"What is it you want, mademoiselle?" he asked at last.
Denise had not noticed him. She blushed slightly. Since her return she had received various marks of kindness from him which had greatly touched her. On the other hand Pauline—she knew not why—had given her a full account of the governor's and Clara's love affairs; and often returned to the subject, alluding at the same time to that Madame Desforges, with whom the whole shop was well acquainted. Such stories stirred Denise's heart; and now, in Mouret's presence, she again felt all her former fears, an uneasiness in which her gratitude struggled against her anger.
"It's all this confusion going on in the place," she murmured.
Thereupon Mouret approached her and said in a lower voice: "Have the goodness to come to my office this evening after business. I wish to speak to you."
Greatly agitated, she bowed her head without replying a word; and went into the department where the other saleswomen were now arriving. Bourdoncle, however, had overheard Mouret, and looked at him with a smile. He even ventured to say when they were alone: "That girl again! Be careful; it will end by becoming serious!"
But Mouret hastily defended himself, concealing his emotion beneath an air of superior indifference. "Never fear, it's only a joke! The woman who'll catch me isn't born, my dear fellow!"
And then, as the shop was opening at last, he rushed off to give a final look at the various departments. Bourdoncle shook his head. That girl Denise, so simple and quiet, began to make him feel uneasy. The first time, he had conquered by a brutal dismissal. But she had returned, and he felt her power to be so much increased that he now treated her as a redoubtable adversary, remaining mute before her and again patiently waiting developments. When he overtook Mouret, he found him downstairs, in the Saint-Augustin Hall, opposite the entrance door, where he was shouting:
"Are you playing the fool with me? I ordered the blue parasols to be put as a border. Just pull all that down, and be quick about it!"
He would listen to nothing; a gang of messengers had to come and re-arrange the exhibition of parasols. Then seeing that customers were arriving, he even had the doors closed for a moment, declaring that he would rather keep the place shut than have the blue parasols in the centre. It ruined his composition. The renowned dressers of the Paradise, Hutin, Mignot, and others, came to look at the change he was carrying out, but they affected not to understand it, theirs being a different school.
At last the doors were again opened, and the crowd flowed in. From the outset, long before the shop was full, there was such a crush at the doorway that they were obliged to call the police to regulate the traffic on the foot pavement. Mouret had calculated correctly; all the housewives, a compact troop of middle-class women and work women, swarmed around the bargains and remnants displayed in the open street. They felt the "hung" goods at the entrance; calico at seven sous the mètre, wool and cotton grey stuff at nine sous, and, above all, some Orleans at seven sous and a half, which was fast emptying the poorer purses. Then there was feverish jostling and crushing around the shelves and baskets where articles at reduced prices, lace at two sous, ribbon at five, garters at three the pair, gloves, petticoats, cravats, cotton socks, and stockings, were quickly disappearing, as if swallowed up by the voracious crowd. In spite of the cold, the shopmen who were selling in the street could not serve fast enough. One woman cried out with pain in the crush and two little girls were nearly stifled.