The scene resembled the field where a fair is being held, and above it all, amid the confused motley of the crowd, the drinking booths raised their gray canvas roofs which gleamed white in the sunshine.

But a veritable tumult, a mob, an eddy of hats, surged round the several bookmakers, who stood in open carriages gesticulating like itinerant dentists while their odds were pasted up on tall boards beside them.
"All the same, it's stupid not to know on what horse one's betting," Nana was remarking.

"I really must risk some louis in person." She had stood up to select a bookmaker with a decent expression of face but forgot what she wanted on perceiving a perfect crowd of her acquaintance.

Besides the Mignons, besides Gaga, Clarisse and Blanche, there were present, to the right and left, behind and in the middle of the mass of carriages now hemming in her landau, the following ladies: Tatan Nene and Maria Blond in a victoria, Caroline Hequet with her mother and two gentlemen in an open carriage, Louise Violaine quite alone, driving a little basket chaise decked with orange and green ribbons, the colors of the Mechain stables, and finally, Lea de Horn on the lofty seat of a mail coach, where a band of young men were making a great din.

Farther off, in a HUIT RESSORTS of aristocratic appearance, Lucy Stewart, in a very simple black silk dress, sat, looking distinguished beside a tall young man in the uniform of a naval cadet.
But what most astounded Nana was the arrival of Simonne in a tandem which Steiner was driving, while a footman sat motionless, with folded arms, behind them.