“Dear me, dear me!  I’ve got no right to grow angry,” murmured Mme Hugon after a pause, and with a return to her old good humor she added: 

“Everybody’s got a right to live.  If we meet this said lady on the road we shall not bow to her—­that’s all!”

And as they got up from table she once more gently upbraided the Countess Sabine for having been so long in coming to her that year.  But the countess defended herself and threw the blame of the delays upon her husband’s shoulders.  Twice on the eve of departure, when all the trunks were locked, he counterordered their journey on the plea of urgent business.  Then he had suddenly decided to start just when the trip seemed shelved.  Thereupon the old lady told them how Georges in the same way had twice announced his arrival without arriving and had finally cropped up at Les Fondettes the day before yesterday, when she was no longer expecting him.  They had come down into the garden, and the two men, walking beside the ladies, were listening to them in consequential silence.

“Never mind,” said Mme Hugon, kissing her son’s sunny locks, “Zizi is a very good boy to come and bury himself in the country with his mother.  He’s a dear Zizi not to forget me!”

In the afternoon she expressed some anxiety, for Georges, directly after leaving the table, had complained of a heavy feeling in his head and now seemed in for an atrocious sick headache.  Toward four o’clock he said he would go upstairs to bed:  it was the only remedy.  After sleeping till tomorrow morning he would be perfectly himself again.  His mother was bent on putting him to bed herself, but as she left the room he ran and locked the door, explaining that he was shutting himself in so that no one should come and disturb him.  Then caressingly he shouted, “Good night till tomorrow, little Mother!” and promised to take a nap.  But he did not go to bed again and with flushed cheeks and bright eyes noiselessly put on his clothes.  Then he sat on a chair and waited.  When the dinner bell rang he listened for Count Muffat, who was on his way to the dining room, and ten minutes later, when he was certain that no one would see him, he slipped from the window to the ground with the assistance of a rain pipe.  His bedroom was situated on the first floor and looked out upon the rear of the house.  He threw himself among some bushes and got out of the park and then galloped across the fields with empty stomach and heart beating with excitement.  Night was closing in, and a small fine rain was beginning to fall.

It was the very evening that Nana was due at La Mignotte.  Ever since in the preceding May Steiner had bought her this country place she had from time to time been so filled with the desire of taking possession that she had wept hot tears about, but on each of these occasions Bordenave had refused to give her even the shortest leave and had deferred her holiday till September on the plea that he did not intend putting an understudy