"I'm going up to the ready-made department to see if they have any travelling cloaks. Is she fair, the young lady you were talking about?"
The manager, who felt rather anxious on finding her so persistent, merely smiled. But, just at that moment, Denise passed by. She had just come from the merinoes which were in the charge of Liénard to whom she had escorted Madame Boutarel, that provincial lady who came to Paris twice a year, to scatter the money she saved out of her housekeeping all over the Ladies' Paradise. And thereupon, just as Favier was about to take up Madame Desforges's silk, Hutin, thinking to annoy him, interfered.
"It's quite unnecessary, Mademoiselle will have the kindness to conduct this lady."
Denise, quite confused, at once took charge of the parcel and the debit-note. She could never meet this young man face to face without experiencing a feeling of shame, as if he reminded her of some former fault; and yet she had only sinned in her dreams.
"But just tell me," said Madame Desforges, in a low tone, to Bouthemont, "isn't it this awkward girl? He has taken her back, I see? It must be she who is the heroine of the adventure!"
"Perhaps," replied the silk manager, still smiling, but fully decided not to tell the truth.
Madame Desforges then slowly ascended the staircase, preceded by Denise; but after every two or three steps she had to pause in order to avoid being carried away by the descending crowd. In the living vibration of the whole building, the iron supports seemed to sway under your feet as if quivering beneath the breath of the multitude. On each stair was a strongly fixed dummy, displaying some garment or other: a costume, cloak, or dressing-gown; and the whole was like a double row of soldiers at attention whilst some triumphal procession went past.
Madame Desforges was at last reaching the first storey, when a still greater surging of the crowd forced her to stop once more. Beneath her she now had the departments on the ground-floor, with the press of customers through which she had just passed. This was a new spectacle, a sea of fore-shortened heads, swarming with agitation like an ant-hill. The white price-tickets now seemed but so many narrow lines, the piles of ribbon became quite squat, the promontory of flannel was but a thin partition barring the gallery; whilst the carpets and the embroidered silks which decked the balustrades hung down like processional banners suspended from the gallery of a church. In the distance Madame Desforges could perceive some corners of the lateral galleries, just as from the top of a steeple one perceives the corners of neighbouring streets, with black specks of passers-by moving about. But what surprised her above all, in the weariness of her eyes blinded by the brilliant medley of colours, was, on lowering their lids, to realize the presence of the crowd more keenly than ever, by its dull roar like that of the rising tide, and the human warmth that it exhaled. A fine dust rose from the floor, laden with odore di femina, a penetrating perfume, which seemed like the incense of this temple raised for the worship of woman.
Meanwhile Mouret, still standing before the reading-room with Vallagnosc, was inhaling this odour, intoxicating himself with it, and repeating: "They are quite at home. I know some who spend the whole day here, eating cakes and writing letters. There's only one thing left me to do, and that is, to find them beds."
This joke made Paul smile, he who, in his pessimistic boredom considered the turbulence of this multitude running after a lot of gew-gaws to be idiotic. Whenever he came to give his old comrade a look-up, he went away almost vexed to find him so full of life amidst his people of coquettes. Would not one of them, with shallow brain and empty heart, some day make him realize the stupidity and uselessness of life? That very day Octave seemed to have lost some of his equilibrium; he who generally inspired his customers with a fever, with the tranquil grace of an operator, was as though caught by the passion which was gradually consuming the whole establishment. Since he had caught sight of Denise and Madame Desforges coming up the grand staircase, he had been talking louder, gesticulating against his will; and though he affected not to turn his face towards them, he grew more and more animated as he felt them drawing nearer. His face became flushed and in his eyes was a little of that bewildered rapture with which the eyes of his customers at last quivered.