At that very moment Nana descended the three steps.  She grew very pale when she noticed Muffat.

“Oh, it’s you!” she stammered.

The sniggering extra ladies were quite frightened when they recognized her, and they formed in line and stood up, looking as stiff and serious as servants whom their mistress has caught behaving badly.  The tall fair gentleman had moved away; he was at once reassured and sad at heart.

“Well, give me your arm,” Nana continued impatiently.

They walked quietly off.  The count had been getting ready to question her and now found nothing to say.

It was she who in rapid tones told a story to the effect that she had been at her aunt’s as late as eight o’clock, when, seeing Louiset very much better, she had conceived the idea of going down to the theater for a few minutes.

“On some important business?” he queried.

“Yes, a new piece,” she replied after some slight hesitation.  “They wanted my advice.”

He knew that she was not speaking the truth, but the warm touch of her arm as it leaned firmly on his own, left him powerless.  He felt neither anger nor rancor after his long, long wait; his one thought was to keep her where she was now that he had got hold of her.  Tomorrow, and not before, he would try and find out what she had come to her dressing room after.  But Nana still appeared to hesitate; she was manifestly a prey to the sort of secret anguish that besets people when they are trying to regain lost ground and to initiate a plan of action.  Accordingly, as they turned the corner of the Galerie des Varietes, she stopped in front of the show in a fan seller’s window.

“I say, that’s pretty,” she whispered; “I mean that mother-of-pearl mount with the feathers.”

Then, indifferently: 

“So you’re seeing me home?”

“Of course,” he said, with some surprise, “since your child’s better.”

She was sorry she had told him that story.  Perhaps Louiset was passing through another crisis!  She talked of returning to the Batignolles.  But when he offered to accompany her she did not insist on going.  For a second or two she was possessed with the kind of white-hot fury which a woman experiences when she feels herself entrapped and must, nevertheless, behave prettily.  But in the end she grew resigned and determined to gain time.  If only she could get rid of the count toward midnight everything would happen as she wished.

“Yes, it’s true; you’re a bachelor tonight,” she murmured.  “Your wife doesn’t return till tomorrow, eh?”

“Yes,” replied Muffat.  It embarrassed him somewhat to hear her talking familiarly about the countess.

But she pressed him further, asking at what time the train was due and wanting to know whether he were going to the station to meet her.  She had begun to walk more slowly than ever, as though the shops interested her very much.