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ng to be comforted.
"I'll swear by whatever you like--yes, by the head of my child!"
But the letter was long. Soon her connection with Satin was described in the broadest and most ignoble terms. When she had done reading she smiled.
"Now I know who it comes from," she remarked simply.
And as Muffat wanted her denial to the charges therein contained, she resumed quietly enough:
"That's a matter which doesn't concern you, dear old pet. How can it hurt you?"
She did not deny anything. He used some horrified expressions. Thereupon she shrugged her shoulders. Where had he been all this time? Why, it was done everywhere! And she mentioned her friends and swore that fashionable ladies went in for it. In fact, to hear her speak, nothing could be commoner or more natural. But a lie was a lie, and so a moment ago he had seen how angry she grew in the matter of Vandeuvres and the young Hugons! Oh, if that had been true he would have been justified in throttling her! But what was the good of lying to him about a matter of no consequence? And with that she repeated her previous expression:
"Come now, how can it hurt you?"
Then as the scene still continued, she closed it with a rough speech:
"Besides, dear boy, if the thing doesn't suit you it's very simple: the house door's open! There now, you must take me as you find me!"
He hung his head, for the young woman's vows of fidelity made him happy at bottom. She, however, now knew her power over him and ceased to consider his feelings. And from that time forth Satin was openly installed in the house on the same footing as the gentlemen. Vandeuvres had not needed anonymous letters in order to understand how matters stood, and accordingly he joked and tried to pick jealous quarrels with Satin. Philippe and Georges, on their parts, treated her like a jolly good fellow, shaking hands with her and cracking the riskiest jokes imaginable.
Nana had an adventure one evening when this slut of a girl had given her