Nana

sweet-meats and some oranges. So they both ate away like ogres and, while they satisfied their healthy young appetites, treated one another with easy good fellowship. Nana kept calling Georges 'dear old girl,' a form of address which struck her as at once tender and familiar. At dessert, in order not to give Zoe any more trouble, they used the same spoon turn and turn about while demolishing a pot of preserves they had discovered at the top of a cupboard.

'Oh, you dear old girl!' said Nana, pushing back the round table. 'I haven't made such a good dinner these ten years past!'

Yet it was growing late, and she wanted to send her boy off for fear he should be suspected of all sorts of things. But he kept declaring that he had plenty of time to spare. For the matter of that, his clothes were not drying well, and Zoe averred that it would take an hour longer at least, and as she was dropping with sleep after the fatigues of the journey, they sent her off to bed. After which they were alone in the silent house.

It was a very charming evening. The fire was dying out amid glowing embers, and in the great blue room, where Zoe had made up the bed before going upstairs, the air felt a little oppressive. Nana, overcome by the heavy warmth, got up to open the window for a few minutes, and as she did so she uttered a little cry.

'Great heavens, how beautiful it is! Look, dear old girl!'

Georges had come up, and as though the window bar had not been sufficiently wide, he put his arm round Nana's waist and rested his head against her shoulder. The weather had undergone a brisk change: the skies were clearing, and a full moon lit up the country with its golden disk of light. A sovereign quiet reigned over the valley. It seemed wider and larger as it opened on the immense distances of the plain, where the trees loomed like little shadowy islands amid a shining and waveless lake. And Nana grew tenderhearted, felt herself a child again. Most surely she had dreamed of nights like this at an epoch which she could not recall. Since leaving the train every object of sensation--the wide countryside, the green things with their pungent scents, the house, the vegetables-- had stirred her to such a degree that now it seemed to her as if she had left Paris twenty years ago. Yesterday's existence was far, far away, and she was full of sensations of which she had no previous experience. Georges, meanwhile, was giving her neck little coaxing kisses, and this again added to her sweet unrest. With hesitating hand she pushed him from her, as though he were a child whose affectionate advances were fatiguing, and once more she told him that he ought to take his departure. He did not gainsay her. All in good time--he would go all in good time!

But a bird raised its song and again was silent. It was a robin in an elder tree below the window.

'Wait one moment,' whispered Georges; 'the lamp's frightening him. I'll put it out.'

And when he came back and took her waist again he added:

'We'll relight it in a minute.'

Then as she listened to the robin and the boy pressed against her side, Nana remembered. Ah yes, it was in novels that she had got to know all this! In other days she would have given her heart to have a full moon and robins and a lad dying of love for her. Great God, she could have cried, so good and charming did it all seem to her! Beyond a doubt she had been born to live honestly! So she pushed Georges away again, and he grew yet bolder.

'No, let me be. I don't care about it. It would be very wicked at your age. Now listen--I'll always be your mamma.'

A sudden feeling of shame overcame her. She was blushing exceedingly, and yet not a soul could see her. The room behind them was full of black night while the country stretched before them in silence and lifeless solitude. Never had she known such a sense of shame before. Little by little she felt her power of resistance ebbing away, and that despite her embarrassed efforts to the contrary. That disguise of his, that woman's shift and that dressing jacket set her laughing again. It was as though a girl friend were teasing her.

'Oh, it's not right; it's not right!' she stammered after a last effort.

And with that, in face of the lovely night, she sank like a young virgin into the arms of this mere child. The house slept.

Next morning at Les Fondettes, when the bell rang for lunch, the dining-room table was no longer too big for the company. Fauchery and Daguenet had been driven up together in one carriage, and after them another had arrived with the Count de Vandeuvres, who had followed by the next train. Georges was the last to come downstairs. He was looking a little pale, and his eyes were sunken, but in answer to questions he said that he was much better, though he was still somewhat shaken by the violence of the attack. Mme Hugon looked into his eyes with an anxious smile and adjusted his hair which had been carelessly combed that morning, but he drew back as though embarrassed by this tender little action. During the meal she chaffed Vandeuvres very pleasantly and declared that she had expected him for five years past.

'Well, here you are at last! How have you managed it?'

Vandeuvres took her remarks with equal pleasantry. He told her that he had lost a fabulous sum of money at the club yesterday and thereupon had come away with the intention of ending up in the country.

''Pon my word, yes, if only you can find me an heiress in these rustic parts! There must be delightful women hereabouts.'

The old lady rendered equal thanks to Daguenet and Fauchery for having been so good as to accept her son's invitation, and then to her great and joyful surprise she saw the Marquis de Chouard enter the room. A third carriage had brought him.

'Dear me, you've made this your trysting place today!' she cried. 'You've passed word round! But what's happening? For years I've never succeeded in bringing you all together, and now you all drop in at once. Oh, I certainly don't complain.'

Another place was laid. Fauchery found himself next the Countess Sabine, whose liveliness and gaiety surprised him when he remembered her drooping, languid state in the austere Rue Miromesnil drawing room. Daguenet, on the other hand, who was seated on Estelle's left, seemed slightly put out by his propinquity to that tall, silent girl. The angularity of her elbows was disagreeable to him. Muffat and Chouard had exchanged a sly glance while Vandeuvres continued joking about his coming marriage.

'Talking of ladies,' Mme Hugon ended by saying, 'I have a new neighbor whom you probably know.'

And she mentioned Nana. Vandeuvres affected the liveliest astonishment.

'Well, that is strange! Nana's property near here!'

Fauchery and Daguenet indulged in a similar demonstration while the Marquis de Chouard discussed the breast of a chicken without appearing to comprehend their meaning. Not one of the men had smiled.

'Certainly,' continued the old lady, 'and the person in question arrived at La Mignotte yesterday evening, as I was saying she would. I got my information from the gardener this morning.'

At these words the gentlemen could not conceal their very real surprise. They all looked up. Eh? What? Nana had come down! But they were only expecting her next day; they were privately under the impression that they would arrive before her! Georges alone sat looking at his glass with drooped eyelids and a tired expression. Ever since the beginning of lunch he had seemed to be sleeping with open eyes and a vague smile on his lips.

'Are you still in pain, my Zizi?' asked his mother, who had been gazing at him throughout the meal.

He started and blushed as he said that he was very well now, but the worn-out insatiate expression of a girl who has danced too much did not fade from his face.

'What's the matter with your neck?' resumed Mme Hugon in an alarmed tone. 'It's all red.'

He was embarrassed and stammered. He did not know--he had nothing the matter with his neck. Then drawing his shirt collar up:

'Ah yes, some insect stung me there!'

The Marquis de Chouard had cast a sidelong glance at the little red place. Muffat, too, looked at Georges. The company was finishing lunch and planning various excursions. Fauchery was growing increasingly excited with the Countess Sabine's laughter. As he was passing her a dish of fruit their hands touched, and for one second she looked at him with eyes so full of dark meaning that he once more thought of the secret which had been communicated to him one evening after an uproarious dinner. Then, too, she was no longer the same woman. Something was more pronounced than of old, and her gray foulard gown which fitted loosely over her shoulders added a touch of license to her delicate, high-strung elegance.

When they rose from the table Daguenet remained behind with Fauchery in order to impart to him the following crude witticism about Estelle: 'A nice broomstick that to shove into a man's hands!' Nevertheless, he grew serious when the journalist told him the amount she was worth in the way of dowry.