"Do you require anything to-day?" he inquired.
"Of course, or I should not have come. Have you any foulard for morning gowns?"
She hoped to obtain the name of the young lady from him, for she was full of a desire to see her. He immediately called Favier; and then went on chatting whilst waiting for the salesman, who was just serving another customer. This happened to be "the pretty lady," that beautiful blonde of whom the whole department occasionally spoke, without knowing anything of her life or even her name. This time the pretty lady was in deep mourning. Whom could she have lost—her husband or her father? Not her father, for she would have appeared more melancholy. What had they all been saying then? She could not be a questionable character; she must have had a real husband—that is unless she were in mourning for her mother. For a few minutes, despite the press of business, the department exchanged these various speculations.
"Make haste! it's intolerable!" cried Hutin to Favier, when he returned from showing his customer to the pay-desk. "Whenever that lady is here you never seem to finish. She doesn't care a fig for you!"
"She cares a deuced sight more for me than I do for her!" replied the vexed salesman.
But Hutin threatened to report him to the directors if he did not show more respect for the customers. The second-hand was becoming terrible, of a morose severity ever since the department had conspired to get him Robineau's place. He even showed himself so intolerable, after all the promises of good-fellowship, with which he had formerly warmed his colleagues' zeal, that the latter were now secretly supporting Favier against him.
"Now, then, no back answers," replied Hutin sharply. "Monsieur Bouthemont wishes you to show some foulards of the lightest patterns."
In the middle of the department, an exhibition of summer silks illumined the hall with an aurora-like brilliancy, like the rising of a planet amidst the most delicate tints: pale rose, soft yellow, limpid blue, indeed the whole scarf of Iris. There were foulards of a cloudy fineness, surahs lighter than the down falling from trees, satined pekins as soft and supple as a Chinese beauty's skin. Then came Japanese pongees, Indian tussores and corahs, without counting the light French silks, the narrow stripes, the small checks and the flowered patterns, all the most fanciful designs, which made one think of ladies in furbelows, strolling in the sweet May mornings, under the spreading trees of some park.
"I'll take this, the Louis XIV, with figured roses," said Madame Desforges at last.
And whilst Favier was measuring it, she made a last attempt with Bouthemont, who had remained near her.