“It's all this confusion going on in the place,” she murmured.
Mouret then approached her and said in a lower voice:
“Have the goodness to come to my office this evening after business. I wish to speak to you.”
Greatly agitated, she bowed her head without saying a word. And she went into the department where the other saleswomen were now arriving. But Bourdoncle had overheard Mouret, and he looked at him with a smile. He even ventured to say when they were alone:
“That girl again! Be careful; it will end by being serious!”
Mouret hastily defended himself, concealing his emotion beneath an air of superior indifference. “Never fear, it's only a joke! The woman who'll catch me isn't born, my dear fellow!”
And as the shop was opening at last, he rushed off to give a final look at the various counters. Bourdoncle shook his head. This Denise, so simple and quiet, began to make him uneasy. The first time, he had conquered by a brutal dismissal. But she had reappeared, and he felt she had become so strong that he now treated her as a redoubtable adversary, remaining mute before her, patiently waiting. Mouret, whom he caught up, was shouting out downstairs, in the Saint-Augustin Hall, opposite the entrance door:
“Are you playing with me? I ordered the blue parasols to be put as a border. Just pull all that down, and be quick about it!”
He would listen to nothing; a gang of messengers had to come and re-arrange the exhibition of parasols. Seeing the customers arriving, he even had the doors closed for a moment, declaring that he would not open them, rather than have the blue parasols in the centre. It ruined his composition. The renowned dressers, Hutin, Mignot, and others, came to look, and opened their eyes; but they affected not to understand, being of a different school.
At last the doors were opened again, and the crowd flowed in. From the first, before the shop was full, there was such a crush at the doorway that they were obliged to call the police to re-establish the circulation on the pavement. Mouret had calculated correctly; all the housekeepers, a compact troop of middle-class women and workmen's wives, swarmed around the bargains and remnants displayed in the open street. They felt the “hung” goods at the entrance; a calico at seven sous, a wool and cotton grey stuff at nine sous, and, above all, an Orleans cloth at seven sous and half, which was emptying the poorer purses. There was an elbowing, a feverish crushing around the shelves and baskets containing the articles at reduced prices, lace at two sous, ribbon at five, garters at three the pair, gloves, petticoats, cravats, cotton socks, and stockings, were all tumbled about, and disappearing, as if swallowed up by the voracious crowd. Notwithstanding the cold, the shopmen who were selling in the open street could not serve fast enough. A woman in the family way cried out with pain; two little girls were nearly stifled.