listening to them, blushing so hotly the while that a rosy flush had
spread from his ears to his girlish throat. The infant was full of shame
and of ecstasy. From the moment his mother had turned him loose in the
room he had been hovering in the wake of Mme de Chezelles, the only
woman present who struck him as being the thing. But after all is said
and done, Nana licked her to fits!

"Yesterday evening," Mme Hugon was saying, "Georges took me to the play.
Yes, we went to the Varietes, where I certainly had not set foot for the
last ten years. That child adores music. As to me, I wasn't in the least
amused, but he was so happy! They put extraordinary pieces on the stage
nowadays. Besides, music delights me very little, I confess."

"What! You don't love music, madame?" cried Mme du Joncquoy, lifting her
eyes to heaven. "Is it possible there should be people who don't love
music?"

The exclamation of surprise was general. No one had dropped a single
word concerning the performance at the Varietes, at which the good Mme
Hugon had not understood any of the allusions. The ladies knew the piece
but said nothing about it, and with that they plunged into the realm
of sentiment and began discussing the masters in a tone of refined and
ecstatical admiration. Mme du Joncquoy was not fond of any of them
save Weber, while Mme Chantereau stood up for the Italians. The ladies'
voices had turned soft and languishing, and in front of the hearth
one might have fancied one's self listening in meditative, religious
retirement to the faint, discreet music of a little chapel.

"Now let's see," murmured Vandeuvres, bringing Fauchery back into the
middle of the drawing room, "notwithstanding it all, we must invent a