a and Maria, whom
Labordette complaisantly took under his charge.

"Oh, but I don't the least bit want to go to bed!" said Nana. "One ought
to find something to do."

She looked at the sky through the windowpanes. It was a livid sky, and
sooty clouds were scudding across it. It was six o'clock in the morning.
Over the way, on the opposite side of the Boulevard Haussmann, the
glistening roofs of the still-slumbering houses were sharply outlined
against the twilight sky while along the deserted roadway a gang of
street sweepers passed with a clatter of wooden shoes. As she viewed
Paris thus grimly awakening, she was overcome by tender, girlish
feelings, by a yearning for the country, for idyllic scenes, for things
soft and white.

"Now guess what you're to do," she said, coming back to Steiner. "You're
going to take me to the Bois de Boulogne, and we'll drink milk there."

She clapped her hands in childish glee. Without waiting for the banker's
reply--he naturally consented, though he was really rather bored and
inclined to think of other things--she ran off to throw a pelisse over
her shoulders. In the drawing room there was now no one with Steiner
save the band of young men. These had by this time dropped the very
dregs of their glasses into the piano and were talking of going, when
one of their number ran in triumphantly. He held in his hands a last
remaining bottle, which he had brought back with him from the pantry.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" he shouted. "Here's a bottle of
chartreuse; that'll pick him up! And now, my young friends, let's hook
it. We're blooming idiots."

In the dressing room Nana was compelled to wake up Zoe, who had dozed
off on a chair. The gas was still alight, and Zoe shivered as she helped
her mistress on with her hat and pelisse.

"Well, it's over; I've done what you wanted me to," said Nana, speaking
familiarly to the maid in a sudden burst of expansive confidence and
much relieved at the thought that she had at last made her election.
"You were quite right; the banker's as good as another."

The maid was cross, for she was still heavy with sleep. She grumbled
something to the effect that Madame ought to have come to a decision the
first evening. Then following her into the bedroom, she asked what she
was going to do with "those two," meaning Bordenave, who was snoring
away as usual, and Georges, who had slipped in slyly, buried his head in
a pillow and, finally falling asleep