She hoped to obtain the name of the young lady from him, for she was full of a desire to see her. He immediately called Favier; and resumed talking to her, whilst waiting for the salesman, who was just finishing serving a customer who happened to be “the pretty lady,” that beautiful blonde of whom the whole department occasionally spoke, without knowing anything of her life or even her name. This time the pretty lady was in deep mourning. Ah, who had she lost—her husband or her father? Not her father, or she would have appeared more melancholy. What had they been saying? She was not a gay woman then; she had a real husband. Unless, however, she should be in mourning for her mother. For a few minutes, notwithstanding the press of business, the department exchanged these various speculations.
“Make haste! it's intolerable!” cried Hutin to Favier, who had just returned from showing his customer to the pay-desk. “When that lady is here you never seem to finish. She doesn't care a fig for you!”
“She cares a deuced sight more for me than I do for her!” replied the vexed salesman.
But Hutin threatened to report him to the directors if he did not show more respect for the customers. He was getting terrible, of a morose severity, since the department had conspired together to get him into Robineau's place. He even showed himself so intolerable, after the promises of good-fellowship, with which he had formerly warmed his colleagues, that the latter were now secretly supporting Favier against him.
“Now, then, no back answers,” replied Hutin sharply. “Monsieur Bouthemont wishes you to show some light designs in silks.”
In the middle of the department, an exhibition of summer silks lighted up the hall with an aurora-like brilliancy, like the rising of a star, in the most delicate tints possible: pale rose, tender yellow, limpid blue, the entire gamut of Iris. There were silks of a cloudy fineness, surahs lighter than the down falling from the trees, satined pekins soft and supple as a Chinese virgin's skin. There were, moreover, Japanese pongees, Indian tussores and corahs, without counting the light French silks, the thousand stripes, the small checks, the flowered patterns, all the most fanciful designs, which made one think of ladies in furbelows, walking about, in the sweet May mornings, under the immense trees of some park.
“I'll take this, the Louis XIV. with figured roses,” said Madame Desforges at last.
And whilst Favier was measuring it, she made a last attempt with Bouthemont, who had remained near her.
“I'm going up to the ready-made department to see if there are any travelling cloaks. Is she fair, the young lady you were talking about?”
The manager, who felt rather anxious on finding her so persistent, merely smiled. But, just at that moment, Denise went by. She had just passed on to Liénard, who had charge of the merinoes, Madame Boutarel, that provincial lady who came up to Paris twice a year, to scatter all over The Ladies' Paradise the money she scraped together out of her housekeeping. And as Favier was about to take up Madame Desforges's silk, Hutin, thinking to annoy him, interfered.