Then he took her hands, and said, in an explosion of tenderness, after the long period of coldness he had imposed on himself: “And if I married you, Denise, would you still leave?” But she had drawn her hands away, struggling as if under the influence of a great grief. “Oh! Monsieur Mouret. Pray say no more. Don't cause me such pain again! I cannot! I cannot! Heaven is my witness that I was going away to avoid such a misfortune!”
She continued to defend herself in broken sentences. Had she not already suffered too much from the gossip of the house? Did he wish her to pass in his eyes and her own for a worthless woman? No, no, she would be strong, she would certainly prevent him doing such a thing. He, tortured, listened to her, repeating in a passionate tone: “I wish it. I wish it!”
“No, it's impossible. And my brothers? I have sworn not to marry. I cannot bring you those children, can I?”
“They shall be my brothers, too. Say yes, Denise.”
“No, no, leave me. You are torturing me!”
Little by little he gave way, this last obstacle drove him mad. What! She still refused even at this price! In the distance he heard the clamour of his three thousand employees building up his immense fortune. And that stupid million lying there! He suffered from it as a sort of irony, he could have thrown it into the street.
“Go, then!” he cried, in a flood of tears. “Go and join the man you love. That's the reason, isn't it? You warned me, I ought to have known it, and not tormented you any further.” She stood there dazed before the violence of this despair. Her heart was bursting. Then, with the impetuosity of a child, she threw herself on his neck, sobbing also, and stammered: “Oh! Monsieur Mouret, it's you that I love!”
A last murmur was rising from The Ladies' Paradise, the distant acclamation of a crowd. Madame Hédouin's portrait was still smiling, with its painted lips; Mouret had fallen on his desk, on the million that he could no longer see. He did not quit Denise, but clasped her in a desperate embrace, telling her that she could now go, that she could spend a month at Valognes, which would silence everybody, and that he would then go and fetch her himself, and bring her back, all-powerful, and his wedded wife.