om
growing bigger. This particular jockey was a man of forty, and with his
long, thin, deeply furrowed, hard, dead countenance, he looked like an
old shriveled-up child. His body was knotty and so reduced in size that
his blue jacket with its white sleeves looked as if it had been thrown
over a lay figure.

"No," she resumed as she walked away, "he would never make me very
happy, you know."

A mob of people were still crowding the course, the turf of which had
been wet and trampled on till it had grown black. In front of the two
telegraphs, which hung very high up on their cast-iron pillars, the
crowd were jostling together with upturned faces, uproariously greeting
the numbers of the different horses as an electric wire in connection
with the weighing room made them appear. Gentlemen were pointing at
programs: Pichenette had been scratched by his owner, and this caused
some noise. However, Nana did not do more than cross over the course
on Labordette's arm. The bell hanging on the flagstaff was ringing
persistently to warn people to leave the course.

"Ah, my little dears," she said as she got up into her landau again,
"their enclosure's all humbug!"

She was welcomed with acclamation; people around her clapped their
hands.

"Bravo, Nana! Nana's ours again!"

What idiots they were, to be sure! Did they think she was the sort to
cut old friends? She had come back just at the auspicious moment.
Now then, 'tenshun! The race was beginning! And the champagne was
accordingly forgotten, and everyone left off drinking.

But Nana was astonished to find Gaga in her carriage, sitting with Bijou
and Louiset on her knees. Gaga had indeed decided on this course of
action in order to be near La Faloise, but she told Nana that she had
been anxious to kiss Baby. She adored children.

"By the by, what about Lili?" asked Nana. "That's certainly she over
there in that old fellow's brougham. They've just told me something very
nice!"

Gaga had adopted a lachrymose expression.

"My dear, it's made me ill," she said dolorously. "Yesterday I had to
keep my bed, I cried so, and today I didn't think I should be able to
come. You know what my opinions were, don't you? I didn't desire that
kind of thing at all. I had her educated in a convent with a view to a
good marriage. And then to think of the strict advice she had and the
constant watching! Well, my dear, it was she who wished it. We had such
a scene--tears--disagreeable speec