the acid scents of toilet waters and the
perfumes of various soaps emanating from the dressing rooms. The count
lifted his eyes as he passed and glanced up the staircase, for he was
well-nigh startled by the keen flood of light and warmth which flowed
down upon his back and shoulders. High up above him there was a clicking
of ewers and basins, a sound of laughter and of people calling to
one another, a banging of doors, which in their continual opening and
shutting allowed an odor of womankind to escape--a musky scent of oils
and essences mingling with the natural pungency exhaled from human
tresses. He did not stop. Nay, he hastened his walk: he almost ran, his
skin tingling with the breath of that fiery approach to a world he knew
nothing of.

"A theater's a curious sight, eh?" said the Marquis de Chouard with the
enchanted expression of a man who once more finds himself amid familiar
surroundings.

But Bordenave had at length reached Nana's dressing room at the end of
the passage. He quietly turned the door handle; then, cringing again:

"If His Highness will have the goodness to enter--"

They heard the cry of a startled woman and caught sight of Nana as,
stripped to the waist, she slipped behind a curtain while her dresser,
who had been in the act of drying her, stood, towel in air, before them.

"Oh, it IS silly to come in that way!" cried Nana from her hiding place.
"Don't come in; you see you mustn't come in!"

Bordenave did not seem to relish this sudden flight.

"Do stay where you were, my dear. Why, it doesn't matter," he said.
"It's His Highness. Come, come, don't be childish."

And when she still refused to make her appearance--for she was startled
as yet, though she had begun to laugh--he added in peevish, paternal
tones:

"Good heavens, these gentlemen know perfectly well what a woman looks
like. They won't eat you."

"I'm not so sure of that," said the prince wittily.

With that the whole company began laughing in an exaggerated manner in
order to pay him proper court.

"An exquisitely witty speech--an altogether Parisian speech," as
Bordenave remarked.

Nana vouchsafed no further reply, but the curtain began moving.
Doubtless she was making up her mind. Then Count Muffat, with glowing
cheeks, began to take stock of the dressing room. It was a square room
with a very low ceiling, and it was entirely hung with a light-colored
Havana stuff. A curtain of the same material depended from a cop