“Your theater—­” he began in dulcet tones.

Bordenave interrupted him with a savage phrase, as becomes a man who dotes on frank situations.

“Call it my brothel!”

At this Fauchery laughed approvingly, while La Faloise stopped with his pretty speech strangled in his throat, feeling very much shocked and striving to appear as though he enjoyed the phrase.  The manager had dashed off to shake hands with a dramatic critic whose column had considerable influence.  When he returned La Faloise was recovering.  He was afraid of being treated as a provincial if he showed himself too much nonplused.

“I have been told,” he began again, longing positively to find something to say, “that Nana has a delicious voice.”

“Nana?” cried the manager, shrugging his shoulders.  “The voice of a squirt!”

The young man made haste to add: 

“Besides being a first-rate comedian!”

“She?  Why she’s a lump!  She has no notion what to do with her hands and feet.”

La Faloise blushed a little.  He had lost his bearings.  He stammered: 

“I wouldn’t have missed this first representation tonight for the world.  I was aware that your theater—­”

“Call it my brothel,” Bordenave again interpolated with the frigid obstinacy of a man convinced.

Meanwhile Fauchery, with extreme calmness, was looking at the women as they came in.  He went to his cousin’s rescue when he saw him all at sea and doubtful whether to laugh or to be angry.

“Do be pleasant to Bordenave—­call his theater what he wishes you to, since it amuses him.  And you, my dear fellow, don’t keep us waiting about for nothing.  If your Nana neither sings nor acts you’ll find you’ve made a blunder, that’s all.  It’s what I’m afraid of, if the truth be told.”

“A blunder!  A blunder!” shouted the manager, and his face grew purple.  “Must a woman know how to act and sing?  Oh, my chicken, you’re too STOOPID.  Nana has other good points, by heaven!—­something which is as good as all the other things put together.  I’ve smelled it out; it’s deuced pronounced with her, or I’ve got the scent of an idiot.  You’ll see, you’ll see!  She’s only got to come on, and all the house will be gaping at her.”

He had held up his big hands which were trembling under the influence of his eager enthusiasm, and now, having relieved his feelings, he lowered his voice and grumbled to himself: 

“Yes, she’ll go far!  Oh yes, s’elp me, she’ll go far!  A skin—­oh, what a skin she’s got!”

Then as Fauchery began questioning him he consented to enter into a detailed explanation, couched in phraseology so crude that Hector de la Faloise felt slightly disgusted.  He had been thick with Nana, and he was anxious to start her on the stage.  Well, just about that time he was in search of a Venus.  He—­he never let a woman encumber him for any length of time; he preferred to let the public enjoy the benefit of