For a moment or two she remained silent.
"Who are they ?" she asked at last.

"You know them ?" "I know the old fellow," replied Zoe, discreetly pursing up her lips.
And her mistress continuing to question her with her eyes, she added simply: "I've seen him somewhere." This remark seemed to decide the young woman.

Regretfully she left the kitchen, that asylum of steaming warmth, where you could talk and take your ease amid the pleasant fumes of the coffeepot which was being kept warm over a handful of glowing embers.

She left Mme Maloir behind her.
That lady was now busy reading her fortune by the cards; she had never yet taken her hat off, but now in order to be more at her ease she undid the strings and threw them back over her shoulders.
In the dressing room, where Zoe rapidly helped her on with a tea gown, Nana revenged herself for the way in which they were all boring her by muttering quiet curses upon the male sex.

These big words caused the lady's maid not a little distress, for she saw with pain that her mistress was not rising superior to her origin as quickly as she could have desired.