“Well?” she asked in a low voice.

“Bloody well smashed up!” he replied simply.

And he shrugged his shoulders.  That Vandeuvres was a mere child!  She made a bored little gesture.

That evening at the Bal Mabille Nana obtained a colossal success.  When toward ten o’clock she made her appearance, the uproar was afready formidable.  That classic night of madness had brought together all that was young and pleasure loving, and now this smart world was wallowing in the coarseness and imbecility of the servants’ hall.  There was a fierce crush under the festoons of gas lamps, and men in evening coats and women in outrageous low-necked old toilets, which they did not mind soiling, were howling and surging to and fro under the maddening influence of a vast drunken fit.  At a distance of thirty paces the brass instruments of the orchestra were inaudible.  Nobody was dancing.  Stupid witticisms, repeated no one knew why, were going the round of the various groups.  People were straining after wit without succeeding in being funny.  Seven women, imprisoned in the cloakroom, were crying to be set free.  A shallot had been found, put up to auction and knocked down at two louis.  Just then Nana arrived, still wearing her blue-and-white racecourse costume, and amid a thunder of applause the shallot was presented to her.  People caught hold of her in her own despite, and three gentlemen bore her triumphantly into the garden, across ruined grassplots and ravaged masses of greenery.  As the bandstand presented an obstacle to her advance, it was taken by storm, and chairs and music stands were smashed.  A paternal police organized the disorder.

It was only on Tuesday that Nana recovered from the excitements of victory.  That morning she was chatting with Mme Lerat, the old lady having come in to bring her news of Louiset, whom the open air had upset.  A long story, which was occupying the attention of all Paris, interested her beyond measure.  Vandeuvres, after being warned off all racecourses and posted at the Cercle Imperial on the very evening after the disaster, had set fire to his stable on the morrow and had burned himself and his horses to death.

“He certainly told me he was going to,” the young woman kept saying.  “That man was a regular maniac!  Oh, how they did frighten me when they told me about it yesterday evening!  You see, he might easily have murdered me some fine night.  And besides, oughtn’t he to have given me a hint about his horse?  I should at any rate have made my fortune!  He said to Labordette that if I knew about the matter I would immediately inform my hairdresser and a whole lot of other men.  How polite, eh?  Oh dear, no, I certainly can’t grieve much for him.”

After some reflection she had grown very angry.  Just then Labordette came in; he had seen about her bets and was now the bearer of some forty thousand francs.  This only added to her bad temper, for she ought to have gained a million.  Labordette, who during the whole of this episode had been pretending entire innocence, abandoned Vandeuvres in decisive terms.  Those old families, he opined, were worn out and apt to make a stupid ending.