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 p