He was astonished at this, for she was not playing in the new piece.

Why then should she have told him this falsehood, and what could she be doing at the Varietes that evening?
Hustled by a passer-by, the count unconsciously left the paperweights and found himself in front of a glass case full of toys, where he grew absorbed over an array of pocketbooks and cigar cases, all of which had the same blue swallow stamped on one corner.

Nana was most certainly not the same woman! In the early days after his return from the country she used to drive him wild with delight, as with pussycat caresses she kissed him all round his face and whiskers and vowed that he was her own dear pet and the only little man she adored.

He was no longer afraid of Georges, whom his mother kept down at Les Fondettes.

There was only fat Steiner to reckon with, and he believed he was really ousting him, but he did not dare provoke an explanation on his score.