They had both met at the stage door in the Passage des Panoramas, and she had brought them home with her in a cab.

As there was nobody there yet, she shouted to them to come into the dressing room while Zoe was touching up her toilet.

Hurriedly and without changing her dress she had her hair done up and stuck white roses in her chignon and at her bosom.

The little room was littered with the drawing-room furniture, which the workmen had been compelled to roll in there, and it was full of a motley assemblage of round tables, sofas and armchairs, with their legs in air for the most part.

Nana was quite ready when her dress caught on a castor and tore upward.