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By Root 1412 0

still nursed a last caprice. Agitated once more with the idea of re-decorating her bed-room, she thought she had at last found something to suit her fancy—a room hung in tea-rose velvet, padded and reaching up to the ceiling, in the shape of a tent, ornamented with little silver buttons and with gold lace and cords. It seemed to her that this would look both rich and tender, a superb background to her fair skin. But the room, however, was merely to serve as a framework to the bed, a prodigy of dazzling brightness. Nana dreamed of a bed such as was never seen before—a throne, an altar, to which all Paris would come to adore her sovereign nudity. It was to be entirely of gold and silver, like an immense jewel, golden roses scattered over a silver network; at the head, a band of cupids amongst the flowers would be glancing down, with laughter on their faces, watching the voluptuous pleasures in the shadow of the curtains. She had consulted Labordette, who had brought two goldsmiths to see her. They were already preparing the drawings. The bed was to cost fifty thousand francs, and Muffat was to present her with it as a new year gift.

What surprised the young woman was that in this ever-flowing river of gold she was constantly without money. Some days she scarcely knew what to do for want of the most ridiculous sums, of a few louis. She had to borrow of Zoé or else raise funds any way she could. But before resigning herself to extreme measures, she would sound her friends, getting out of the men whatever they had about them, even sous, in a jocular sort of way. For three months past she had especially been emptying Philippe’s pockets in this manner. He now never called, whenever there was a crisis at hand, without leaving his purse behind him on leaving. Soon, becoming bolder, Nana had begun to ask him for loans—two hundred francs, three hundred francs, never more—for bills becoming due, or debts that could not remain longer unpaid; and Philippe, who, in July, had been made a captain, and pay-master of his regiment, would bring the money on the morrow, with the excuse that he was not rich, for good Madame Hugon now treated her sons with singular harshness. At the end of three months these little loans, often repeated, amounted to some ten thousand francs. The captain still laughed in his hearty, sonorous way, yet he was growing thin, appearing absent-minded at times, with a look of suffering on his face; but a glance from Nana transfigured him, in a sort of sensual ecstasy. She was very playful with him, intoxicating him with kisses behind doors, bewitching him with sudden abandonments of herself, which tied him to her petticoats the whole time he was off duty.

One night, Nana having mentioned that her name was also Thérèse, and that her saint’s-day was on the 15th October, the gentlemen all sent her presents. Captain Philippe brought his—an old Saxon china comfit-box,bd mounted with gold. He found her alone in her dressing-room, having just come out of her bath, clothed only in a loose scarlet and white flannel dressing-gown, and very busy examining the presents spread out on a table. She had already broken a scent bottle in rock crystal in trying to take the stopper out.

“Oh! you are too nice,” said she. “Whatever is it? show me. What a child you are to spend your money in things like this!”

She scolded him, because he was not rich, although really very pleased to see him spend all he had on her, the only proof of love which ever touched her. However, she handled the comfit-box, wishing to see how it was made, opening and shutting it.

“Take care,” he murmured; “it’s not very strong.”

But she shrugged her shoulders. Did he think she had the hands of a railway porter? And suddenly the hinge remained between her fingers, whilst the lid fell to the ground and broke. She stood lost in amazement, with her eyes fixed on the pieces.

“Oh! it’s broken!” said she.

Then she began to laugh. The pieces on the floor looked funny to her. It was a nervous gaiety. She had the stupid and cruel laugh of a child who finds amusement in