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By Root 1492 0

to keep my bed all day, and even this morning I was afraid I should not be able to come. Well, you know what my notion was. I did not wish her to do as she has done; I had her brought up in a convent, and intended getting her well married. And she always had the best advice, and was constantly looked after. Well, my dear! she would have her own way. Oh! we had such a scene—bitter tears, unpleasant words, until it ended by my slapping her face. She felt so dull, she would try the change. Then when she took it into her head to say, ‘It’s not you, anyhow, who have the right to prevent me,’ I said to her, ‘You’re a wretch, you dishonour us, be off!’ And so off she went, but I consented to make the best arrangement I could for her. However, there’s my last hope gone; and I had been planning, ah! such grand things!”

The sounds of a quarrel caused them to stand up. It was George who was defending Vandeuvres against several vague rumours that were passing from group to group.

“How absurd to say that he no longer believes in his horse!” exclaimed the young man. “Only yesterday, at the club, he backed Lusignan to the extent of a thousand louis.”

“Yes, I was there,” added Philippe. “And he didn’t back Nana for a single louis. If Nana’s got to ten to one, it’s not owing to him. It’s ridiculous to give people credit for so much calculation. Besides, what interest could he have in behaving so?”

Labordette listened in a quiet sort of way, and, shrugging his shoulders, observed,

“Let them say what they like, they must talk of something. The count has just laid another five hundred louis at least on Lusignan, and if he’s backed Nana for a hundred it’s merely because an owner must show some faith in his horses.”

“What the devil can it matter to us?” yelled La Faloise, waving his arms. “Spirit will win. France is nowhere! Bravo, England!”

A tremor passed slowly through the crowd, whilst a fresh peal of the bell announced the arrival of the horses at the starting-place. Then Nana, to obtain a better view, stood up on one of the seats of her landau, treading on the bouquets of forget-me-nots and roses. With a glance round, she took in the vast horizon. At this last moment, when the excitement was at fever heat, she beheld first of all the empty course, enclosed by its grey barriers, along which policemen were stationed at intervals, and the broad band of muddy grass before her became greener and greener in the distance, until it merged into a soft velvety carpet. Then, as she lowered her eyes and gazed around in her immediate vicinity, she saw an ever-moving crowd standing on tip-toe or clambering on to the vehicles, excited and animated by the same passion, with the horses neighing, the refreshment tents shaking in the wind, and riders urging on their steeds in the midst of the foot passengers hastening to the barriers; whilst, when she looked at the stands on the other side of the course, the people seemed smaller, the mass of heads appeared merely a medley of colours filling the paths, the benches, and the terraces, beneath the dull sky.

And she could see the plain beyond. Behind the ivy-covered windmill, to the right, there was a background of meadows, intersected with plantations; in front, as far as the Seine, which flowed at the foot of the hill, park-like avenues, along which interminable rows of immovable vehicles were waiting, crossed each other; then on the left, towards Boulogne, the country spreading out again, opened into a view of the bluey heights of Meudon, intercepted only by a row of pawlonias, the rosy tufts of which, without a single leaf, formed a sheet of vivid crimson. People still continued to arrive, numbers were hastening from over there looking like so many ants as they wended their way along a narrow path which crossed the fields; whilst far off, in the direction of Paris, the spectators who did not pay, a host who camped out in the wood, formed a long black moving line under the trees on the outskirts of the Bois.

But suddenly a feeling of gaiety excited the hundred thousand souls who covered that bit of