Mouret found strength to smile. “I don't think any more about her, my dear fellow. You can speak freely. Who are her lovers?”
“Hutin, they say, and then a salesman in the lace department—Deloche, that tall awkward fellow. I can't speak with certainty, never having seen them together. But it appears that it's notorious.”
There was a silence. Mouret affected to arrange the papers on his desk, to conceal the trembling of his hands. At last, he observed, without raising his head: “We must have proofs, try and bring me some proofs. As for me, I assure you I don't, care in the least, for I'm quite sick of her. But we can't allow such things to go on here.”
Bourdoncle simply replied: “Never fear, you shall have proofs one of these days. I'm keeping a good look out.”
This news deprived Mouret of all rest. He no longer had the courage to return to this conversation, but lived in the continual expectation of a catastrophe, in which his heart would be crushed. And this torment rendered him terrible, the whole house trembled before him. He now disdained to conceal himself behind Bourdoncle, but performed the executions in person, feeling a nervous desire for revenge, solacing himself by an abuse of his power, of that power which could do nothing for the contentment of his sole desire. Each one of his inspections became a massacre, his appearance caused a panic to run along from counter to counter. The dead winter season was just then approaching, and he made a clean sweep in the departments, multiplying the victims and pushing them into the streets. His first idea had been to dismiss Hutin and Deloche; then he had reflected that if he did not keep them, he would never discover anything; and the others suffered for them: the whole staff trembled. In the evening, when he found himself alone again, his eyes swelled up, big with tears.
One day especially terror reigned supreme. An inspector had the idea that Mignot was stealing. There were always a lot of strange-looking girls prowling around his counter; and one of them had just been arrested, her thighs and bosom padded with sixty pairs of gloves. From that moment a watch was kept, and the inspector caught Mignot in the act, facilitating the sleight of hand of a tall fair girl, formerly a saleswoman at the Louvre, but since gone wrong: the manouvre was very simple, he affected to try some gloves on her, waited till she had padded herself, and then conducted her to the pay-desk, where she paid for a single pair only. Mouret happened to be there, just at that moment. As a rule, he preferred not to mix himself up with these sort of adventures, which were pretty frequent; for notwithstanding the regular working of the well-arranged machine, great disorder reigned in certain departments of The Ladies' Paradise, and scarcely a week passed without some employee being dismissed for theft. The authorities preferred to hush up such matters as far as possible, considering it useless to set the police at work, and thus expose one of the fatal plague-spots of these great bazaars. But, that day, Mouret felt a real need of getting angry with some one, and he treated the handsome Mignot with such violence, and the latter stood there trembling with fear, his face pale and discomposed.
“I ought to call a policeman,” cried Mouret, before all the other salesmen. “But why don't you answer? who is this woman? I swear I'll send for the police, if you don't tell me the truth.”
They had taken the woman away, and two saleswomen were undressing her. Mignot stammered out: “I don't know her, sir. She's the one who came——”
“Don't tell lies!” interrupted Mouret, in a violent rage. “And there's nobody here to warn us! You are all in the plot, on my word! We are in a regular wood, robbed, pillaged, plundered. It's enough to make us have the pockets of each one searched before going out!”
Murmurs were heard. The three or four customers buying gloves stood looking on, frightened.