therefore, grow angry with
him on the score of miserliness. Oh, how gladly she would have turned
all these folks off had she not repeated to herself a score of times
daily a whole string of economical maxims!

One ought to be sensible, Zoe kept saying every morning, and Nana
herself was constantly haunted by the queenly vision seen at Chamont. It
had now become an almost religious memory with her, and through dint of
being ceaselessly recalled it grew even more grandiose. And for these
reasons, though trembling with repressed indignation, she now hung
submissively on the count's arm as they went from window to window among
the fast-diminishing crowd. The pavement was drying outside, and a cool
wind blew along the gallery, swept the close hot air up beneath the
glass that imprisoned it and shook the colored lanterns and the lines of
gas jets and the giant fan which was flaring away like a set piece in an
illumination. At the door of the restaurant a waiter was putting out the
gas, while the motionless attendants in the empty, glaring shops looked
as though they had dropped off to sleep with their eyes open.

"Oh, what a duck!" continued Nana, retracing her steps as far as
the last of the shops in order to go into ecstasies over a porcelain
greyhound standing with raised forepaw in front of a nest hidden among
roses.

At length they quitted the passage, but she refused the offer of a cab.
It was very pleasant out she said; besides, they were in no hurry, and
it would be charming to return home on foot. When they were in front of
the Cafe Anglais she had a sudden longing to eat oysters. Indeed,
she said that owing to Louiset's illness she had tasted nothing since
morning. Muffat dared not oppose her. Yet as he did not in those days
wish to be seen about with her he asked for a private supper room and
hurried to it along the corridors. She followed him with the air of a
woman familiar with the house, and they were on the point of entering
a private room, the door of which a waiter held open, when from a
neighboring saloon, whence issued a perfect tempest of shouts and
laughter, a man rapidly emerged. It was Daguenet.

"By Jove, it's Nana!" he cried.

The count had briskly disappeared into the private room, leaving the
door ajar behind him. But Daguenet winked behind his round shoulders and
added in chaffing tones:

"The deuce, but you're doing nicely! You catch 'em in the Tuileries
nowadays!"

Nana smiled and laid