“You’ll just go down, and you’ll tell Bordenave you want the part.  Now don’t be such a silly!  Bordenave wants money—­well, you’ll lend him some, since you can afford to make ducks and drakes of it.”

And as he still struggled to refuse her, she grew angry.

“Very well, I understand; you’re afraid of making Rose angry.  I didn’t mention the woman when you were crying down on the floor—­I should have had too much to say about it all.  Yes, to be sure, when one has sworn to love a woman forever one doesn’t usually take up with the first creature that comes by directly after.  Oh, that’s where the shoe pinches, I remember!  Well, dear boy, there’s nothing very savory in the Mignon’s leavings!  Oughtn’t you to have broken it off with that dirty lot before coming and squirming on my knees?”

He protested vaguely and at last was able to get out a phrase.

“Oh, I don’t care a jot for Rose; I’ll give her up at once.”

Nana seemed satisfied on this point.  She continued: 

“Well then, what’s bothering you?  Bordenave’s master here.  You’ll tell me there’s Fauchery after Bordenave—­”

She had sunk her voice, for she was coming to the delicate part of the matter.  Muffat sat silent, his eyes fixed on the ground.  He had remained voluntarily ignorant of Fauchery’s assiduous attentions to the countess, and time had lulled his suspicions and set him hoping that he had been deceiving himself during that fearful night passed in a doorway of the Rue Taitbout.  But he still felt a dull, angry repugnance to the man.

“Well, what then?  Fauchery isn’t the devil!” Nana repeated, feeling her way cautiously and trying to find out how matters stood between husband and lover.  “One can get over his soft side.  I promise you, he’s a good sort at bottom!  So it’s a bargain, eh?  You’ll tell him that it’s for my sake?”

The idea of taking such a step disgusted the count.

“No, no!  Never!” he cried.

She paused, and this sentence was on the verge of utterance: 

“Fauchery can refuse you nothing.”

But she felt that by way of argument it was rather too much of a good thing.  So she only smiled a queer smile which spoke as plainly as words.  Muffat had raised his eyes to her and now once more lowered them, looking pale and full of embarrassment.

“Ah, you’re not good natured,” she muttered at last.

“I cannot,” he said with a voice and a look of the utmost anguish.  “I’ll do whatever you like, but not that, dear love!  Oh, I beg you not to insist on that!”

Thereupon she wasted no more time in discussion but took his head between her small hands, pushed it back a little, bent down and glued her mouth to his in a long, long kiss.  He shivered violently; he trembled beneath her touch; his eyes were closed, and he was beside himself.  She lifted him to his feet.

“Go,” said she simply.