They
were still coming from the ball at the Ministry. Fauchery jestingly
inquired whether the minister was not coming, too, but Nana answered in
a huff that the minister went to the houses of people she didn't care a
pin for. What she did not say was that she was possessed with a hope of
seeing Count Muffat enter her room among all that stream of people. He
might quite have reconsidered his decision, and so while talking to Rose
she kept a sharp eye on the door.
Five o'clock struck. The dancing had ceased, and the cardplayers alone
persisted in their game. Labordette had vacated his seat, and the women
had returned into the drawing room. The air there was heavy with the
somnolence which accompanies a long vigil, and the lamps cast a wavering
light while their burned-out wicks glowed red within their globes.
The ladies had reached that vaguely melancholy hour when they felt it
necessary to tell each other their histories. Blanche de Sivry spoke of
her grandfather, the general, while Clarisse invented a romantic story
about a duke seducing her at her uncle's house, whither he used to come
for the boar hunting. Both women, looking different ways, kept shrugging
their shoulders and asking themselves how the deuce the other could tell
such whoppers! As to Lucy Stewart, she quietly confessed to her origin
and of her own accord spoke of her childhood and of the days when her
father, the wheel greaser at the Northern Railway Terminus, used to
treat her to an apple puff on Sundays.
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