from the avenues in the
Bois died out suddenly in dull rustlings, and now nothing was audible
save the hubbub of the ever-increasing crowds and cries and calls and
the crackings of whips in the open. When the sun, amid bursts of wind,
reappeared at the edge of a cloud, a long ray of golden light ran across
the field, lit up the harness and the varnished coach panels and
touched the ladies' dresses with fire, while amid the dusty radiance the
coachmen, high up on their boxes, flamed beside their great whips.

Labordette was getting out of an open carriage where Gaga, Clarisse and
Blanche de Sivry had kept a place for him. As he was hurrying to cross
the course and enter the weighing enclosure Nana got Georges to call
him. Then when he came up:

"What's the betting on me?" she asked laughingly.

She referred to the filly Nana, the Nana who had let herself be
shamefully beaten in the race for the Prix de Diane and had not even
been placed in April and May last when she ran for the Prix des Cars
and the Grande Poule des Produits, both of which had been gained by
Lusignan, the other horse in the Vandeuvres stable. Lusignan had all at
once become prime favorite, and since yesterday he had been currently
taken at two to one.

"Always fifty to one against," replied Labordette.

"The deuce! I'm not worth much," rejoined Nana, amused by the jest.
"I don't back myself then; no, by jingo! I don't put a single louis on
myself."

Labordette went off again in a great hurry, but she recalled him. She
wanted some advice. Since he kept in touch with the world of trainers
and jockeys he had special information about various stables. His
prognostications had come true a score of times already, and people
called him the "King of Tipsters."

"Let's see, what horses ought I to choose?" said the young woman.
"What's the betting on the Englishman?"

"Spirit? Three to one against. Valerio II, the same. As to the others,
they're laying twenty-five to one against Cosinus, forty to one
against Hazard, thirty to one against Bourn, thirty-five to one against
Pichenette, ten to one against Frangipane."

"No, I don't bet on the Englishman, I don't. I'm a patriot. Perhaps
Valerio II would do, eh? The Duc de Corbreuse was beaming a little while
ago. Well, no, after all! Fifty louis on Lusignan; what do you say to
that?"

Labordette looked at her with a singular expression. She leaned
forward and asked him questions in a low voice, for she wa