n't deny it--the thing's obvious! I don't speak on my
own account, though a person of my years has a right to respectful
treatment, but YOU--how do YOU manage to put up with his bad manners?
For though I don't want to flatter myself, I've always taught you how
to behave, and among our own people you always enjoyed the best possible
advice. We were all very well bred in our family, weren't we now?"

Nana used never to protest but would listen with bowed head.

"Then, too," continued the aunt, "you've only known perfect gentlemen
hitherto. We were talking of that very topic with Zoe at my place
yesterday evening. She can't understand it any more than I can. 'How is
it,' she said, 'that Madame, who used to have that perfect gentleman,
Monsieur le Comte, at her beck and call'--for between you and me, it
seems you drove him silly--'how is it that Madame lets herself be made
into mincemeat by that clown of a fellow?' I remarked at the time that
you might put up with the beatings but that I would never have allowed
him to be lacking in proper respect. In fact, there isn't a word to be
said for him. I wouldn't have his portrait in my room even! And you ruin
yourself for such a bird as that; yes, you ruin yourself, my darling;
you toil and you moil, when there are so many others and such rich men,
too, some of them even connected with the government! Ah well, it's not
I who ought to be telling you this, of course! But all the same, when
next he tries any of his dirty tricks on I should cut him short with a
'Monsieur, what d'you take me for?' You know how to say it in that grand
way of yours! It would downright cripple him."

Thereupon Nana burst into sobs and stammered out:

"Oh, Aunt, I love him!"

The fact of the matter was that Mme Lerat was beginning to feel anxious
at the painful way her niece doled out the sparse, occasional francs
destined to pay for little Louis's board and lodging. Doubtless she was
willing to make sacrifices and to keep the child by her whatever might
happen while waiting for more prosperous times, but the thought that
Fontan was preventing her and the brat and its mother from swimming in
a sea of gold made her so savage that she was ready to deny the very
existence of true love. Accordingly she ended up with the following
severe remarks:

"Now listen, some fine day when he's taken the skin off your back,
you'll come and knock at my door, and I'll open it to you."

Soon money began to engross Na