She was still unable to understand her friend's refusal. Since the end of August, Pauline had been married to Baugé, a most stupid affair, she would sometimes gaily remark. The terrible Bourdoncle treated her anyhow, now, considering her as lost for trade. Her only terror was that they might one fine day send them to love each other elsewhere, for the managers had decreed love to be execrable and fatal to business. So great was her fear, that, when she met Baugé in the galleries, she affected not to know him. She had just had a fright—old Jouve had nearly caught her talking to her husband behind a pile of dusters.
“See! he's followed me,” added she, after having hastily related the adventure to Denise. “Just look at him scenting me out with his big nose!”
Jouve, in fact, was then coming from the lace department, correctly arrayed in a white tie, his nose on the scent for some delinquent. But when he saw Denise he assumed a knowing air, and passed by with an amiable smile.
“Saved!” murmured Pauline. “My dear, you made him swallow that! I say, if anything should happen to me, you would speak for me, wouldn't you! Yes, yes, don't put on that astonished air, we know that a word from you would revolutionise the house.”
And she ran off to her counter. Denise had blushed, troubled by these amicable allusions. It was true, however. She had a vague sensation of her power by the flatteries with which she was surrounded. When Madame Aurélie returned, and found the department quiet and busy under the surveillance of the second-hand, she smiled at her amicably. She threw over Mouret himself, her amiability increased daily for this young girl who might one fine morning desire her situation as first-hand. Denise's reign was commencing.
Bourdoncle alone still stood out. In the secret war which he continued to carry on against the young girl, there was in the first place a natural antipathy, he detested her for her gentleness and her charm. Then he fought against her as a fatal influence which would place the house in peril the day when Mouret should succumb. The governor's commercial genius seemed bound to sink amidst this stupid affection: what they had gained by women would be swallowed up by this woman. None of them touched his heart, he treated them with the disdain of a man without passion, whose trade is to live on them, and who had had his last illusions dispelled by seeing them too closely in the miseries of his traffic. Instead of intoxicating him, the odour of these seventy thousand customers gave him frightful headaches: and so soon as he reached home he beat his mistresses. And what made him especially anxious in the presence of this little saleswoman, who had gradually become so redoubtable, was that he did not in the least believe in her disinterestedness, in the genuineness of her refusals. For him she was playing a part, the most skilful of parts; for if she had yielded at once, Mouret would doubtless have forgotten her the next day; whilst by refusing, she had goaded his desires, rendering him mad, capable of any folly. An artful jade, a woman learned in vice, would not have acted any different to this pattern of innocence.
Thus Bourdoncle could never catch sight of her, with her clear eyes, sweet face, and simple attitude, without being seized with a real fear, as if he had before him some disguised female flesh-eater, the sombre enigma of woman, Death in the guise of a virgin. In what way could he confound the tactics of this false novice? He was now only anxious to penetrate her artful ways, in the hope of exposing them to the light of day. She would certainly commit some fault, he would surprise her with one of her lovers, and she should again be dismissed. The house would then resume its regular working like a well wound-up machine.
“Keep a good look-out, Monsieur Jouve,” repeated Bourdoncle to the inspector. “I'll take care that you shall be rewarded.”
But Jouve was somewhat lukewarm, he knew something about women, and was asking himself whether he had not better take the part of this young girl, who might be the future sovereign mistress of the place. Though he did not now dare to touch her, he still thought her bewitchingly pretty. His colonel in bygone days had killed himself for a similar little thing, with an insignificant face, delicate and modest, one look from whom ravaged all hearts.
“I do,” replied he. “But, on my word, I cannot discover anything.”