e evening La Faloise vanished, and a week later it became known that
he was in the country with an uncle whose mania was botany. He was
pasting his specimens for him and stood a chance of marrying a very
plain, pious cousin. Nana shed no tears for him. She simply said to the
count:

"Eh, little rough, another rival less! You're chortling today. But he
was becoming serious! He wanted to marry me."

He waxed pale, and she flung her arms round his neck and hung there,
laughing, while she emphasized every little cruel speech with a caress.

"You can't marry Nana! Isn't that what's fetching you, eh? When they're
all bothering me with their marriages you're raging in your corner. It
isn't possible; you must wait till your wife kicks the bucket. Oh, if
she were only to do that, how you'd come rushing round! How you'd
fling yourself on the ground and make your offer with all the grand
accompaniments--sighs and tears and vows! Wouldn't it be nice, darling,
eh?"

Her voice had become soft, and she was chaffing him in a ferociously
wheedling manner. He was deeply moved and began blushing as he paid her
back her kisses. Then she cried:

"By God, to think I should have guessed! He's thought about it; he's
waiting for his wife to go off the hooks! Well, well, that's the
finishing touch! Why, he's even a bigger rascal than the others!"

Muffat had resigned himself to "the others." Nowadays he was trusting
to the last relics of his personal dignity in order to remain "Monsieur"
among the servants and intimates of the house, the man, in fact, who
because he gave most was the official lover. And his passion grew
fiercer. He kept his position because he paid for it, buying even smiles
at a high price. He was even robbed and he never got his money's worth,
but a disease seemed to be gnawing his vitals from which he could not
prevent himself suffering. Whenever he entered Nana's bedroom he was
simply content to open the windows for a second or two in order to get
rid of the odors the others left behind them, the essential smells of
fair-haired men and dark, the smoke of cigars, of which the pungency
choked him. This bedroom was becoming a veritable thoroughfare, so
continually were boots wiped on its threshold. Yet never a man among
them was stopped by the bloodstain barring the door. Zoe was still
preoccupied by this stain; it was a simple mania with her, for she was
a clean girl, and it horrified her to see it always there. Despite