"But I tell you, it is Nana! They're playing her waltz for her, by Jove!
She's making her entry. And she takes part in the reconciliation, the
devil she does! What? You don't see her? She's squeezing all three of
'em to her heart--my cousin Fauchery, my lady cousin and her husband,
and she's calling 'em her dear kitties. Oh, those family scenes give me
a turn!"
Estelle had come up, and Fauchery complimented her while she stood
stiffly up in her rose-colored dress, gazing at him with the astonished
look of a silent child and constantly glancing aside at her father and
mother. Daguenet, too, exchanged a hearty shake of the hand with the
journalist. Together they made up a smiling group, while M. Venot came
gliding in behind them. He gloated over them with a beatified expression
and seemed to envelop them in his pious sweetness, for he rejoiced in
these last instances of self-abandonment which were preparing the means
of grace.
But the waltz still beat out its swinging, laughing, voluptuous measure;
it was like a shrill continuation of the life of pleasure which was
beating against the old house like a rising tide. The band blew louder
trills from their little flutes; their violins sent forth more swooning
notes.
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