Then if she met with reproof she would return to the attack with the cleverest maneuvers and with infinite submissiveness and the supple cunning of a beaten cat would catch hold of his hand when no one was looking, in order to kiss it again.  It seemed she must be touching something belonging to him.  As to Fontan, he gave himself airs and let himself be adored with the utmost condescension.  His great nose sniffed with entirely sensual content; his goat face, with its quaint, monstrous ugliness, positively glowed in the sunlight of devoted adoration lavished upon him by that superb woman who was so fair and so plump of limb.  Occasionally he gave a kiss in return, as became a man who is having all the enjoyment and is yet willing to behave prettily.

“Well, you’re growing maddening!” cried Prulliere.  “Get away from her, you fellow there!”

And he dismissed Fontan and changed covers, in order to take his place at Nana’s side.  The company shouted and applauded at this and gave vent to some stiffish epigrammatic witticisms.  Fontan counterfeited despair and assumed the quaint expression of Vulcan crying for Venus.  Straightway Prulliere became very gallant, but Nana, whose foot he was groping for under the table, caught him a slap to make him keep quiet.  No, no, she was certainly not going to become his mistress.  A month ago she had begun to take a fancy to him because of his good looks, but now she detested him.  If he pinched her again under pretense of picking up her napkin, she would throw her glass in his face!

Nevertheless, the evening passed off well.  The company had naturally begun talking about the Varietes.  Wasn’t that cad of a Bordenave going to go off the hooks after all?  His nasty diseases kept reappearing and causing him such suffering that you couldn’t come within six yards of him nowadays.  The day before during rehearsal he had been incessantly yelling at Simonne.  There was a fellow whom the theatrical people wouldn’t shed many tears over.  Nana announced that if he were to ask her to take another part she would jolly well send him to the rightabout.  Moreover, she began talking of leaving the stage; the theater was not to compare with her home.  Fontan, who was not in the present piece or in that which was then being rehearsed, also talked big about the joy of being entirely at liberty and of passing his evenings with his feet on the fender in the society of his little pet.  And at this the rest exclaimed delightedly, treating their entertainers as lucky people and pretending to envy their felicity.

The Twelfth-Night cake had been cut and handed round.  The bean had fallen to the lot of Mme Lerat, who popped it into Bosc’s glass.  Whereupon there were shouts of “The king drinks!  The king drinks!” Nana took advantage of this outburst of merriment and went and put her arms round Fontan’s neck again, kissing him and whispering in his ear.  But Prulliere, laughing angrily, as became a pretty man, declared that they were not playing the game.  Louiset, meanwhile, slept soundly on two chairs.  It was nearing one o’clock when the company separated, shouting au revoir as they went downstairs.