“After all’s said and done, if I want him the best way even now is to kick him out of doors.”

Zoe seemed much impressed.  Struck with a sudden admiration, she gazed at her mistress and then went and chucked Steiner out of doors without further deliberation.

Meanwhile Nana waited patiently for a second or two in order to give her time to sweep the place out, as she phrased it.  No one would ever have expected such a siege!  She craned her head into the drawing room and found it empty.  The dining room was empty too.  But as she continued her visitation in a calmer frame of mind, feeling certain that nobody remained behind, she opened the door of a closet and came suddenly upon a very young man.  He was sitting on the top of a trunk, holding a huge bouquet on his knees and looking exceedingly quiet and extremely well behaved.

“Goodness gracious me!” she cried.  “There’s one of ’em in there even now!” The very young man had jumped down at sight of her and was blushing as red as a poppy.  He did not know what to do with his bouquet, which he kept shifting from one hand to the other, while his looks betrayed the extreme of emotion.  His youth, his embarrassment and the funny figure he cut in his struggles with his flowers melted Nana’s heart, and she burst into a pretty peal of laughter.  Well, now, the very children were coming, were they?  Men were arriving in long clothes.  So she gave up all airs and graces, became familiar and maternal, tapped her leg and asked for fun: 

“You want me to wipe your nose; do you, baby?”

“Yes,” replied the lad in a low, supplicating tone.

This answer made her merrier than ever.  He was seventeen years old, he said.  His name was Georges Hugon.  He was at the Varietes last night and now he had come to see her.

“These flowers are for me?”

“Yes.”

“Then give ’em to me, booby!”

But as she took the bouquet from him he sprang upon her hands and kissed them with all the gluttonous eagerness peculiar to his charming time of life.  She had to beat him to make him let go.  There was a dreadful little dribbling customer for you!  But as she scolded him she flushed rosy-red and began smiling.  And with that she sent him about his business, telling him that he might call again.  He staggered away; he could not find the doors.

Nana went back into her dressing room, where Francis made his appearance almost simultaneously in order to dress her hair for the evening.  Seated in front of her mirror and bending her head beneath the hairdresser’s nimble hands, she stayed silently meditative.  Presently, however, Zoe entered, remarking: 

“There’s one of them, madame, who refuses to go.”

“Very well, he must be left alone,” she answered quietly.

“If that comes to that they still keep arriving.”