rear, the blue and white showed themselves.  But Lusignan, a very dark bay of irreproachable shape, was almost forgotten amid the astonishment caused by Nana.  People had not seen her looking like this before, for now the sudden sunlight was dyeing the chestnut filly the brilliant color of a girl’s red-gold hair.  She was shining in the light like a new gold coin; her chest was deep; her head and neck tapered lightly from the delicate, high-strung line of her long back.

“Gracious, she’s got my hair!” cried Nana in an ecstasy.  “You bet you know I’m proud of it!”

The men clambered up on the landau, and Bordenave narrowly escaped putting his foot on Louiset, whom his mother had forgotten.  He took him up with an outburst of paternal grumbling and hoisted him on his shoulder, muttering at the same time: 

“The poor little brat, he must be in it too!  Wait a bit, I’ll show you Mamma.  Eh?  Look at Mummy out there.”

And as Bijou was scratching his legs, he took charge of him, too, while Nana, rejoicing in the brute that bore her name, glanced round at the other women to see how they took it.  They were all raging madly.  Just then on the summit of her cab the Tricon, who had not moved till that moment, began waving her hand and giving her bookmaker her orders above the heads of the crowd.  Her instinct had at last prompted her; she was backing Nana.

La Faloise meanwhile was making an insufferable noise.  He was getting wild over Frangipane.

“I’ve an inspiration,” he kept shouting.  “Just look at Frangipane.  What an action, eh?  I back Frangipane at eight to one.  Who’ll take me?”

“Do keep quiet now,” said Labordette at last.  “You’ll be sorry for it if you do.”

“Frangipane’s a screw,” Philippe declared.  “He’s been utterly blown upon already.  You’ll see the canter.”

The horses had gone up to the right, and they now started for the preliminary canter, passing in loose order before the stands.  Thereupon there was a passionate fresh burst of talk, and people all spoke at once.

“Lusignan’s too long in the back, but he’s very fit.  Not a cent, I tell you, on Valerio II; he’s nervous—­gallops with his head up—­it’s a bad sign.  Jove!  Burne’s riding Spirit.  I tell you, he’s got no shoulders.  A well-made shoulder—­that’s the whole secret.  No, decidedly, Spirit’s too quiet.  Now listen, Nana, I saw her after the Grande Poule des Produits, and she was dripping and draggled, and her sides were trembling like one o’clock.  I lay twenty louis she isn’t placed!  Oh, shut up!  He’s boring us with his Frangipane.  There’s no time to make a bet now; there, they’re off!”

Almost in tears, La Faloise was struggling to find a bookmaker.  He had to be reasoned with.  Everyone craned forward, but the first go-off was bad, the starter, who looked in the distance like a slim dash of blackness, not having lowered his flag.  The horses came back to their places after galloping a moment or two.  There were two more false starts.  At length the starter got the horses together and sent them away with such address as to elicit shouts of applause.