oo many, she said.

In these latter times, whenever she dined at Laure's, she donned her
diamonds and occasionally brought with her Louise Violaine, Maria Blond
and Tatan Nene, all of them ablaze with finery; and while the sordid
feast was progressing in the three saloons and the yellow gaslight
flared overhead, these four resplendent ladies would demean themselves
with a vengeance, for it was their delight to dazzle the little local
courtesans and to carry them off when dinner was over. On days such as
these Laure, sleek and tight-laced as ever would kiss everyone with an
air of expanded maternity. Yet notwithstanding all these circumstances
Satin's blue eyes and pure virginal face remained as calm as heretofore;
torn, beaten and pestered by the two women, she would simply remark that
it was a funny business, and they would have done far better to make it
up at once. It did no good to slap her; she couldn't cut herself in two,
however much she wanted to be nice to everybody. It was Nana who finally
carried her off in triumph, so assiduously had she loaded Satin with
kindnesses and presents. In order to be revenged, however, Mme Robert
wrote abominable, anonymous letters to her rival's lovers.

For some time past Count Muffat had appeared suspicious, and one
morning, with considerable show of feeling, he laid before Nana an
anonymous letter, where in the very first sentences she read that she
was accused of deceiving the count with Vandeuvres and the young Hugons.

"It's false! It's false!" she loudly exclaimed in accents of
extraordinary candor.

"You swear?" asked Muffat, already willing to be comforted.

"I'll swear by whatever you like--yes, by the head of my child!"

But the letter was long. Soon her connection with Satin was described
in the broadest and most ignoble terms. When she had done reading she
smiled.

"Now I know who it comes from," she remarked simply.

And as Muffat wanted her denial to the charges therein contained, she
resumed quietly enough:

"That's a matter which doesn't concern you, dear old pet. How can it
hurt you?"

She did not deny anything. He used some horrified expressions. Thereupon
she shrugged her shoulders. Where had he been all this time? Why, it
was done everywhere! And she mentioned her friends and swore that
fashionable ladies went in for it. In fact, to hear her speak, nothing
could be commoner or more natural. But a lie was a lie, and so a moment
ago he had seen how