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They were sitting in a little group on a bench and some rustic chairs in the corner of a scenic garden, which was standing ready to be put in position as it would be used in the opening act the same evening. In the middle of this group Fontan and Prulliere were listening to Rose Mignon, to whom the manager of the Folies-Dramatique Theatre had been making magnificent offers.
Wearing a hat and a small veil for the nonce she was affecting the manner of a lady about to pay a call. "A pretty trollop!" muttered Prulliere, who had been coming across her for a year past at the Cafe des Varietes.
Clarisse was much astonished at this, for the banker was quite ruined, but Prulliere began laughing and reminded them of the neat manner in which that confounded Israelite had puffed himself alongside of Rose in order to get his Landes saltworks afloat on 'change. Just at that time he was airing a new project, namely, a tunnel under the Bosporus.
Fontan, Bosc and Prulliere, on the other hand, retired at a leisurely pace, joking at the figure cut by the serious, paying admirers who were striding up and down the Galerie des Varietes at a time when the little dears were escaping along the boulevard with the men of their hearts. But Clarisse was especially sly.
In view of her idiotic obstinacy Prulliere, as became a pretty fellow whose vanity had been wounded, did a cowardly thing. "Very well, do as you like!" he cried. "Only I don't side with you, my dear. You must get out of the scrape by yourself." And with that he left her.
Bordenave agitated the whole table with the announcement that at one moment he had had the idea of bringing with him Prulliere, Fontan and old Bosc. At this Nana looked sedate and remarked dryly that she would have given them a pretty reception. Had she wanted colleagues, she would certainly have undertaken to ask them herself. No, no, she wouldn't have third-rate play actors.
Then, too, that pig Bordenave had once more given her a mere scrap of a part, a paltry fifty lines, just as if she could not have played Geraldine! She was yearning for that role and hoping that Nana would refuse it. "Well, and what about me?" said Prulliere with much bitterness. "I haven't got more than two hundred lines. I wanted to give the part up.
"Three times!" said Simonne when she was again able to speak. "It's getting exciting. You know, he won't go to her place; he takes her to his. And it seems that he has to pay for it too!" "Egad! It's a case of when one 'has to go out," muttered Prulliere wickedly, and he got up to have a last look at the mirror as became a handsome fellow whom the boxes adored. "They've knocked!
"Yes, my little man, why d'you say that?" shouted Mignon, bringing down his huge hands on the journalist's slender shoulders with such force as almost to double him up. Prulliere and Clarisse refrained from laughing aloud. For some time past the whole company had been deriving amusement from a comedy which was going on in the wings.
In order to give some return for his dinner he used always to go into ecstasies over their happiness. He declared himself a philosopher who had given up everything, glory included. At times Prulliere and Fontan lolled back in their chairs, losing count of time in front of the empty table, while with theatrical gestures and intonation they discussed their former successes till two in the morning.
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