s aware that
Vandeuvres commissioned him to arrange matters with the bookmakers so
as to be able to bet the more easily. Supposing him to have got to know
something, he might quite well tell it her. But without entering into
explanations Labordette persuaded her to trust to his sagacity. He would
put on her fifty louis for her as he might think best, and she would not
repent of his arrangement.

"All the horses you like!" she cried gaily, letting him take his
departure, "but no Nana; she's a jade!"

There was a burst of uproarious laughter in the carriage. The young men
thought her sally very amusing, while Louiset in his ignorance lifted
his pale eyes to his mother's face, for her loud exclamations surprised
him. However, there was no escape for Labordette as yet. Rose Mignon had
made a sign to him and was now giving him her commands while he wrote
figures in a notebook. Then Clarisse and Gaga called him back in order
to change their bets, for they had heard things said in the crowd, and
now they didn't want to have anything more to do with Valerio II and
were choosing Lusignan. He wrote down their wishes with an impassible
expression and at length managed to escape. He could be seen
disappearing between two of the stands on the other side of the course.

Carriages were still arriving. They were by this time drawn up five rows
deep, and a dense mass of them spread along the barriers, checkered by
the light coats of white horses. Beyond them other carriages stood about
in comparative isolation, looking as though they had stuck fast in the
grass. Wheels and harness were here, there and everywhere, according as
the conveyances to which they belonged were side by side, at an angle,
across and across or head to head. Over such spaces of turf as still
remained unoccupied cavaliers kept trotting, and black groups of
pedestrians moved continually. The scene resembled the field where a
fair is being held, and above it all, amid the confused motley of the
crowd, the drinking booths raised their gray canvas roofs which gleamed
white in the sunshine. But a veritable tumult, a mob, an eddy of
hats, surged round the several bookmakers, who stood in open carriages
gesticulating like itinerant dentists while their odds were pasted up on
tall boards beside them.

"All the same, it's stupid not to know on what horse one's betting,"
Nana was remarking. "I really must risk some louis in person."

She had stood up to select a bookmake