"They wanted my advice." He knew that she was not speaking the truth, but the warm touch of her arm as it leaned firmly on his own, left him powerless.

He felt neither anger nor rancor after his long, long wait; his one thought was to keep her where she was now that he had got hold of her.

Tomorrow, and not before, he would try and find out what she had come to her dressing room after.

But Nana still appeared to hesitate; she was manifestly a prey to the sort of secret anguish that besets people when they are trying to regain lost ground and to initiate a plan of action.

Accordingly, as they turned the corner of the Galerie des Varietes, she stopped in front of the show in a fan seller's window.
"I say, that's pretty," she whispered; "I mean that mother-of-pearl mount with the feathers." Then, indifferently: "So you're seeing me home ?" "Of course," he said, with some surprise, "since your child's better." She was sorry she had told him that story.