thus improperly at her table, these ladies were showing themselves anxious to do her an ugly turn.  Oh yes, she could see it all distinctly.  Lucy had given Foucarmont a wink in order to egg him on against Labordette, while Rose, Caroline and the others were doing all they could to stir up the men.  Now there was such a din you couldn’t hear your neighbor speak, and so the story would get about that you might allow yourself every kind of liberty when you supped at Nana’s.  Very well then!  They should see!  She might be tipsy, if you like, but she was still the smartest and most ladylike woman there.

“Do tell them to serve the coffee here, duckie,” resumed Bordenave.  “I prefer it here because of my leg.”

But Nana had sprung savagely to her feet after whispering into the astonished ears of Steiner and the old gentleman: 

“It’s quite right; it’ll teach me to go and invite a dirty lot like that.”

Then she pointed to the door of the dining room and added at the top of her voice: 

“If you want coffee it’s there, you know.”

The company left the table and crowded toward the dining room without noticing Nana’s indignant outburst.  And soon no one was left in the drawing room save Bordenave, who advanced cautiously, supporting himself against the wall and cursing away at the confounded women who chucked Papa the moment they were chock-full.  The waiters behind him were already busy removing the plates and dishes in obedience to the loudly voiced orders of the manager.  They rushed to and fro, jostled one another, caused the whole table to vanish, as a pantomime property might at the sound of the chief scene-shifter’s whistle.  The ladies and gentlemen were to return to the drawing room after drinking their coffee.

“By gum, it’s less hot here,” said Gaga with a slight shiver as she entered the dining room.

The window here had remained open.  Two lamps illuminated the table, where coffee and liqueurs were set out.  There were no chairs, and the guests drank their coffee standing, while the hubbub the waiters were making in the next room grew louder and louder.  Nana had disappeared, but nobody fretted about her absence.  They did without her excellently well, and everybody helped himself and rummaged in the drawers of the sideboard in search of teaspoons, which were lacking.  Several groups were formed; people separated during supper rejoined each other, and there was an interchange of glances, of meaning laughter and of phrases which summed up recent situations.

“Ought not Monsieur Fauchery to come and lunch with us one of these days, Auguste?” said Rose Mignon.

Mignon, who was toying with his watch chain, eyed the journalist for a second or two with his severe glance.  Rose was out of her senses.  As became a good manager, he would put a stop to such spendthrift courses.  In return for a notice, well and good, but afterward, decidedly not.  Nevertheless, as he was fully aware of his wife’s wrongheadedness and as he made it a rule to wink paternally at a folly now and again, when such was necessary, he answered amiably enough: