d, and with a despairing gesture:

"Oh, it's impossible! You yourself were saying just now that it didn't
depend on me."

She interrupted him with a shrug of the shoulders.

"You'll just go down, and you'll tell Bordenave you want the part. Now
don't be such a silly! Bordenave wants money--well, you'll lend him
some, since you can afford to make ducks and drakes of it."

And as he still struggled to refuse her, she grew angry.

"Very well, I understand; you're afraid of making Rose angry. I didn't
mention the woman when you were crying down on the floor--I should have
had too much to say about it all. Yes, to be sure, when one has sworn to
love a woman forever one doesn't usually take up with the first creature
that comes by directly after. Oh, that's where the shoe pinches, I
remember! Well, dear boy, there's nothing very savory in the Mignon's
leavings! Oughtn't you to have broken it off with that dirty lot before
coming and squirming on my knees?"

He protested vaguely and at last was able to get out a phrase.

"Oh, I don't care a jot for Rose; I'll give her up at once."

Nana seemed satisfied on this point. She continued:

"Well then, what's bothering you? Bordenave's master here. You'll tell
me there's Fauchery after Bordenave--"

She had sunk her voice, for she was coming to the delicate part of the
matter. Muffat sat silent, his eyes fixed on the ground. He had remained
voluntarily ignorant of Fauchery's assiduous attentions to the countess,
and time had lulled his suspicions and set him hoping that he had been
deceiving himself during that fearful night passed in a doorway of the
Rue Taitbout. But he still felt a dull, angry repugnance to the man.

"Well, what then? Fauchery isn't the devil!" Nana repeated, feeling her
way cautiously and trying to find out how matters stood between husband
and lover. "One can get over his soft side. I promise you, he's a good
sort at bottom! So it's a bargain, eh? You'll tell him that it's for my
sake?"

The idea of taking such a step disgusted the count.

"No, no! Never!" he cried.

She paused, and this sentence was on the verge of utterance:

"Fauchery can refuse you nothing."

But she felt that by way of argument it was rather too much of a good
thing. So she only smiled a queer smile which spoke as plainly as
words. Muffat had raised his eyes to her and now once more lowered them,
looking pale and full of embarrassment.

"Ah, you're not good natured," she