The young girl understood by the smile and the stare of tender curiosity; she turned very red and replied: “But—never, my dear! I told you I did not wish to! He belongs to my part of the country. We were talking about Valognes.”
Pauline and Baugé were perplexed, put out in their ideas, not knowing what to think. Deloche left them in the Place de la Bastille; like all young probationers, he slept at the house, where he had to be in by eleven o'clock. Not wishing to go in with him, Denise, who had got permission to go to the theatre, accepted Baugé's invitation to accompany Pauline to his home—he, in order to be nearer his mistress, had moved into the Rue Saint-Roch. They took a cab, and Denise was stupefied on learning on the way that her friend was going to stay all night with the young man—nothing was easier, they only had to give Madame Cabin five francs, all the young ladies did it. Baugé did the honours of his room, which was furnished with old Empire furniture, given him by his father. He got angry when Denise spoke of settling up, but at last accepted the fifteen francs twelve sous which she had laid on the chest of drawers; but he insisted on making her a cup of tea, and he struggled with a spirit-lamp and saucepan, and then was obliged to go and fetch some sugar. Midnight struck as he was pouring out the tea.
“I must be off,” said Denise.
“Presently,” replied Pauline. “The theatres don't close so early.”
Denise felt uncomfortable in this bachelor's room. She had seen her friend take off her things, turn down the bed, open it, and pat the pillows with her naked arms; and these preparations for a night of love-making carried on before her, troubled her, and made her feel ashamed, awakening once in her wounded heart the recollection of Hutin. Such ideas were not very salutary. At last she left them, at a quarter past twelve. But she went away confused, when in reply to her innocent “good night,” Pauline cried out, thoughtlessly; “Thanks, we are sure to have a good one!”
The private door leading to Mouret's apartments and to the employees' bedrooms was in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin. Madame Cabin opened the door and gave a glance in order to mark the return. A night-light was burning dimly in the hall, and Denise, finding herself in this uncertain light, hesitated, and was seized with fear, for on turning the corner of the street, she had seen the door close on the vague shadow of a man. It must have been the governor coming home from a party, and the idea that he was there in the dark waiting for her perhaps, caused her one of those strange fears with which he still inspired her, without any reasonable cause. Some one moved on the first-floor, a boot creaked, and losing her head entirely, she pushed open a door which led into the shop, and which was always left open for the night-watch. She was in the printed cotton department.
“Good heavens! what shall I do?” she stammered, in her emotion.
The idea occurred to her that there was another door upstairs leading to the bedrooms; but she would have to go right across the shop. She preferred this, notwithstanding the darkness reigning in the galleries. Not a gas-jet was burning, there were only a few oil-lamps hung here and there on the branches of the lustres; and these scattered lights, like yellow patches, their rays lost in the gloom, resembled the lanterns hung up in a mine. Big shadows loomed in the air; one could hardly distinguish the piles of goods, which assumed alarming profiles: fallen columns, squatting beasts, and lurking thieves. The heavy silence, broken by distant respirations, increased still more the darkness. However, she saw where she was. The linen department on her left formed a dead colour, like the blueiness of houses in the street under a summer sky; then she wished to cross the hall immediately, but running up against some piles of printed calico, she thought it safer to follow the hosiery department, and then the woollen one. There she was frightened by a loud noise of snoring. It was Joseph, the messenger, sleeping behind some articles of mourning. She quickly ran into the hall, now illuminated by the skylight, with a sort of crepuscular light which made it appear larger, full of a nocturnal church-like terror, with the immobility of its shelves, and the shadows of its yard-measures which described reversed crosses. She now fairly ran away. In the mercery and glove departments she nearly walked over some more messengers, and only felt safe when she at last found herself on the staircase. But upstairs, before the ready-made department, she was seized with fear on perceiving a lantern moving forward, twinkling in the darkness. It was the watch, two firemen marking their passage on the faces of the indicators. She stood a moment unable to understand it, watched them passing from the shawl to the furniture department, then to the under-linen, terrified by their strange manouvres, by the grinding of the key, and by the closing of the iron doors which made a murderous noise. When they approached, she took refuge in the lace department, but a sound of talking made her hastily depart, and run off to the outer door. She had recognised Deloche's voice. He slept in his department, on a little iron bedstead which he set up himself every evening; and he was not asleep yet, recalling the pleasant hours he had just spent.
“What! it's you, mademoiselle?” said Mouret, whom Denise found before her on the staircase, a small pocket-candlestick in his hand.
She stammered, and tried to explain that she had come to look for something. But he was not angry. He looked at her with his paternal, and at the same time curious, air.