“Come now, will you soon have done insulting me?  I’m glad you’ve come, too, dear boy, because now you see the clearance’ll be quite complete.  Now then, gee up!  Out you go!”

Then as they did not hurry in the least, for they were paralyzed: 

“D’you mean to say I’m acting like a fool, eh?  It’s likely enough!  But you’ve bored me too much!  And, hang it all, I’ve had enough of swelldom!  If I die of what I’m doing—­well, it’s my fancy!”

They sought to calm her; they begged her to listen to reason.

“Now then, once, twice, thrice!  Won’t you go?  Very well!  Look there!  I’ve got company.”

And with a brisk movement she flung wide the bedroom door.  Whereupon in the middle of the tumbled bed the two men caught sight of Fontan.  He had not expected to be shown off in this situation; nevertheless, he took things very easily, for he was used to sudden surprises on the stage.  Indeed, after the first shock he even hit upon a grimace calculated to tide him honorably over his difficulty; he “turned rabbit,” as he phrased it, and stuck out his lips and wrinkled up his nose, so as completely to transform the lower half of his face.  His base, satyrlike head seemed to exude incontinence.  It was this man Fontan then whom Nana had been to fetch at the Varieties every day for a week past, for she was smitten with that fierce sort of passion which the grimacing ugliness of a low comedian is wont to inspire in the genus courtesan.

“There!” she said, pointing him out with tragic gesture.

Muffat, who hitherto had pocketed everything, rebelled at this affront.

“Bitch!” he stammered.

But Nana, who was once more in the bedroom, came back in order to have the last word.

“How am I a bitch?  What about your wife?”

And she was off and, slamming the door with a bang, she noisily pushed to the bolt.  Left alone, the two men gazed at one another in silence.  Zoe had just come into the room, but she did not drive them out.  Nay, she spoke to them in the most sensible manner.  As became a woman with a head on her shoulders, she decided that Madame’s conduct was rather too much of a good thing.  But she defended her, nonetheless:  this union with the play actor couldn’t last; the madness must be allowed to pass off!  The two men retired without uttering a sound.  On the pavement outside they shook hands silently, as though swayed by a mutual sense of fraternity.  Then they turned their backs on one another and went crawling off in opposite directions.

When at last Muffat entered his town house in the Rue Miromesnil his wife was just arriving.  The two met on the great staircase, whose walls exhaled an icy chill.  They lifted up their eyes and beheld one another.  The count still wore his muddy clothes, and his pale, bewildered face betrayed the prodigal returning from his debauch.  The countess looked as though she were utterly fagged out by a night in the train.  She was dropping with sleep, but her hair had been brushed anyhow, and her eyes were deeply sunken.