quet
thrown to Nana. At last he called a waiter belonging to the cafe, whom
he familiarly addressed as Auguste. Mignon, who was listening, looked at
him so sharply that he lost countenance and stammered out:

"Two bouquets, Auguste, and deliver them to the attendant. A bouquet for
each of these ladies! Happy thought, eh?"

At the other end of the saloon, her shoulders resting against the frame
of a mirror, a girl, some eighteen years of age at the outside, was
leaning motionless in front of her empty glass as though she had been
benumbed by long and fruitless waiting. Under the natural curls of her
beautiful gray-gold hair a virginal face looked out at you with velvety
eyes, which were at once soft and candid.

She wore a dress of faded green silk and a round hat which blows had
dinted. The cool air of the night made her look very pale.

"Egad, there's Satin," murmured Fauchery when his eye lit upon her.

La Faloise questioned him. Oh dear, yes, she was a streetwalker--she
didn't count. But she was such a scandalous sort that people amused
themselves by making her talk. And the journalist, raising his voice:

"What are you doing there, Satin?"

"I'm bogging," replied Satin quietly without changing position.

The four men were charmed and fell a-laughing. Mignon assured them that
there was no need to hurry; it would take twenty minutes to set up the
scenery for the third act. But the two cousins, having drunk their beer,
wanted to go up into the theater again; the cold was making itself felt.
Then Mignon remained alone with Steiner, put his elbows on the table and
spoke to him at close quarters.

"It's an understood thing, eh? We are to go to her house, and I'm to
introduce you. You know the thing's quite between ourselves--my wife
needn't know."

Once more in their places, Fauchery and La Faloise noticed a pretty,
quietly dressed woman in the second tier of boxes. She was with a
serious-looking gentleman, a chief clerk at the office of the Ministry
of the Interior, whom La Faloise knew, having met him at the Muffats'.
As to Fauchery, he was under the impression that her name was Madame
Robert, a lady of honorable repute who had a lover, only one, and that
always a person of respectability.

But they had to turn round, for Daguenet was smiling at them. Now that
Nana had had a success he no longer hid himself: indeed, he had just
been scoring triumphs in the passages. By his side was the young truant
schoolbo