All of which smacked of the courtesan too early deserted by her first serious protector and fallen back on shabby lovers, of a precarious first appearance of a bad start, handicapped by refusals of credit and threats of eviction.
Nana was sleeping on her face, hugging in her bare arms a pillow in which she was burying cheeks grown pale in sleep.

The bedroom and the dressing room were the only two apartments which had been properly furnished by a neighboring upholsterer.

A ray of light, gliding in under a curtain, rendered visible rosewood furniture and hangings and chairbacks of figured damask with a pattern of big blue flowers on a gray ground.

But in the soft atmosphere of that slumbering chamber Nana suddenly awoke with a start, as though surprised to find an empty place at her side.

She looked at the other pillow lying next to hers; there was the dint of a human head among its flounces: it was still warm.