used the words "Royal Highness" and, bowing with the utmost
conviction, treated the masqueraders, Bosc and Prulliere, as if the
one were a sovereign and the other his attendant minister. And no one
dreamed of smiling at this strange contrast, this real prince, this heir
to a throne, drinking a petty actor's champagne and taking his ease amid
a carnival of gods, a masquerade of royalty, in the society of dressers
and courtesans, shabby players and showmen of venal beauty. Bordenave
was simply ravished by the dramatic aspects of the scene and began
dreaming of the receipts which would have accrued had His Highness only
consented thus to appear in the second act of the Blonde Venus.

"I say, shall we have our little women down?" he cried, becoming
familiar.

Nana would not hear of it. But notwithstanding this, she was giving
way herself. Fontan attracted her with his comic make-up. She brushed
against him and, eying him as a woman in the family way might do when
she fancies some unpleasant kind of food, she suddenly became extremely
familiar:

"Now then, fill up again, ye great brute!"

Fontan charged the glasses afresh, and the company drank, repeating the
same toasts.

"To His Highness!"

"To the army!"

"To Venus!"

But with that Nana made a sign and obtained silence. She raised her
glass and cried:

"No, no! To Fontan! It's Fontan's day; to Fontan! To Fontan!"

Then they clinked glasses a third time and drank Fontan with all the
honors. The prince, who had noticed the young woman devouring the actor
with her eyes, saluted him with a "Monsieur Fontan, I drink to your
success!" This he said with his customary courtesy.

But meanwhile the tail of his highness's frock coat was sweeping the
marble of the dressing table. The place, indeed, was like an alcove or
narrow bathroom, full as it was of the steam of hot water and sponges
and of the strong scent of essences which mingled with the tartish,
intoxicating fumes of the champagne. The prince and Count Muffat,
between whom Nana was wedged, had to lift up their hands so as not to
brush against her hips or her breast with every little movement. And
there stood Mme Jules, waiting, cool and rigid as ever, while Satin,
marveling in the depths of her vicious soul to see a prince and two
gentlemen in black coats going after a naked woman in the society of
dressed-up actors, secretly concluded that fashionable people were not
so very particular after all.

But Fat