ieved.

That very day, as Nana was dozing toward two in the afternoon, Zoe made
so bold as to knock at her bedroom door. The curtains were drawn to,
and a hot breath of wind kept blowing through a window into the fresh
twilight stillness within. During these last days the young woman had
been getting up and about again, but she was still somewhat weak. She
opened her eyes and asked:

"Who is it?"

Zoe was about to reply, but Daguenet pushed by her and announced
himself in person. Nana forthwith propped herself up on her pillow and,
dismissing the lady's maid:

"What! Is that you?" she cried. "On the day of your marriage? What can
be the matter?"

Taken aback by the darkness, he stood still in the middle of the room.
However, he grew used to it and came forward at last. He was in evening
dress and wore a white cravat and gloves.

"Yes, to be sure, it's me!" he said. "You don't remember?"

No, she remembered nothing, and in his chaffing way he had to offer
himself frankly to her.

"Come now, here's your commission. I've brought you the handsel of my
innocence!"

And with that, as he was now by the bedside, she caught him in her bare
arms and shook with merry laughter and almost cried, she thought it so
pretty of him.

"Oh, that Mimi, how funny he is! He's thought of it after all! And to
think I didn't remember it any longer! So you've slipped off; you're
just out of church. Yes, certainly, you've got a scent of incense about
you. But kiss me, kiss me! Oh, harder than that, Mimi dear! Bah! Perhaps
it's for the last time."

In the dim room, where a vague odor of ether still lingered, their
tender laughter died away suddenly. The heavy, warm breeze swelled
the window curtains, and children's voices were audible in the avenue
without. Then the lateness of the hour tore them asunder and set them
joking again. Daguenet took his departure with his wife directly after
the breakfast.

CHAPTER XIII

Toward the end of September Count Muffat, who was to dine at Nana's that
evening, came at nightfall to inform her of a summons to the Tuileries.
The lamps in the house had not been lit yet, and the servants were
laughing uproariously in the kitchen regions as he softly mounted the
stairs, where the tall windows gleamed in warm shadow. The door of the
drawing room up-stairs opened noiselessly. A faint pink glow was dying
out on the ceiling of the room, and the red hangings, the deep divans,
the lacquered furnitur