Labordette began rolling up the designs as he gave the final
explanations. The goldsmiths, he said, were undertaking to deliver the
bed in two months' time, toward the twenty-fifth of December, and
next week a sculptor would come to make a model for the Night. As
she accompanied him to the door Nana remembered the baker and briskly
inquired:
"By the by, you wouldn't be having ten louis about you?"
Labordette made it a solemn rule, which stood him in good stead, never
to lend women money. He used always to make the same reply.
"No, my girl, I'm short. But would you like me to go to your little
rough?"
She refused; it was useless. Two days before she had succeeded in
getting five thousand francs out of the count. However, she soon
regretted her discreet conduct, for the moment Labordette had gone the
baker reappeared, though it was barely half-past two, and with many loud
oaths roughly settled himself on a bench in the hall. The young woman
listened to him from the first floor. She was pale, and it caused her
especial pain to hear the servants' secret rejoicings swelling up louder
and louder till they even reached her ears. Down in the kitchen they
were dying of laughter. The coachman was staring across from the other
side of the court; Francois was crossing the hall without any apparent
reason.
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