He wanted to take possession of him again.  But Steiner would not quit Bordenave.  In front of them a stream of people was crowding and crushing against the ticket office, and there was a din of voices, in the midst of which the name of Nana sounded with all the melodious vivacity of its two syllables.  The men who stood planted in front of the notices kept spelling it out loudly; others, in an interrogative tone, uttered it as they passed; while the women, at once restless and smiling, repeated it softly with an air of surprise.  Nobody knew Nana.  Whence had Nana fallen?  And stories and jokes, whispered from ear to ear, went the round of the crowd.  The name was a caress in itself; it was a pet name, the very familiarity of which suited every lip.  Merely through enunciating it thus, the throng worked itself into a state of gaiety and became highly good natured.  A fever of curiosity urged it forward, that kind of Parisian curiosity which is as violent as an access of positive unreason.  Everybody wanted to see Nana.  A lady had the flounce of her dress torn off; a man lost his hat.

“Oh, you’re asking me too many questions about it!” cried Bordenave, whom a score of men were besieging with their queries.  “You’re going to see her, and I’m off; they want me.”

He disappeared, enchanted at having fired his public.  Mignon shrugged his shoulders, reminding Steiner that Rose was awaiting him in order to show him the costume she was about to wear in the first act.

“By Jove!  There’s Lucy out there, getting down from her carriage,” said La Faloise to Fauchery.

It was, in fact, Lucy Stewart, a plain little woman, some forty years old, with a disproportionately long neck, a thin, drawn face, a heavy mouth, but withal of such brightness, such graciousness of manner, that she was really very charming.  She was bringing with her Caroline Hequet and her mother—­Caroline a woman of a cold type of beauty, the mother a person of a most worthy demeanor, who looked as if she were stuffed with straw.

“You’re coming with us?  I’ve kept a place for you,” she said to Fauchery.  “Oh, decidedly not!  To see nothing!” he made answer.  “I’ve a stall; I prefer being in the stalls.”

Lucy grew nettled.  Did he not dare show himself in her company?  Then, suddenly restraining herself and skipping to another topic: 

“Why haven’t you told me that you knew Nana?”

“Nana!  I’ve never set eyes on her.”

“Honor bright?  I’ve been told that you’ve been to bed with her.”

But Mignon, coming in front of them, his finger to his lips, made them a sign to be silent.  And when Lucy questioned him he pointed out a young man who was passing and murmured: 

“Nana’s fancy man.”

Everybody looked at him.  He was a pretty fellow.  Fauchery recognized him; it was Daguenet, a young man who had run through three hundred thousand francs in the pursuit of women and who now was dabbling in stocks, in order from time to time to treat them to bouquets and dinners.  Lucy made the discovery that he had fine eyes.