“Nothing, thanks,” replied Henriette. “You see I'm merely walking round; I've only come out of curiosity.”
When he had stopped her, he lowered his voice. Quite a plan was springing up in his head. And he flattered her, running down the house; he had had enough of it, and preferred going away to assisting at such a scene of disorder. She listened to him, delighted. It was she herself who, thinking to get him away from The Ladies' Paradise, offered to have him engaged by Bouthemont as first-hand in the silk department, when The Four Seasons started again. The matter was settled in whispers, whilst Madame Guibal interested herself in the displays.
“May I offer you one of these bouquets of violets?” resumed Hutin, aloud, pointing to a table where there were four or five bunches of the flowers, which he had procured from the pay-desk for personal presents.
“Ah, no!” exclaimed Henriette, with a backward movement. “I don't wish to take any part in the wedding.”
They understood each other, and separated, exchanging glances of intelligence. As Madame Desforges was looking for Madame Guibal, she set up an exclamation of surprise on seeing her with Madame Marty. The latter, followed by her daughter Valentine, had been carried away for the last two hours, right through the place, by one of those fits of spending from which she always emerged tired and confused. She had roamed about the furniture department that a show of white lacquered suites of furniture had changed into a vast young girl's room, the ribbon and neckerchief department forming white vellumy colonnades, the mercery and lace department, with its white fringes which surrounded ingenious trophies patiently composed of cards of buttons and packets of needles, and the hosiery department, in which there was a great crush this year to see an immense piece of decoration, the name “The Ladies' Paradise” in letters three yards high, formed of white socks on a groundwork of red ones. But Madame Marty was especially excited by the new departments; they could not open a new department without she must inaugurate it, she was bound to plunge in and buy something. And she had passed an hour at the millinery counter, installed in a new room on the ground-floor, having the cupboards emptied, taking the bonnets off the stands which stood on two tables, trying all of them on herself and her daughter, white hats, white bonnets, and white turbans. Then she had gone down to the boot department, at the further end of a gallery on the ground-floor, behind the cravat department, a counter opened that day, and which she had turned topsy turvy, seized with sickly desires in the presence of the white silk slippers trimmed with swansdown, the white satin boots and shoes with their high Louis XV. heels.
“Oh! my dear,” she stammered, “you've no idea! They have a wonderful assortment of hoods. I've chosen one for myself and one for my daughter. And the boots, eh? Valentine.”
“It's marvellous!” added the young girl, with her womanly boldness. “There are some boots at twenty francs and a half which are delicious!”
A salesman was following them, dragging along the eternal chair, on which was already heaped a mountain of articles.
“How is Monsieur Marty?” asked Madame Desforges.
“Very well, I believe,” replied Madame Marty, bewildered by this brusque question, which fell ill-naturedly amidst her fever for spending. “He's still confined, my uncle had to go and see him this morning.”