egan raining on her, and she fished up many a louis out of
the troubled waters.

One morning when Muffat had not yet left the bedroom Zoe ushered a
gentleman into the dressing room, where Nana was changing her underwear.
He was trembling violently.

"Good gracious! It's Zizi!" said the young woman in great astonishment.

It was, indeed, Georges. But when he saw her in her shift, with her
golden hair over her bare shoulders, he threw his arms round her
neck and round her waist and kissed her in all directions. She began
struggling to get free, for she was frightened, and in smothered tones
she stammered:

"Do leave off! He's there! Oh, it's silly of you! And you, Zoe, are you
out of your senses? Take him away and keep him downstairs; I'll try and
come down."

Zoe had to push him in front of her. When Nana was able to rejoin them
in the drawing room downstairs she scolded them both, and Zoe pursed up
her lips and took her departure with a vexed expression, remarking that
she had only been anxious to give Madame a pleasure. Georges was so glad
to see Nana again and gazed at her with such delight that his fine eyes
began filling with tears. The miserable days were over now; his mother
believed him to have grown reasonable and had allowed him to leave Les
Fondettes. Accordingly, the moment he had reached the terminus, he had
got a conveyance in order the more quickly to come and kiss his sweet
darling. He spoke of living at her side in future, as he used to do down
in the country when he waited for her, barefooted, in the bedroom at
La Mignotte. And as he told her about himself, he let his fingers creep
forward, for he longed to touch her after that cruel year of separation.
Then he got possession of her hands, felt about the wide sleeves of her
dressing jacket, traveled up as far as her shoulders.

"You still love your baby?" he asked in his child voice.

"Oh, I certainly love him!" answered Nana, briskly getting out of his
clutches. "But you come popping in without warning. You know, my little
man, I'm not my own mistress; you must be good!"

Georges, when he got out of his cab, had been so dizzy with the feeling
that his long desire was at last about to be satisfied that he had
not even noticed what sort of house he was entering. But now he
became conscious of a change in the things around him. He examined the
sumptuous dining room with its lofty decorated ceiling, its Gobelin
hangings, its buffet blazing with pl