"You must be fearfully robbed," murmured Vallagnosc, who thought that the crowd looked very criminal.
Mouret threw his arms out. "My dear fellow, it's beyond all imagination," said he.
And, nervously, delighted at having something to talk about, he gave a number of details, related cases, and classified the delinquents. In the first place, there were the professional thieves; these women did the least harm of all, for the police knew every one of them. Then came the kleptomaniacs, who stole from a perverse desire, a new form of nervous affection which a doctor had classed, showing it to be the result of the temptations of the big shops. And finally came the women who were enceintes and whose thefts were invariably thefts of some especially coveted article. For instance, at the house of one of them, the district commissary of police had found two hundred and forty-eight pairs of pink gloves stolen from well nigh every shop in Paris.
"That's what gives the women such funny eyes here, then," murmured Vallagnosc, "I've been watching them with their greedy, shameful looks, like mad creatures. A fine school for honesty!"
"Hang it!" replied Mouret, "though we make them quite at home, we can't let them take the goods away under their mantles. And sometimes they are very respectable people. Last week we caught the sister of a chemist, and the wife of a judge. Yes, the wife of a judge! However, we always try to settle these matters."
He paused to point out Jouve, who was just then looking sharply after a woman at the ribbon counter below. This woman, who appeared to be suffering a great deal from the jostling of the crowd, was accompanied by a friend, whose mission seemed to be to protect her against all hurt, and each time she stopped in a department, Jouve kept his eyes on her, whilst her friend near by ransacked the card-board boxes at her ease.
"Oh! he'll catch her!" resumed Mouret; "he knows all their tricks."
But his voice trembled and he laughed in an awkward manner. Denise and Henriette, whom he had ceased to watch, were at last passing behind him, after having had a great deal of trouble to get out of the crush. He turned round suddenly, and bowed to his customer with the discreet air of a friend who does not desire to compromise a woman by stopping her in a crowd of people. But Henriette, on the alert, had at once perceived the look with which he had first enveloped Denise. It must be this girl—thought she—yes, this was the rival she had been curious to come and see.
In the mantle department, the young ladies were fast losing their heads. Two of them had fallen ill, and Madame Frédéric, the second-hand, had quietly given notice the previous day, and repaired to the cashier's office to take her money, leaving The Ladies' Paradise at a minute's notice, just as The Ladies' Paradise itself discharged its employees. Ever since the morning, in spite of the feverish rush of business, every one had been talking of this affair. Clara, still kept in the department by Mouret's caprice, thought it grand. Marguerite related how exasperated Bourdoncle was; whilst Madame Aurélie, greatly vexed, declared that Madame Frédéric ought at least to have informed her, for such hypocrisy had never before been heard of.
Although Madame Frédéric had never confided in any one, she was suspected of having relinquished her position to marry the proprietor of some baths in the neighbourhood of the Halles.