From that day forth Nana had a passion to occupy her thoughts. Satin
became her vicious foible. Washed and dressed and duly installed in the
house in the Avenue de Villiers, during three days the girl talked of
Saint-Lazare and the annoyances the sisters had caused her and how those
dirty police people had put her down on the official list. Nana grew
indignant and comforted her and vowed she would get her name taken off,
even though she herself should have to go and find out the minister of
the interior. Meanwhile there was no sort of hurry: nobody would come
and search for her at Nana's--that was certain. And thereupon the
two women began to pass tender afternoons together, making numberless
endearing little speeches and mingling their kisses with laughter.
The same little sport, which the arrival of the plainclothes men had
interrupted in the Rue de Laval, was beginning again in a jocular sort
of spirit. One fine evening, however, it became serious, and Nana, who
had been so disgusted at Laure's, now understood what it meant. She was
upset and enraged by it, the more so because Satin disappeared on the
morning of the fourth day. No one had seen her go out. She had, indeed,
slipped away in her new dress, seized by a longing for air, full of
sentimental regret for her old street existence.
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