us allowance in a room whither no one ever penetrated.

All of a sudden Nana grew excited.

"Don't play with the knives, Aunt. You know it gives me a turn!"

Without thinking about it Mme Lerat had crossed two knives on the table
in front of her. Notwithstanding this, the young woman defended herself
from the charge of superstition. Thus, if the salt were upset, it meant
nothing, even on a Friday; but when it came to knives, that was too much
of a good thing; that had never proved fallacious. There could be no
doubt that something unpleasant was going to happen to her. She yawned,
and then with an air, of profound boredom:

"Two o'clock already. I must go out. What a nuisance!"

The two old ladies looked at one another. The three women shook their
heads without speaking. To be sure, life was not always amusing. Nana
had tilted her chair back anew and lit a cigarette, while the others sat
pursing up their lips discreetly, thinking deeply philosophic thoughts.

"While waiting for you to return we'll play a game of bezique," said Mme
Maloir after a short silence. "Does Madame play bezique?"

Certainly Mme Lerat played it, and that to perfection. It was no good
troubling Zoe, who had vanished--a corner of the table would do quite
well. And they pushed back the tablecloth over the dirty plates. But as
Mme Maloir was herself going to take the cards out of a drawer in the
sideboard, Nana remarked that before she sat down to her game it would
be very nice of her if she would write her a letter. It bored Nana to
write letters; besides, she was not sure of her spelling, while her old
friend could turn out the most feeling epistles. She ran to fetch some
good note paper in her bedroom. An inkstand consisting of a bottle
of ink worth about three sous stood untidily on one of the pieces
of furniture, with a pen deep in rust beside it. The letter was for
Daguenet. Mme Maloir herself wrote in her bold English hand, "My darling
little man," and then she told him not to come tomorrow because "that
could not be" but hastened to add that "she was with him in thought at
every moment of the day, whether she were near or far away."

"And I end with 'a thousand kisses,'" she murmured.

Mme Lerat had shown her approval of each phrase with an emphatic nod.
Her eyes were sparkling; she loved to find herself in the midst of love
affairs. Nay, she was seized with a desire to add some words of her own
and, assuming a tender look and cooing