“Madame was seized with colic toward four o’clock.  When she didn’t come back out of the dressing room I went in and found her lying stretched on the floor in a faint.  Yes, monsieur, on the floor in a pool of blood, as though she had been murdered.  Then I understood, you see.  I was furious; Madame might quite well have confided her trouble to me.  As it happened, Monsieur Georges was there, and he helped me to lift her up, and directly a miscarriage was mentioned he felt ill in his turn!  Oh, it’s true I’ve had the hump since yesterday!”

In fact, the house seemed utterly upset.  All the servants were galloping upstairs, downstairs and through the rooms.  Georges had passed the night on an armchair in the drawing room.  It was he who had announced the news to Madame’s friends at that hour of the evening when Madame was in the habit of receiving.  He had still been very pale, and he had told his story very feelingly, and as though stupefied.  Steiner, La Faloise, Philippe and others, besides, had presented themselves, and at the end of the lad’s first phrase they burst into exclamations.  The thing was impossible!  It must be a farce!  After which they grew serious and gazed with an embarrassed expression at her bedroom door.  They shook their heads; it was no laughing matter.

Till midnight a dozen gentlemen had stood talking in low voices in front of the fireplace.  All were friends; all were deeply exercised by the same idea of paternity.  They seemed to be mutually excusing themselves, and they looked as confused as if they had done something clumsy.  Eventually, however, they put a bold face on the matter.  It had nothing to do with them:  the fault was hers!  What a stunner that Nana was, eh?  One would never have believed her capable of such a fake!  And with that they departed one by one, walking on tiptoe, as though in a chamber of death where you cannot laugh.

“Come up all the same, monsieur,” said Zoe to Muffat.  “Madame is much better and will see you.  We are expecting the doctor, who promised to come back this morning.”

The lady’s maid had persuaded Georges to go back home to sleep, and upstairs in the drawing room only Satin remained.  She lay stretched on a divan, smoking a cigarette and scanning the ceiling.  Amid the household scare which had followed the accident she had been white with rage, had shrugged her shoulders violently and had made ferocious remarks.  Accordingly, when Zoe was passing in front of her and telling Monsieur that poor, dear Madame had suffered a great deal: 

“That’s right; it’ll teach him!” said Satin curtly.

They turned round in surprise, but she had not moved a muscle; her eyes were still turned toward the ceiling, and her cigarette was still wedged tightly between her lips.

“Dear me, you’re charming, you are!” said Zoe.

But Satin sat up, looked savagely at the count and once more hurled her remark at him.