Nevertheless, from the moment of Fauchery's arrival she appeared preoccupied, and directly she could get near him she asked him in a low voice: "Will he come ?" "No, he did not want to," was the journalist's abrupt reply, for he was taken by surprise, though he had got ready some sort of tale to explain Count Muffat's refusal.
Seeing the young woman's sudden pallor, he became conscious of his folly and tried to retract his words.
"He was unable to; he is taking the countess to the ball at the Ministry of the Interior tonight." "All right," murmured Nana, who suspected him of ill will, "you'll pay me out for that, my pippin." She turned on her heel, and so did he; they were angry.

Just then Mignon was pushing Steiner up against Nana, and when Fauchery had left her he said to her in a low voice and with the good-natured cynicism of a comrade in arms who wishes his friends to be happy: "He's dying of it, you know, only he's afraid of my wife.

Won't you protect him ?" Nana did not appear to understand.

She smiled and looked at Rose, the husband and the banker and finally said to the latter: "Monsieur Steiner, you will sit next to me." With that there came from the anteroom a sound of laughter and whispering and a burst of merry, chattering voices, which sounded as if a runaway convent were on the premises.

And Labordette appeared, towing five women in his rear, his boarding school, as Lucy Stewart cruelly phrased it.