by that clown of a fellow?’ I remarked at the time that you might put up with the beatings but that I would never have allowed him to be lacking in proper respect.  In fact, there isn’t a word to be said for him.  I wouldn’t have his portrait in my room even!  And you ruin yourself for such a bird as that; yes, you ruin yourself, my darling; you toil and you moil, when there are so many others and such rich men, too, some of them even connected with the government!  Ah well, it’s not I who ought to be telling you this, of course!  But all the same, when next he tries any of his dirty tricks on I should cut him short with a ‘Monsieur, what d’you take me for?’ You know how to say it in that grand way of yours!  It would downright cripple him.”

Thereupon Nana burst into sobs and stammered out: 

“Oh, Aunt, I love him!”

The fact of the matter was that Mme Lerat was beginning to feel anxious at the painful way her niece doled out the sparse, occasional francs destined to pay for little Louis’s board and lodging.  Doubtless she was willing to make sacrifices and to keep the child by her whatever might happen while waiting for more prosperous times, but the thought that Fontan was preventing her and the brat and its mother from swimming in a sea of gold made her so savage that she was ready to deny the very existence of true love.  Accordingly she ended up with the following severe remarks: 

“Now listen, some fine day when he’s taken the skin off your back, you’ll come and knock at my door, and I’ll open it to you.”

Soon money began to engross Nana’s whole attention.  Fontan had caused the seven thousand francs to vanish away.  Without doubt they were quite safe; indeed, she would never have dared ask him questions about them, for she was wont to be blushingly diffident with that bird, as Mme Lerat called him.  She trembled lest he should think her capable of quarreling with him about halfpence.  He had certainly promised to subscribe toward their common household expenses, and in the early days he had given out three francs every morning.  But he was as exacting as a boarder; he wanted everything for his three francs—­butter, meat, early fruit and early vegetables—­and if she ventured to make an observation, if she hinted that you could not have everything in the market for three francs, he flew into a temper and treated her as a useless, wasteful woman, a confounded donkey whom the tradespeople were robbing.  Moreover, he was always ready to threaten that he would take lodgings somewhere else.  At the end of a month on certain mornings he had forgotten to deposit the three francs on the chest of drawers, and she had ventured to ask for them in a timid, roundabout way.  Whereupon there had been such bitter disputes and he had seized every pretext to render her life so miserable that she had found it best no longer to count upon him.  Whenever, however, he had omitted to leave behind the three one-franc pieces and found a dinner awaiting