ving 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:

"Certainly, I shall be most happy. Pray come tomorrow, Monsieur
Fauchery."

Lucy Stewart heard this invitation given while she was talking with
Steiner and Blanche and, raising her voice, she remarked to the banker:

"It's a mania they've all of them got. One of them even went so far as
to steal my dog. Now, dear boy, am I to blame if you chuck her?"

Rose turned round. She was very pale and gazed fixedly at Steiner as she
sipped her coffee. And then all the concentrated anger she felt at his
abandonment of her flamed out in her eyes. She saw more clearly than
Mignon; it was stupid in him to have wished to begin the Jonquier ruse a
second time--those dodgers never succeeded twice running. Well, so
much the worse for him! She would have Fauchery! She had been getting
enamored