As she stood talking behind her new friend's chair she leaned lightly on her shoulders and in a smiling, coaxing manner remarked: "Now when shall I see you?
If you were free--" Nana unluckily failed to hear more.

The conversation vexed her, and she was dying to tell this honest lady a few home truths.

But the sight of a troop of new arrivals paralyzed her.

It was composed of smart, fashionably dressed women who were wearing their diamonds.

Under the influence of perverse impulse they had made up a party to come to Laure's--whom, by the by, they all treated with great familiarity--to eat the three-franc dinner while flashing their jewels of great price in the jealous and astonished eyes of poor, bedraggled prostitutes.