On days such as these Laure, sleek and tight-laced as ever would kiss everyone with an air of expanded maternity.

Yet notwithstanding all these circumstances Satin's blue eyes and pure virginal face remained as calm as heretofore; torn, beaten and pestered by the two women, she would simply remark that it was a funny business, and they would have done far better to make it up at once.

It did no good to slap her; she couldn't cut herself in two, however much she wanted to be nice to everybody.

It was Nana who finally carried her off in triumph, so assiduously had she loaded Satin with kindnesses and presents.

In order to be revenged, however, Mme Robert wrote abominable, anonymous letters to her rival's lovers.
For some time past Count Muffat had appeared suspicious, and one morning, with considerable show of feeling, he laid before Nana an anonymous letter, where in the very first sentences she read that she was accused of deceiving the count with Vandeuvres and the young Hugons.
"It's false! It's false!" she loudly exclaimed in accents of extraordinary candor.
"You swear ?" asked Muffat, already willing to be comforted.
"I'll swear by whatever you like--yes, by the head of my child!" But the letter was long.