“I’m a landowner, you know.  Yes, I’m buying a country house near Orleans, in a part of the world to which you sometimes betake yourself.  Baby told me you did—­little Georges Hugon, I mean.  You know him?  So come and see me down there.”

The count was a shy man, and the thought of his roughness had frightened him; he was ashamed of what he had done and he bowed ceremoniously, promising at the same time to take advantage of her invitation.  Then he walked off as one who dreams.

He was rejoining the prince when, passing in front of the foyer, he heard Satin screaming out: 

“Oh, the dirty old thing!  Just you bloody well leave me alone!”

It was the Marquis de Chouard who was tumbling down over Satin.  The girl had decidedly had enough of the fashionable world!  Nana had certainly introduced her to Bordenave, but the necessity of standing with sealed lips for fear of allowing some awkward phrase to escape her had been too much for her feelings, and now she was anxious to regain her freedom, the more so as she had run against an old flame of hers in the wings.  This was the super, to whom the task of impersonating Pluto had been entrusted, a pastry cook, who had already treated her to a whole week of love and flagellation.  She was waiting for him, much irritated at the things the marquis was saying to her, as though she were one of those theatrical ladies!  And so at last she assumed a highly respectable expression and jerked out this phrase: 

“My husband’s coming!  You’ll see.”

Meanwhile the worn-looking artistes were dropping off one after the other in their outdoor coats.  Groups of men and women were coming down the little winding staircase, and the outlines of battered hats and worn-out shawls were visible in the shadows.  They looked colorless and unlovely, as became poor play actors who have got rid of their paint.  On the stage, where the side lights and battens were being extinguished, the prince was listening to an anecdote Bordenave was telling him.  He was waiting for Nana, and when at length she made her appearance the stage was dark, and the fireman on duty was finishing his round, lantern in hand.  Bordenave, in order to save His Highness going about by the Passage des Panoramas, had made them open the corridor which led from the porter’s lodge to the entrance hall of the theater.  Along this narrow alley little women were racing pell-mell, for they were delighted to escape from the men who were waiting for them in the other passage.  They went jostling and elbowing along, casting apprehensive glances behind them and only breathing freely when they got outside.  Fontan, Bosc and Prulliere, on the other hand, retired at a leisurely pace, joking at the figure cut by the serious, paying admirers who were striding up and down the Galerie des Varietes at a time when the little dears were escaping along the boulevard with the men of their hearts.  But Clarisse was especially sly.