“Oh! no,” replied she simply.
“Then,” continued Pauline, “you'll never manage, I tell you so, plainly. Here are the figures: forty francs for the little one, a five franc piece now and again for the big one; and then there's yourself, you can't always go about dressed like a pauper, with boots that make the other girls laugh at you; yes, really, your boots do you a deal of harm. Take some one, it would be much better.”
“No,” repeated Denise.
“Well! you are very foolish. It's inevitable, my dear, and so natural. We all do it sooner or later. Look at me, I was a probationer, like you, without a sou. We are boarded and lodged, it's true; but there's our dress; besides, it's impossible to go without a copper in one's pocket, shut up in one's room, watching the flies. So you see girls forcibly drift into it.”
She then spoke of her first lover, a lawyer's clerk whom she had met at a party at Meudon. After him, came a post-office clerk. And, finally, ever since the autumn, she had been keeping company with a salesman at the Bon Marche, a very nice tall fellow, with whom she spent all her leisure time. Never more than one sweetheart at a time, however. She was very respectable in her way, and became indignant when she heard talk of those girls who yielded to the first-comer.
“I don't tell you to misconduct yourself, you know!” said she quickly. “For instance, I should not like to be seen with your Clara, for fear people should say I was as bad as she. But when a girl stays quietly with one lover, and has nothing to blame herself for—do you think that wrong?”
“No,” replied Denise. “But I don't care for it, that's all.” There was a fresh silence. In the small icy-cold room they were smiling to each other, greatly affected by this whispered conversation. “Besides, one must have some affection for some one before doing so,” resumed she, her cheeks scarlet.
Pauline was astonished. She set up a laugh, and embraced her a second time, saying: “But, my darling, when you meet and like each other! You are funny! People won't force you. Look here, would you like Baugé to take us somewhere in the country on Sunday? He'll bring one of his friends.”
“No,” said Denise, in her gently obstinate way.
Pauline insisted no longer. Each one was free to act as she liked. What she had said was out of pure kindness of heart, for she felt really grieved to see a comrade so miserable. And as it was nearly midnight, she got up to leave. But before doing so she forced Denise to accept the six francs she wanted, begging her not to trouble about the matter, but to repay the amount when she earned more.