They were visible through a large rent she had
torn with savage fingers in order to be sure of the contents. The three
women round about her stared fixedly at the envelope, a big, crumpled,
dirty receptacle, as it lay clasped in her small gloved hands.
It was too late now--Mme Lerat would not go to Rambouillet till
tomorrow, and Nana entered into long explanations.
"There's company waiting for you," the lady's maid repeated.
But Nana grew excited again. The company might wait: she'd go to them
all in good time when she'd finished. And as her aunt began putting her
hand out for the money:
"Ah no! Not all of it," she said. "Three hundred francs for the nurse,
fifty for your journey and expenses, that's three hundred and fifty.
Fifty francs I keep."
The big difficulty was how to find change. There were not ten francs in
the house. But they did not even address themselves to Mme Maloir who,
never having more than a six-sou omnibus fair upon her, was listening
in quite a disinterested manner. At length Zoe went out of the room,
remarking that she would go and look in her box, and she brought back a
hundred francs in hundred-sou pieces. They were counted out on a corner
of the table, and Mme Lerat took her departure at once after having
promised to bring Louiset back with her the following day.
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