“They don't leave us a single good hand,” said he. “However, with you I shall feel quite easy, for you are like me, you can't be very fond of them. Come to-morrow.”
In the evening Denise hardly knew how to announce her departure to Bourras. In fact, he called her an ungrateful girl, and lost his temper. Then when, with tears in her eyes, she tried to defend herself by intimating that she could see through his charitable conduct, he softened down, said that he had plenty of work, that she was leaving him just as he was about to bring out an umbrella of his invention.
“And Pépé?” asked he.
This was Denise's great trouble; she dared not take him back to Madame Gras, and could not leave him alone in the bedroom, shut up from morning to night.
“Very good, Til keep him,” said the old man; “he'll be all right in my shop. We'll do the cooking together.” Then, as she refused, fearing it might inconvenience him, he thundered out: “Great heavens! have you no confidence in me? I sha'n't eat your child!”
Denise was much happier at Robineau's. He only paid her sixty francs a month, with her food, without giving her any commission on the sales, just the same as in the old-fashioned houses. But she was treated with great kindness, especially by Madame Robineau, always smiling at her counter. He, nervous, worried, was sometimes rather abrupt. At the expiration of the first month, Denise was quite one of the family, like the other saleswoman, a silent, consumptive, little body. The Robineaus were not at all particular before them, talking of the business at table in the back shop, which looked on to a large yard. And it was there they decided one evening on starting the campaign against The Ladies' Paradise. Gaujean had come to dinner. After the usual roast leg of mutton, he had broached the subject in his Lyons voice, thickened by the Rhône fogs.
“It's getting unbearable,” said he. “They go to Dumonteil, purchase the sole right in a design, and take three hundred pieces straight off, insisting on a reduction of ten sous a yard; and, as they pay ready money, they enjoy moreover the profit of eighteen per cent discount. Very often Dumonteil barely makes four sous a yard out of it He works to keep his looms going, for a loom that stands still is a dead loss. Under these circumstances how can you expect that we, with our limited plant, and especially with our makers, can keep up the struggle?”
Robineau, pensive, forgot his dinner. “Three hundred pieces!” he murmured. “I tremble when I take a dozen, and at ninety days. They can mark up a franc or two francs cheaper than us. I have calculated there is a reduction of at least fifteen per cent, on their catalogued articles, when compared with our prices. That's what kills the small houses.”
He was in a period of discouragement. His wife, full of anxiety, was looking at him with a tender air. She understood very little about the business, all these figures confused her; she could not understand why people took such trouble, when it was so easy to be gay and love one another. However, it sufficed that her husband wished to conquer, and she became as impassioned as he himself, and would have stood to her counter till death.
“But why don't all the manufacturers come to an understanding together?” resumed Robineau, violently. “They could then lay down the law, instead of submitting to it.”