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Updated: June 24, 2025
Among all her guests the old lady spared only Count Muffat and Georges. The count, who said he had serious business in Orleans, could certainly not be running after the bad woman, and as to Georges, the poor child was at last causing her grave anxiety, seeing that every evening he was seized with atrocious sick headaches which kept him to his bed in broad daylight.
He did not know he had nothing the matter with his neck. Then drawing his shirt collar up: "Ah yes, some insect stung me there!" The Marquis de Chouard had cast a sidelong glance at the little red place. Muffat, too, looked at Georges. The company was finishing lunch and planning various excursions. Fauchery was growing increasingly excited with the Countess Sabine's laughter.
Fauchery had already preceded him up the staircase, which was closed on the first and second floors by low-paneled doors. It was one of those stairways which you find in miserable tenements. Count Muffat had seen many such during his rounds as member of the Benevolent Organization.
Muffat hung his head; Fauchery answered her questioning glance with a despairing shrug of the shoulders; as to Mignon, he was busy discussing the terms of the agreement with Bordenave. "What's up?" she demanded curtly. "Nothing," said her husband. "Bordenave here is giving ten thousand francs in order to get you to give up your part."
Labordette doubtless remained unconvinced, for he continued with smiling insistence. "You know, you need fear nothing with me. I get your Muffat ready for you, and you go on the stage again, and I bring him to you like a little dog!" "No!" she cried decisively. And she left him. Her heroic conduct made her tenderly pitiful toward herself.
When she drew near Fauchery, who was chatting with her husband and Vandeuvres, she noticed that they grew suddenly silent; accordingly she did not stop but handed the cup of tea she was offering to Georges Hugon beyond them. "It's a lady who desires your company at supper," the journalist gaily continued, addressing Count Muffat.
He was questioning a deputy, from whom he was endeavoring with much adroitness to elicit news about a movement on the stock exchange of which he had his suspicions, while the Count Muffat, standing in front of them, was silently listening to their talk, looking, as he did so, even grayer than was his wont.
So Muffat, wretched at home, driven out by ennui and shame, still preferred to live in the Avenue de Villiers, even though he was abused there. Soon there was but one question between Nana and the count, and that was "money." One day after having formally promised her ten thousand francs he had dared keep his appointment empty handed.
Then triumphantly, as she saw Muffat stagger to his feet like an ox under the hammer: "If honest women must meddle in our affairs and take our sweethearts from us Oh, you bet they're a nice lot, those honest women!" But she was unable to proceed.
He was hopeless, and his heart was full of infinite sorrow, for he felt, amid all those shadows, that he was evermore betrayed and alone. Day broke at last. It was the murky dawn that follows winter nights and looks so melancholy from muddy Paris pavements. Muffat had returned into the wide streets, which were then in course of construction on either side of the new opera house.
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