should have to go and find out the minister of
the interior. Meanwhile there was no sort of hurry: nobody would come
and search for her at Nana's--that was certain. And thereupon the
two women began to pass tender afternoons together, making numberless
endearing little speeches and mingling their kisses with laughter.
The same little sport, which the arrival of the plainclothes men had
interrupted in the Rue de Laval, was beginning again in a jocular sort
of spirit. One fine evening, however, it became serious, and Nana, who
had been so disgusted at Laure's, now understood what it meant. She was
upset and enraged by it, the more so because Satin disappeared on the
morning of the fourth day. No one had seen her go out. She had, indeed,
slipped away in her new dress, seized by a longing for air, full of
sentimental regret for her old street existence.

That day there was such a terrible storm in the house that all the
servants hung their heads in sheepish silence. Nana had come near
beating Francois for not throwing himself across the door through which
Satin escaped. She did her best, however, to control herself, and talked
of Satin as a dirty swine. Oh, it would teach her to pick filthy things
like that out of the gutter!

When Madame shut herself up in her room in the afternoon Zoe heard her
sobbing. In the evening she suddenly asked for her carriage and had
herself driven to Laure's. It had occurred to her that she would find
Satin at the table d'hote in the Rue des Martyrs. She was not going
there for the sake of seeing her again but in order to catch her one in
the face! As a matter of fact Satin was dining at a little table with
Mme Robert. Seeing Nana, she began to laugh, but the former, though
wounded to the quick, did not make a scene. On the contrary, she was
very sweet and very compliant. She paid for champagne made five or six
tablefuls tipsy and then carried off Satin when Mme Robert was in the
closets. Not till they were in the carriage did she make a mordant
attack on her, threatening to kill her if she did it again.

After that day the same little business began again continually. On
twenty different occasions Nana, tragically furious, as only a jilted
woman can be ran off in pursuit of this sluttish creature, whose flights
were prompted by the boredom she suffered amid the comforts of her new
home. Nana began to talk of boxing Mme Robert's ears; one day she even
meditated a duel; there was one woman t