ottom of the bed so that when she entered it before him she should feel
it against her legs. Since dinnertime he had been meditating this little
surprise like a schoolboy, and now, in trouble and anguish of heart at
being thus dismissed, he gave her the case without further ceremony.

"What is it?" she queried. "Sapphires? Dear me! Oh yes, it's that set.
How sweet you are! But I say, my darling, d'you believe it's the same
one? In the shopwindow it made a much greater show."

That was all the thanks he got, and she let him go away. He noticed
Satin stretched out silent and expectant, and with that he gazed at
both women and without further insistence submitted to his fate and
went downstairs. The hall door had not yet closed when Satin caught Nana
round the waist and danced and sang. Then she ran to the window.

"Oh, just look at the figure he cuts down in the street!" The two women
leaned upon the wrought-iron window rail in the shadow of the curtains.
One o'clock struck. The Avenue de Villiers was deserted, and its double
file of gas lamps stretched away into the darkness of the damp March
night through which great gusts of wind kept sweeping, laden with rain.
There were vague stretches of land on either side of the road which
looked like gulfs of shadow, while scaffoldings round mansions in
process of construction loomed upward under the dark sky. They laughed
uncontrollably as they watched Muffat's rounded back and glistening
shadow disappearing along the wet sidewalk into the glacial, desolate
plains of new Paris. But Nana silenced Satin.

"Take care; there are the police!"

Thereupon they smothered their laughter and gazed in secret fear at two
dark figures walking with measured tread on the opposite side of
the avenue. Amid all her luxurious surroundings, amid all the royal
splendors of the woman whom all must obey, Nana still stood in horror
of the police and did not like to hear them mentioned any oftener than
death. She felt distinctly unwell when a policeman looked up at her
house. One never knew what such people might do! They might easily take
them for loose women if they heard them laughing at that hour of the
night. Satin, with a little shudder, had squeezed herself up against
Nana. Nevertheless, the pair stayed where they were and were soon
interested in the approach of a lantern, the light of which danced over
the puddles in the road. It was an old ragpicker woman who was busy
raking in the gutters.