured expression, while with the countess it was hard to decide—she might have been a cat, sleeping with claws withdrawn and paws stirred by a scarce-perceptible nervous quiver.
“All the same, one could have her,” declared Fauchery.
Vandeuvres stripped her at a glance.
“Yes, one could, all the same,” he said. “But I think nothing of the thighs, you know. Will you bet she has no thighs?”
He stopped, for Fauchery touched him briskly on the arm and showed him Estelle, sitting close to them on her footstool. They had raised their voices without noticing her, and she must have overheard them. Nevertheless, she continued sitting there stiff and motionless, not a hair having lifted on her thin neck, which was that of a girl who has shot up all too quickly. Thereupon they retired three or four paces, and Vandeuvres vowed that the countess was a very honest woman. Just then voices were raised in front of the hearth. Mme. du Joncquoy was saying:
“I was willing to grant you that Monsieur de Bismarck was perhaps a witty man. Only, if you go as far as to talk of genius—”
The ladies had come round again to their earliest topic of conversation.
“What the deuce! Still Monsieur de Bismarck!” muttered Fauchery. “This time I make my escape for good and all.”
“Wait a bit,” said Vandeuvres, “we must have a definite no from the count.”
The Count Muffat was talking to his father-in-law and a certain serious-looking gentleman. Vandeuvres drew him away and renewed the invitation, backing it up with the information that he was to be at the supper himself. A man might go anywhere; no one could think of suspecting evil where at most there could only be curiosity. The count listened to these arguments with downcast eyes and expressionless face. Vandeuvres felt him to be hesitating when the Marquis de Chouard approached with a look of interrogation. And when the latter was informed of the question in hand and Fauchery had invited him in his turn, he looked at his son-in-law furtively. There ensued an embarrassed silence, but both men encouraged one another and would doubtless have ended by accepting had not Count Muffat perceived M. Venot's gaze fixed upon him. The little old man was no longer smiling; his face was cadaverous, his eyes bright and keen as steel.
“No,” replied the count directly, in so decisive a tone that further insistence became impossible.
Then the marquis refused with even greater severity of expression. He talked morality. The aristocratic classes ought to set a good example. Fauchery smiled and shook hands with Vandeuvres. He did not wait for him and took his departure immediately, for he was due at his newspaper office.
“At Nana's at midnight, eh?”
La Faloise retired too. Steiner had made his bow to the countess. Other men followed them, and the same phrase went round—“At midnight, at Nana's”—as they went to get their overcoats in the anteroom. Georges, who could not leave without his mother, had stationed himself at the door, where he gave the exact address. “Third floor, door on your left.” Yet before going out Fauchery gave a final glance. Vandeuvres had again resumed his position among the ladies and was laughing with Leonide de Chezelles. Count Muffat and the Marquis de Chouard were joining in the conversation, while the good Mme. Hugon was falling asleep open-eyed. Lost among the petticoats, M. Venot was his own small self again and smiled as of old. Twelve struck slowly in the great solemn room.
“What—what do you mean?” Mme. du Joncquoy resumed. “You imagine that Monsieur de Bismarck will make war on us and beat us! Oh, that's unbearable!”
Indeed, they were laughing round Mme. Chantereau, who had just repeated an assertion she had heard made in Alsace, where her husband owned a foundry.
“We have the emperor, fortunately,” said Count Muffat in his grave, official way.
It was the last phrase Fauchery was able to catch. He closed the door after casting one more glance in the direction of the Countess Sabine. She was talking sedately with the chief clerk and seemed to be interested in that stout individual's conversation. Assuredly he must have been deceiving himself. There was no “little rift” there at all. It was a pity.
“You're not coming down then?” La Faloise shouted up to him from the entrance hall.
And out on the pavement, as they separated, they once more repeated:
“Tomorrow, at Nana's.”
CHAPTER IV
Since morning Zoe had delivered up the flat to a managing man who had come from Brebant's with a staff of helpers and waiters. Brebant was to supply everything, from the supper, the plates and dishes, the glass, the linen, the flowers, down to the seats and footstools. Nana could not have mustered a dozen napkins out of all her cupboards, and not having had time to get a proper outfit after her new start in life and scorning to go to the restaurant, she had decided to make the restaurant come to her. It struck her as being more the thing. She wanted to celebrate her great success as an actress with a supper which should set people talking. As her dining room was too small, the manager had arranged the table in the drawing room, a table with twenty-five covers, placed somewhat close together.
“Is everything ready?” asked Nana when she returned at midnight.
“Oh! I don't know,” replied Zoe roughly, looking beside herself with worry. “The Lord be thanked, I don't bother about anything. They're making a fearful mess in the kitchen and all over the flat! I've had to fight my battles too. The other two came again. My eye! I did just chuck 'em out!”
She referred, of course, to her employer's old admirers, the tradesman and the Walachian, to whom Nana, sure of her future and longing to shed her skin, as she phrased it, had decided to give the go-by.
“There are a couple of leeches for you!” she muttered.
“If they come back threaten to go to the police.”
Then she called Daguenet and Georges, who had remained behind in
