"Oh! a hundred times!" said Madame de Boves. "There's no comparison."
This injustice on her part, this fixed determination to run down the goods in spite of all evidence filled him with indignation. And, as she was still turning the mantle over with a disgusted air, a little bit of the blue and silver selvage, which through carelessness had not been cut off, appeared under the lining. Thereupon he could not restrain himself any longer; but confessed the truth at all hazards.
"Well, madame, this is Paris Delight. I bought it myself! Look at the selvage."
Madame de Boves went away greatly annoyed, and a number of customers quitted him, for the affair became known. And he, amid this ruin, when fear for the future came upon him, only trembled for his wife, who had been brought up in a happy, peaceful home, and would never be able to endure a life of poverty. What would become of her if a catastrophe should throw them into the street, with a load of debts? It was his fault, he ought never to have touched her money. She was obliged to comfort him. Wasn't the money as much his as hers? He loved her dearly, and she wanted nothing more; she gave him everything, her heart and her life. They could be heard embracing one another in the back shop. Then, little by little, the affairs of the house got into a regular groove; each month the losses increased, but with a slowness which postponed the fatal issue. A tenacious hope sustained them, and they still predicted the approaching discomfiture of The Ladies' Paradise.
"Pooh!" he would say, "we are young yet. The future is ours."
"And besides, what matters, if you have done what you wanted to do?" she resumed. "As long as you are satisfied, I am as well, darling."
Denise's affection for them increased on seeing their tenderness. She trembled, divining their inevitable fall; however, she dared not interfere. And it was here that she ended by fully understanding the power of the new system of business, and became impassioned for this force which was transforming Paris. Her ideas were ripening, a woman's grace was being evolved from the wildness of a child freshly arrived from Valognes. Her life too was a pretty pleasant one, notwithstanding its fatigue and the little money she earned. When she had spent all the day on her feet, she had to go straight home, and look after Pépé, whom old Bourras fortunately insisted on feeding; but there was still a lot to do; a shirt to wash, a blouse to mend; without mentioning the noise made by the youngster, which made her head ache fit to split. She never went to bed before midnight. Sunday was her hardest day: for she then cleaned her room, and mended her own things, so busy that it was often five o'clock before she could comb her hair. However, she sometimes went out for health's sake, taking the little one for a long walk, out towards Neuilly; and their treat over there was to drink a cup of milk at a dairyman's, who allowed them to sit down in his yard. Jean disdained these excursions; he put in an appearance now and again on week-day evenings and then disappeared, pretending he had other visits to pay. He asked for no more money, but he arrived with such a melancholy countenance, that his anxious sister always managed to keep a five-franc piece for him. That was her sole luxury.
"Five francs!" he would exclaim each time. "My stars! you're too good! It just happens, there's the——"
"Not another word," Denise would say; "I don't want to know."
Three months passed away, spring was coming back. However Denise refused to return to Joinville with Pauline and Baugé. She sometimes met them in the Rue Saint-Roch, on leaving the shop in the evening. Pauline, on one occasion when she was alone, confided to her that she was perhaps going to marry her lover; it was she who was hesitating, for they did not care for married saleswomen at The Ladies' Paradise. This idea of marriage surprised Denise and she did not dare to advise her friend. Then one day, just as Colomban had stopped her near the fountain to talk about Clara, the latter tripped across the road; and Denise was obliged to run away, for he implored her to ask her old comrade if she would marry him. What was the matter with them all? why were they tormenting themselves like this? She thought herself very fortunate not to be in love with anybody.