Much to her annoyance she had recognized
Lucy Stewart and Maria Blond among them, and for nearly five minutes,
during which the ladies chatted with Laure before passing into the
saloon beyond, she kept her head down and seemed deeply occupied in
rolling bread pills on the cloth in front of her. But when at length she
was able to look round, what was her astonishment to observe the chair
next to hers vacant! Satin had vanished.
"Gracious, where can she be?" she loudly ejaculated.
The sturdy, fair woman who had been overwhelming Satin with civil
attentions laughed ill-temperedly, and when Nana, whom the laugh
irritated, looked threatening she remarked in a soft, drawling way:
"It's certainly not me that's done you this turn; it's the other one!"
Thereupon Nana understood that they would most likely make game of her
and so said nothing more. She even kept her seat for some moments, as
she did not wish to show how angry she felt. She could hear Lucy Stewart
laughing at the end of the next saloon, where she was treating a whole
table of little women who had come from the public balls at Montmartre
and La Chapelle. It was very hot; the servant was carrying away piles of
dirty plates with a strong scent of boiled fowl and rice, while the four
gentlemen had ended by regaling quite half a dozen couples with capital
wine in the hope of making them tipsy and hearing some pretty stiffish
things.
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