“Oh, what a duck!” continued Nana, retracing her steps as far as the last of the shops in order to go into ecstasies over a porcelain greyhound standing with raised forepaw in front of a nest hidden among roses.

At length they quitted the passage, but she refused the offer of a cab.  It was very pleasant out she said; besides, they were in no hurry, and it would be charming to return home on foot.  When they were in front of the Cafe Anglais she had a sudden longing to eat oysters.  Indeed, she said that owing to Louiset’s illness she had tasted nothing since morning.  Muffat dared not oppose her.  Yet as he did not in those days wish to be seen about with her he asked for a private supper room and hurried to it along the corridors.  She followed him with the air of a woman familiar with the house, and they were on the point of entering a private room, the door of which a waiter held open, when from a neighboring saloon, whence issued a perfect tempest of shouts and laughter, a man rapidly emerged.  It was Daguenet.

“By Jove, it’s Nana!” he cried.

The count had briskly disappeared into the private room, leaving the door ajar behind him.  But Daguenet winked behind his round shoulders and added in chaffing tones: 

“The deuce, but you’re doing nicely!  You catch ’em in the Tuileries nowadays!”

Nana smiled and laid a finger on her lips to beg him to be silent.  She could see he was very much exalted, and yet she was glad to have met him, for she still felt tenderly toward him, and that despite the nasty way he had cut her when in the company of fashionable ladies.

“What are you doing now?” she asked amicably.

“Becoming respectable.  Yes indeed, I’m thinking of getting married.”

She shrugged her shoulders with a pitying air.  But he jokingly continued to the effect that to be only just gaining enough on ’change to buy ladies bouquets could scarcely be called an income, provided you wanted to look respectable too!  His three hundred thousand francs had only lasted him eighteen months!  He wanted to be practical, and he was going to marry a girl with a huge dowry and end off as a PREFET, like his father before him!  Nana still smiled incredulously.  She nodded in the direction of the saloon:  “Who are you with in there?”

“Oh, a whole gang,” he said, forgetting all about his projects under the influence of returning intoxication.  “Just think!  Lea is telling us about her trip in Egypt.  Oh, it’s screaming!  There’s a bathing story—­”

And he told the story while Nana lingered complaisantly.  They had ended by leaning up against the wall in the corridor, facing one another.  Gas jets were flaring under the low ceiling, and a vague smell of cookery hung about the folds of the hangings.  Now and again, in order to hear each other’s voices when the din in the saloon became louder than ever, they had to lean well forward.  Every few seconds, however, a waiter with an armful of dishes found his passage barred and disturbed them.  But they did not cease their talk for that; on the contrary, they stood close up to the walls and, amid the uproar of the supper party and the jostlings of the waiters, chatted as quietly as if they were by their own firesides.