It was Nana's very mole, down to the color of the hair.
He could not refrain from whispering something about it in Vandeuvres's
ear. Gad, it was true; the other had never noticed it before. And both
men continued this comparison of Nana and the countess. They discovered
a vague resemblance about the chin and the mouth, but the eyes were not
at all alike. Then, too, Nana had a good-natured expression, while with
the countess it was hard to decide--she might have been a cat, sleeping
with claws withdrawn and paws stirred by a scarce-perceptible nervous
quiver.
"All the same, one could have her," declared Fauchery.
Vandeuvres stripped her at a glance.
"Yes, one could, all the same," he said. "But I think nothing of the
thighs, you know. Will you bet she has no thighs?"
He stopped, for Fauchery touched him briskly on the arm and showed him
Estelle, sitting close to them on her footstool. They had raised
their voices without noticing her, and she must have overheard them.
Nevertheless, she continued sitting there stiff and motionless, not a
hair having lifted on her thin neck, which was that of a girl who has
shot up all too quickly. Thereupon they retired three or four paces, and
Vandeuvres vowed that the countess was a very honest woman.
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