The moment they entered, talking and laughing in their shrill, clear tones and seeming to bring sunshine with them from the outside world, Nana turned her head rapidly away.

Much to her annoyance she had recognized Lucy Stewart and Maria Blond among them, and for nearly five minutes, during which the ladies chatted with Laure before passing into the saloon beyond, she kept her head down and seemed deeply occupied in rolling bread pills on the cloth in front of her.

But when at length she was able to look round, what was her astonishment to observe the chair next to hers vacant! Satin had vanished.
"Gracious, where can she be ?" she loudly ejaculated.
The sturdy, fair woman who had been overwhelming Satin with civil attentions laughed ill-temperedly, and when Nana, whom the laugh irritated, looked threatening she remarked in a soft, drawling way: "It's certainly not me that's done you this turn; it's the other one!" Thereupon Nana understood that they would most likely make game of her and so said nothing more.

She even kept her seat for some moments, as she did not wish to show how angry she felt.

She could hear Lucy Stewart laughing at the end of the next saloon, where she was treating a whole table of little women who had come from the public balls at Montmartre and La Chapelle.