“Bah!  Tell ’em to wait.  When they begin to feel too hungry they’ll be off.”  Her humor had changed, and she was now delighted to make people wait about for nothing.  A happy thought struck her as very amusing; she escaped from beneath Francis’ hands and ran and bolted the doors.  They might now crowd in there as much as they liked; they would probably refrain from making a hole through the wall.  Zoe could come in and out through the little doorway leading to the kitchen.  However, the electric bell rang more lustily than ever.  Every five minutes a clear, lively little ting-ting recurred as regularly as if it had been produced by some well-adjusted piece of mechanism.  And Nana counted these rings to while the time away withal.  But suddenly she remembered something.

“I say, where are my burnt almonds?”

Francis, too, was forgetting about the burnt almonds.  But now he drew a paper bag from one of the pockets of his frock coat and presented it to her with the discreet gesture of a man who is offering a lady a present.  Nevertheless, whenever his accounts came to be settled, he always put the burnt almonds down on his bill.  Nana put the bag between her knees and set to work munching her sweetmeats, turning her head from time to time under the hairdresser’s gently compelling touch.

“The deuce,” she murmured after a silence, “there’s a troop for you!”

Thrice, in quick succession, the bell had sounded.  Its summonses became fast and furious.  There were modest tintinnabulations which seemed to stutter and tremble like a first avowal; there were bold rings which vibrated under some rough touch and hasty rings which sounded through the house with shivering rapidity.  It was a regular peal, as Zoe said, a peal loud enough to upset the neighborhood, seeing that a whole mob of men were jabbing at the ivory button, one after the other.  That old joker Bordenave had really been far too lavish with her address.  Why, the whole of yesterday’s house was coming!

“By the by, Francis, have you five louis?” said Nana.

He drew back, looked carefully at her headdress and then quietly remarked: 

“Five louis, that’s according!”

“Ah, you know if you want securities . . .” she continued.

And without finishing her sentence, she indicated the adjoining rooms with a sweeping gesture.  Francis lent the five louis.  Zoe, during each momentary respite, kept coming in to get Madame’s things ready.  Soon she came to dress her while the hairdresser lingered with the intention of giving some finishing touches to the headdress.  But the bell kept continually disturbing the lady’s maid, who left Madame with her stays half laced and only one shoe on.  Despite her long experience, the maid was losing her head.  After bringing every nook and corner into requisition and putting men pretty well everywhere, she had been driven to stow them away in threes and fours, which was a course