one craned forward. The rehearsal
was, as it were, momentarily interrupted. But Bordenave emerged from his
quiescent condition, shouting:

"What's up, eh? Finish the act, I say. And be quiet out there; it's
unbearable!"

Nana was still following the piece from the corner box. Twice Labordette
showed an inclination to chat, but she grew impatient and nudged him to
make him keep silent. The second act was drawing to a close, when two
shadows loomed at the back of the theater. They were creeping softly
down, avoiding all noise, and Nana recognized Mignon and Count Muffat.
They came forward and silently shook hands with Bordenave.

"Ah, there they are," she murmured with a sigh of relief.

Rose Mignon delivered the last sentences of the act. Thereupon Bordenave
said that it was necessary to go through the second again before
beginning the third. With that he left off attending to the rehearsal
and greeted the count with looks of exaggerated politeness, while
Fauchery pretended to be entirely engrossed with his actors, who now
grouped themselves round him. Mignon stood whistling carelessly, with
his hands behind his back and his eyes fixed complacently on his wife,
who seemed rather nervous.

"Well, shall we go upstairs?" Labordette asked Nana. "I'll install you
in the dressing room and come down again and fetch him."

Nana forthwith left the corner box. She had to grope her way along the
passage outside the stalls, but Bordenave guessed where she was as she
passed along in the dark and caught her up at the end of the corridor
passing behind the scenes, a narrow tunnel where the gas burned day and
night. Here, in order to bluff her into a bargain, he plunged into a
discussion of the courtesan's part.

"What a part it is, eh? What a wicked little part! It's made for you.
Come and rehearse tomorrow."

Nana was frigid. She wanted to know what the third act was like.

"Oh, it's superb, the third act is! The duchess plays the courtesan in
her own house and this disgusts Beaurivage and makes him amend his way.
Then there's an awfully funny QUID PRO QUO, when Tardiveau arrives and
is under the impression that he's at an opera dancer's house."

"And what does Geraldine do in it all?" interrupted Nana.

"Geraldine?" repeated Bordenave in some embarrassment. "She has a
scene--not a very long one, but a great success. It's made for you, I
assure you! Will you sign?"

She looked steadily at him and at length made answer: