d her in all directions.

"Where can she be?" she queried.

She was searching for Satin. When she had found her again, waiting on
her trunk behind the curtain, Satin quietly replied:

"Certainly I didn't want to be in your way with all those men there!"

And she added further that she was going now. But Nana held her back.
What a silly girl she was! Now that Bordenave had agreed to take her
on! Why, the bargain was to be struck after the play was over! Satin
hesitated. There were too many bothers; she was out of her element!
Nevertheless, she stayed.

As the prince was coming down the little wooden staircase a strange
sound of smothered oaths and stamping, scuffling feet became audible on
the other side of the theater. The actors waiting for their cues were
being scared by quite a serious episode. For some seconds past Mignon
had been renewing his jokes and smothering Fauchery with caresses.
He had at last invented a little game of a novel kind and had begun
flicking the other's nose in order, as he phrased it, to keep the flies
off him. This kind of game naturally diverted the actors to any extent.

But success had suddenly thrown Mignon off his balance. He had launched
forth into extravagant courses and had given the journalist a box on the
ear, an actual, a vigorous, box on the ear. This time he had gone
too far: in the presence of so many spectators it was impossible for
Fauchery to pocket such a blow with laughing equanimity. Whereupon
the two men had desisted from their farce, had sprung at one another's
throats, their faces livid with hate, and were now rolling over and over
behind a set of side lights, pounding away at each other as though they
weren't breakable.

"Monsieur Bordenave, Monsieur Bordenave!" said the stage manager, coming
up in a terrible flutter.

Bordenave made his excuses to the prince and followed him. When he
recognized Fauchery and Mignon in the men on the floor he gave vent to
an expression of annoyance. They had chosen a nice time, certainly, with
His Highness on the other side of the scenery and all that houseful of
people who might have overheard the row! To make matters worse, Rose
Mignon arrived out of breath at the very moment she was due on the
stage. Vulcan, indeed, was giving her the cue, but Rose stood rooted to
the ground, marveling at sight of her husband and her lover as they lay
wallowing at her feet, strangling one another, kicking, tearing their
hair out and whitenin