f mornings after a gay
night, the shadows under the eyes, the lounging, the hoarse voices, all
spread an odor of dark perversion over the work-table which contrasted
sharply with the brilliant fragility of the artificial flowers. Nana
eagerly drank it all in and was dizzy with joy when she found herself
beside a girl who had been around. She always wanted to sit next to big
Lisa, who was said to be pregnant, and she kept glancing curiously at
her neighbor as though expecting her to swell up suddenly.

"It's hot enough to make one stifle," Nana said, approaching a window
as if to draw the blind farther down; but she leant forward and again
looked out both to the right and left.

At the same moment Leonie, who was watching a man stationed at the foot
of the pavement over the way, exclaimed, "What's that old fellow about?
He's been spying here for the last quarter of an hour."

"Some tom cat," said Madame Lerat. "Nana, just come and sit down! I told
you not to stand at the window."

Nana took up the stems of some violets she was rolling, and the
whole workroom turned its attention to the man in question. He was a
well-dressed individual wearing a frock coat and he looked about fifty
years old. He had a pale face, very serous and dignified in expression,
framed round with a well trimmed grey beard. He remained for an hour in
front of a herbalist's shop with his eyes fixed on the Venetian blinds
of the workroom. The flower-girls indulged in little bursts of laughter
which died away amid the noise of the street, and while leaning forward,
to all appearance busy with their work, they glanced askance so as not
to lose sight of the gentleman.

"Ah!" remarked Leonie, "he wears glasses. He's a swell. He's waiting for
Augustine, no doubt."

But Augustine, a tall, ugly, fair-haired girl, sourly answered that she
did not like old men; whereupon Madame Lerat, jerking her head, answered
with a smile full of underhand meaning:

"That is a great mistake on your part, my dear; the old ones are more
affectionate."

At this moment Leonie's neighbor, a plump little body, whispered
something in her ear and Leonie suddenly threw herself back on her
chair, seized with a fit of noisy laughter, wriggling, looking at the
gentleman and then laughing all the louder. "That's it. Oh! that's it,"
she stammered. "How dirty that Sophie is!"

"What did she say? What did she say?" asked the whole workroom, aglow
with curiosity.

Leonie wiped t