"Call it my brothel!"

At this Fauchery laughed approvingly, while La Faloise stopped with his
pretty speech strangled in his throat, feeling very much shocked and
striving to appear as though he enjoyed the phrase. The manager had
dashed off to shake hands with a dramatic critic whose column had
considerable influence. When he returned La Faloise was recovering. He
was afraid of being treated as a provincial if he showed himself too
much nonplused.

"I have been told," he began again, longing positively to find something
to say, "that Nana has a delicious voice."

"Nana?" cried the manager, shrugging his shoulders. "The voice of a
squirt!"

The young man made haste to add:

"Besides being a first-rate comedian!"

"She? Why she's a lump! She has no notion what to do with her hands and
feet."

La Faloise blushed a little. He had lost his bearings. He stammered:

"I wouldn't have missed this first representation tonight for the world.
I was aware that your theater--"

"Call it my brothel," Bordenave again interpolated with the frigid
obstinacy of a man convinced.