Many men did not enter the theater at once but stayed outside to talk
while finishing their cigars under the rays of the line of gas jets,
which shed a sallow pallor on their faces and silhouetted their short
black shadows on the asphalt. Mignon, a very tall, very broad fellow,
with the square-shaped head of a strong man at a fair, was forcing a
passage through the midst of the groups and dragging on his arm the
banker Steiner, an exceedingly small man with a corporation already in
evidence and a round face framed in a setting of beard which was already
growing gray.
"Well," said Bordenave to the banker, "you met her yesterday in my
office."
"Ah! It was she, was it?" ejaculated Steiner. "I suspected as much. Only
I was coming out as she was going in, and I scarcely caught a glimpse of
her."
Mignon was listening with half-closed eyelids and nervously twisting a
great diamond ring round his finger. He had quite understood that Nana
was in question. Then as Bordenave was drawing a portrait of his new
star, which lit a flame in the eyes of the banker, he ended by joining
in the conversation.
"Oh, let her alone, my dear fellow; she's a low lot! The public will
show her the door in quick time.
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