ate.

"Yes, yes!" he remarked sadly.

And with that she made him understand that he was never to come in the
mornings but between four and six in the afternoon, if he cared to.
That was her reception time. Then as he looked at her with suppliant,
questioning eyes and craved no boon at all, she, in her turn, kissed him
on the forehead in the most amiable way.

"Be very good," she whispered. "I'll do all I can."

But the truth was that this remark now meant nothing. She thought
Georges very nice and would have liked him as a companion, but as
nothing else. Nevertheless, when he arrived daily at four o'clock he
seemed so wretched that she was often fain to be as compliant as of old
and would hide him in cupboards and constantly allow him to pick up the
crumbs from Beauty's table. He hardly ever left the house now and
became as much one of its inmates as the little dog Bijou. Together they
nestled among Mistress's skirts and enjoyed a little of her at a time,
even when she was with another man, while doles of sugar and stray
caresses not seldom fell to their share in her hours of loneliness and
boredom.

Doubtless Mme Hugon found out that the lad had again returned to that
wicked woman's arms, for she hurried up to Paris and came and sought aid
from her other son, the Lieutenant Philippe, who was then in garrison
at Vincennes. Georges, who was hiding from his elder brother, was seized
with despairing apprehension, for he feared the latter might adopt
violent tactics, and as his tenderness for Nana was so nervously
expansive that he could not keep anything from her, he soon began
talking of nothing but his big brother, a great, strong fellow, who was
capable of all kinds of things.

"You know," he explained, "Mamma won't come to you while she can send my
brother. Oh, she'll certainly send Philippe to fetch me."

The first time he said this Nana was deeply wounded. She said frigidly:

"Gracious me, I should like to see him come! For all that he's a
lieutenant in the army, Francois will chuck him out in double-quick
time!"

Soon, as the lad kept returning to the subject of his brother, she ended
by taking a certain interest in Philippe, and in a week's time she knew
him from head to foot--knew him as very tall and very strong and merry
and somewhat rough. She learned intimate details, too, and found
out that he had hair on his arms and a birthmark on his shoulder. So
thoroughly did she learn her lesson that one day,