Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
Estelle had rung to order wood to be put on the fire; the footman turned up the lamps; the room seemed to wake from sleep. Fauchery began smiling, as though once more at his ease. "Egad, they become the brides of God when they couldn't be their cousin's," said Vandeuvres between his teeth. The subject bored him, and he had rejoined Fauchery.
Vandeuvres and Philippe Hugon likewise indulged in endless jokes against the "cads," the quarrelsome set who scuttled off the moment they clapped eyes on a bayonet. But Georges that evening remained pale and somber. "What can be the matter with that baby?" asked Nana, noticing his troubled appearance. "With me? Nothing I am listening," he muttered. But he was really suffering.
Daguenet, on the other hand, who was seated on Estelle's left, seemed slightly put out by his propinquity to that tall, silent girl. The angularity of her elbows was disagreeable to him. Muffat and Chouard had exchanged a sly glance while Vandeuvres continued joking about his coming marriage. "Talking of ladies," Mme Hugon ended by saying, "I have a new neighbor whom you probably know."
But the count reassured him he had just brought the old gentleman back. He was a stranger, whose name it was useless to mention. Suffice it to say that he was a very rich man who was quite pleased to pay for suppers! Then as Nana was once more being forgotten, Vandeuvres saw Daguenet looking out of an open door and beckoning to him.
They might tear her in pieces before she would leave her room! "I ought to have had my suspicions," she resumed. "It's that cat of a Rose who's got the plot up! I'm certain Rose'll have stopped that respectable woman coming whom I was expecting tonight." She referred to Mme Robert. Vandeuvres gave her his word of honor that Mme Robert had given a spontaneous refusal.
She doesn't know my Fauchery: a dirty gent he is, too, palling up with women like that so as to get on in the world. Oh, a nice lot they are!" Vandeuvres did his best to calm her down, but Bordenave, deserted by Rose and by Lucy, grew angry and cried out that they were letting Papa perish of hunger and thirst. This produced a fortunate diversion.
It was Georges in the act of defending Vandeuvres against certain vague rumors which were circulating among the various groups. "Why should you say that he's laying off his own horse?" the young man was exclaiming. "Yesterday in the Salon des Courses he took the odds on Lusignan for a thousand louis." "Yes, I was there," said Philippe in affirmation of this.
Just then the real Nana reappeared, whereat the gentlemen lent his question an indecent meaning and burst into an uproarious fit of laughter. Nana bowed. "Price is up," she replied. And with that the discussion began again. Price was an English celebrity. Why had Vandeuvres got this jockey to come over, seeing that Gresham ordinarily rode Nana?
But there was a great stir in the drawing room, and Vandeuvres and Fauchery could not continue pressing the count. The Marquis de Chouard had just come in, and everyone was anxious to greet him.
Vandeuvres had not needed anonymous letters in order to understand how matters stood, and accordingly he joked and tried to pick jealous quarrels with Satin. Philippe and Georges, on their parts, treated her like a jolly good fellow, shaking hands with her and cracking the riskiest jokes imaginable.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking