in
his eyes; he looked fit to drop with apoplexy.

"Well, Marechal," queried the count in the lowest of voices, "to what
amount have you laid odds?"

"To five thousand louis, Monsieur le Comte," replied the bookmaker,
likewise lowering his voice. "A pretty job, eh? I'll confess to you that
I've increased the odds; I've made it three to one."

Vandeuvres looked very much put out.

"No, no, I don't want you to do that. Put it at two to one again
directly. I shan't tell you any more, Marechal."

"Oh, how can it hurt, Monsieur le Comte, at this time o' day?" rejoined
the other with the humble smile befitting an accomplice. "I had to
attract the people so as to lay your two thousand louis."

At this Vandeuvres silenced him. But as he was going off Marechal
remembered something and was sorry he had not questioned him about the
shortening of the odds on the filly. It would be a nice business for him
if the filly stood a chance, seeing that he had just laid fifty to one
about her in two hundreds.

Nana, though she did not understand a word of what the count was
whispering, dared not, however, ask for new explanations. He seemed more
nervous than before and abruptly handed her over to Labordette, whom
they came upon in front of the weighing-in room.

"You'll take her back," he said. "I've got something on hand. Au
revoir!"

And he entered the room, which was narrow and low-pitched and half
filled with a great pair of scales. It was like a waiting room in a
suburban station, and Nana was again hugely disillusioned, for she had
been picturing to herself something on a very vast scale, a monumental
machine, in fact, for weighing horses. Dear me, they only weighed
the jockeys! Then it wasn't worth while making such a fuss with their
weighing! In the scale a jockey with an idiotic expression was waiting,
harness on knee, till a stout man in a frock coat should have done
verifying his weight. At the door a stable help was holding a horse,
Cosinus, round which a silent and deeply interested throng was
clustering.

The course was about to be cleared. Labordette hurried Nana but retraced
his steps in order to show her a little man talking with Vandeuvres at
some distance from the rest.

"Dear me, there's Price!" he said.

"Ah yes, the man who's mounting me," she murmured laughingly.

And she declared him to be exquisitely ugly. All jockeys struck her as
looking idiotic, doubtless, she said, because they were prevented fr