smiling still, but her smile was now bitter, as of a
devourer of men.

"By God," said Fauchery quite simply to La Faloise.

Mars in the meantime, with his plume of feathers, came hurrying to the
trysting place and found himself between the two goddesses. Then ensued
a passage which Prulliere played with great delicacy. Petted by Diana,
who wanted to make a final attack upon his feelings before delivering
him up to Vulcan, wheedled by Venus, whom the presence of her rival
excited, he gave himself up to these tender delights with the beatified
expression of a man in clover. Finally a grand trio brought the scene
to a close, and it was then that an attendant appeared in Lucy Stewart's
box and threw on the stage two immense bouquets of white lilacs. There
was applause; Nana and Rose Mignon bowed, while Prulliere picked up the
bouquets. Many of the occupants of the stalls turned smilingly toward
the ground-floor occupied by Steiner and Mignon. The banker, his face
blood-red, was suffering from little convulsive twitchings of the chin,
as though he had a stoppage in his throat.

What followed took the house by storm completely. Diana had gone off
in a rage, and directly afterward, Venus, sitting on a moss-clad seat,
called Mars to her. Never yet had a more glowing scene of seduction
been ventured on. Nana, her arms round Prulliere's neck, was drawing
him toward her when Fontan, with comically furious mimicry and an
exaggerated imitation of the face of an outraged husband who surprises
his wife in FLAGRANTE DELICTO, appeared at the back of the grotto. He
was holding the famous net with iron meshes. For an instant he poised
and swung it, as a fisherman does when he is going to make a cast, and
by an ingenious twist Venus and Mars were caught in the snare; the net
wrapped itself round them and held them motionless in the attitude of
happy lovers.

A murmur of applause swelled and swelled like a growing sigh. There was
some hand clapping, and every opera glass was fixed on Venus. Little by
little Nana had taken possession of the public, and now every man was
her slave.

A wave of lust had flowed from her as from an excited animal, and its
influence had spread and spread and spread till the whole house was
possessed by it. At that moment her slightest movement blew the flame of
desire: with her little finger she ruled men's flesh. Backs were arched
and quivered as though unseen violin bows had been drawn across their
muscle