Certainly Mme Lerat played it, and that to perfection. It was no good troubling Zoé, who had vanished—a corner of the table would do quite well. And they pushed back the tablecloth over the dirty plates. But as Mme Maloir was herself going to take the cards out of a drawer in the sideboard, Nana remarked that before she sat down to her game it would be very nice of her if she would write her a letter. It bored Nana to write letters; besides, she was not sure of her spelling, while her old friend could turn out the most feeling epistles. She ran to fetch some good note paper in her bedroom. An inkstand consisting of a bottle of ink worth about three sous stood untidily on one of the pieces of furniture, with a pen deep in rust beside it. The letter was for Daguenet. Mme Maloir herself wrote in her bold English hand, “My darling little man,” and then she told him not to come tomorrow because “that could not be” but hastened to add that “she was with him in thought at every moment of the day, whether she were near or far away.” “And I end with ‘a thousand kisses,’” she murmured. Mme Lerat had shown her approval of each phrase with an emphatic nod. Her eyes were sparkling; she loved to find herself in the midst of love affairs. Nay, she was seized with a desire to add some words of her own and, assuming a tender look and cooing like a dove, she suggested: “A thousand kisses on thy beautiful eyes.” “That’s the thing: ‘a thousand kisses on thy beautiful eyes’!” Nana repeated, while the two old ladies assumed a beatified expression. Zoé was rung for and told to take the letter down to a commissionaire. She had just been talking with the theater messenger, who had brought her mistress the day’s playbill and rehearsal arrangements, which he had forgotten in the morning. Nana had this individual ushered in and got him to take the latter to Daguenet on his return. Then she put questions to him. Oh yes! M. Bordenave was very pleased; people had already taken seats for a week to come; Madame had no idea of the number of people who had been asking her address since morning. When the man had taken his departure Nana announced that at most she would only be out half an hour. If there were any visitors Zoé would make them wait. As she spoke the electric bell sounded. It was a creditor in the shape of the man of whom she jobbed her carriages. He had settled himself on the bench in the anteroom, and the fellow was free to twiddle his thumbs till night—there wasn’t the least hurry now. “Come, buck up!” said Nana, still torpid with laziness and yawning and stretching afresh. “I ought to be there now!” Yet she did not budge but kept watching the play of her aunt, who had just announced four aces. Chin on hand, she grew quite engrossed in it but gave a violent start on hearing three o’clock strike. “Good God!” she cried roughly. Then Mme Maloir, who was counting the tricks she had won with her tens and aces, said cheeringly to her in her soft voice: