“He’s gone then?” she asked the maid who presented herself.
“Yes, madame, Monsieur Paul went away not ten minutes back. As Madame was tired, he did not wish to wake her. But he ordered me to tell Madame that he would come tomorrow.”
As she spoke Zoé, the lady’s maid, opened the outer shutter. A flood of daylight entered. Zoé, a dark brunette with hair in little plaits, had a long canine face, at once livid and full of seams, a snub nose, thick lips and two black eyes in continual movement.
“Tomorrow, tomorrow,” repeated Nana, who was not yet wide awake, “is tomorrow the day?”
“Yes, madame, Monsieur Paul has always come on the Wednesday.”
“No, now I remember,” said the young woman, sitting up. “It’s all changed. I wanted to tell him so this morning. He would run against the nigger! We should have a nice to-do!”
“Madame did not warn me; I couldn’t be aware of it,” murmured Zoé. “When Madame changes her days she will do well to tell me so that I may know. Then the old miser is no longer due on the Tuesday?”
Between themselves they were wont thus gravely to nickname as “old miser” and “nigger” their two paying visitors, one of whom was a tradesman of economical tendencies from the Faubourg Saint-Denis, while the other was a Walachian, a mock count, whose money, paid always at the most irregular intervals, never looked as though it had been honestly come by. Daguenet had made Nana give him the days subsequent to the old miser’s visits, and as the trader had to be at home by eight o’clock in the morning, the young man would watch for his departure from Zoés kitchen and would take his place, which was still quite warm, till ten o’clock. Then he, too, would go about his business. Nana and he were wont to think it a very comfortable arrangement.
“So much the worse,” said Nana; “I’ll write to him this afternoon. And if he doesn’t receive my letter, then tomorrow you will stop him coming in.”
In the meantime Zoé was walking softly about the room. She spoke of yesterday’s great hit. Madame had shown such talent; she sang so well! Ah! Madame need not fret at all now!