times Prulliere and Fontan lolled back in their chairs, losing count of time in front of the empty table, while with theatrical gestures and intonation they discussed their former successes till two in the morning.  But he would sit by, lost in thought, finishing the brandy bottle in silence and only occasionally emitting a little contemptuous sniff.  Where was Talma’s tradition?  Nowhere.  Very well, let them leave him jolly well alone!  It was too stupid to go on as they were doing!

One evening he found Nana in tears.  She took off her dressing jacket in order to show him her back and her arms, which were black and blue.  He looked at her skin without being tempted to abuse the opportunity, as that ass of a Prulliere would have been.  Then, sententiously: 

“My dear girl, where there are women there are sure to be ructions.  It was Napoleon who said that, I think.  Wash yourself with salt water.  Salt water’s the very thing for those little knocks.  Tut, tut, you’ll get others as bad, but don’t complain so long as no bones are broken.  I’m inviting myself to dinner, you know; I’ve spotted a leg of mutton.”

But Mme Lerat had less philosophy.  Every time Nana showed her a fresh bruise on the white skin she screamed aloud.  They were killing her niece; things couldn’t go on as they were doing.  As a matter of fact, Fontan had turned Mme Lerat out of doors and had declared that he would not have her at his house in the future, and ever since that day, when he returned home and she happened to be there, she had to make off through the kitchen, which was a horrible humiliation to her.  Accordingly she never ceased inveighing against that brutal individual.  She especially blamed his ill breeding, pursing up her lips, as she did so, like a highly respectable lady whom nobody could possibly remonstrate with on the subject of good manners.

“Oh, you notice it at once,” she used to tell Nana; “he hasn’t the barest notion of the very smallest proprieties.  His mother must have been common!  Don’t deny it—­the thing’s obvious!  I don’t speak on my own account, though a person of my years has a right to respectful treatment, but you—­how do you manage to put up with his bad manners?  For though I don’t want to flatter myself, I’ve always taught you how to behave, and among our own people you always enjoyed the best possible advice.  We were all very well bred in our family, weren’t we now?”

Nana used never to protest but would listen with bowed head.

“Then, too,” continued the aunt, “you’ve only known perfect gentlemen hitherto.  We were talking of that very topic with Zoe at my place yesterday evening.  She can’t understand it any more than I can.  ’How is it,’ she said, ’that Madame, who used to have that perfect gentleman, Monsieur le Comte, at her beck and call’—­for between you and me, it seems you drove him silly—­’how is it that Madame lets herself be made into mincemeat