the house was a most important undertaking. Nana
certainly had Zoe with her, that girl so devoted to her fortunes. For
months she had been tranquilly awaiting this abrupt, new departure, as
became a woman who was certain of her powers of prescience, and now she
was triumphant; she was mistress of the house and was putting by a round
sum while serving Madame as honestly as possible. But a solitary lady's
maid was no longer sufficient. A butler, a coachman, a porter and a cook
were wanted. Besides, it was necessary to fill the stables. It was then
that Labordette made himself most useful. He undertook to perform all
sorts of errands which bored the count; he made a comfortable job of the
purchase of horses; he visited the coachbuilders; he guided the young
woman in her choice of things. She was to be met with at the shops,
leaning on his arm. Labordette even got in the servants--Charles, a
great, tall coachman, who had been in service with the Duc de Corbreuse;
Julien, a little, smiling, much-becurled butler, and a married couple,
of whom the wife Victorine became cook while the husband Francois
was taken on as porter and footman. The last mentioned in powder and
breeches wore Nana's livery, which was a sky-blue one adorned with
silver lace, and he received visitors in the hall. The whole thing was
princely in the correctness of its style.

At the end of two months the house was set going. The cost had been
more than three hundred thousand francs. There were eight horses in the
stables, and five carriages in the coach houses, and of these five one
was a landau with silver embellishments, which for the moment occupied
the attention of all Paris. And amid this great wealth Nana began
settling down and making her nest. After the third representation of
the Petite Duchesse she had quitted the theater, leaving Bordenave to
struggle on against a bankruptcy which, despite the count's money, was
imminent. Nevertheless, she was still bitter about her failure. It added
to that other bitterness, the lesson Fontan had given her, a shameful
lesson for which she held all men responsible. Accordingly she now
declared herself very firm and quite proof against sudden infatuations,
but thoughts of vengeance took no hold of her volatile brain. What did
maintain a hold on it in the hours when she was not indignant was an
ever-wakeful lust of expenditure, added to a natural contempt for the
man who paid and to a perpetual passion for consumpti