would have eaten a box of sweet-meats flung into her lap between mealtimes.  There was no harm in it all; they were only sweets!  But at last one evening there only remained a single little wood.  She swallowed it up disdainfully, as it was hardly worth the trouble opening one’s mouth for.  La Faloise laughed idiotically and sucked the top of his stick.  His debts were crushing him; he was not worth a hundred francs a year, and he saw that he would be compelled to go back into the country and live with his maniacal uncle.  But that did not matter; he had achieved smartness; the Figaro had printed his name twice.  And with his meager neck sticking up between the turndown points of his collar and his figure squeezed into all too short a coat, he would swagger about, uttering his parrotlike exclamations and affecting a solemn listlessness suggestive of an emotionless marionette.  He so annoyed Nana that she ended by beating him.

Meanwhile Fauchery had returned, his cousin having brought him.  Poor Fauchery had now set up housekeeping.  After having thrown over the countess he had fallen into Rose’s hands, and she treated him as a lawful wife would have done.  Mignon was simply Madame’s major-domo.  Installed as master of the house, the journalist lied to Rose and took all sorts of precautions when he deceived her.  He was as scrupulous as a good husband, for he really wanted to settle down at last.  Nana’s triumph consisted in possessing and in ruining a newspaper that he had started with a friend’s capital.  She did not proclaim her triumph; on the contrary, she delighted in treating him as a man who had to be circumspect, and when she spoke of Rose it was as “poor Rose.”  The newspaper kept her in flowers for two months.  She took all the provincial subscriptions; in fact, she took everything, from the column of news and gossip down to the dramatic notes.  Then the editorial staff having been turned topsy-turvy and the management completely disorganized, she satisfied a fanciful caprice and had a winter garden constructed in a corner of her house:  that carried off all the type.  But then it was no joke after all!  When in his delight at the whole business Mignon came to see if he could not saddle Fauchery on her altogether, she asked him if he took her for a fool.  A penniless fellow living by his articles and his plays—­not if she knew it!  That sort of foolishness might be all very well for a clever woman like her poor, dear Rose!  She grew distrustful:  she feared some treachery on Mignon’s part, for he was quite capable of preaching to his wife, and so she gave Fauchery his CONGE as he now only paid her in fame.