"Well," replied the young man, "when I told him that I should no doubt call on you he formally promised me to come."
"You made him thoroughly understand that I expected the baron to-day?"
"Certainly. That's what appeared to decide him."
They were speaking of Mouret, who, the year before, had suddenly taken such a liking to Bouthemont that he had admitted him to share his pleasures; and had even introduced him to Henriette, glad to have an agreeable fellow always at hand to enliven an acquaintanceship of which he was getting tired. It was thus that Bouthemont had ultimately become the confidant of his employer and the handsome widow; he did their little errands, talked of the one to the other, and sometimes reconciled them. Henriette, in her jealous fits, displayed a familiarity which sometimes surprised and embarrassed him, for she was losing the prudence of a woman of the world who employed all her art to save appearances.
"You ought to have brought him," she exclaimed violently. "I should have been sure then."
"Well," said he, with a good-natured laugh, "it isn't my fault if he escapes so frequently now. Oh! he's very fond of me, all the same. Were it not for him I should be in a bad way at the shop."
His situation at The Ladies' Paradise had really been menaced since the last stock-taking. It was in vain that he talked of the rainy season, they could not overlook the considerable stock of fancy silks left on hand; and as Hutin was improving the occasion—undermining him with the governors with an increase of sly ferocity—he could feel the ground giving way beneath him. Mouret had condemned him, weary already, no doubt, of this witness who prevented him from breaking off with Henriette and tired of an acquaintanceship which yielded no profit. But, in accordance with his usual tactics, he was pushing Bourdoncle forward: it was Bourdoncle and the other partners who insisted on Bouthemont's dismissal at each board meeting; whilst he according to his own account resisted then, defending his friend energetically, at the risk even of getting into serious trouble with the others.
"Well, I shall wait," resumed Madame Desforges. "You know that the girl is to be here at five o'clock. I want to see them face to face. I must discover their secret."
And thereupon she reverted to her long-meditated plan, mentioning in her agitation that she had requested Madame Aurélie to send her Denise to look at a mantle which fitted badly. When she should once have got the young girl in her room, she would find some reason for calling Mouret, and would then act. Bouthemont, who had sat down opposite to her, was gazing at her with his handsome laughing eyes, which he was endeavouring to keep serious. This jovial fellow, with coal-black beard, this dissipated blade whose warm Gascon blood empurpled his cheeks, was thinking that fine ladies were not of much account after all, and let out a nice lot of things when they ventured to open their hearts.
"Come," he made bold to say at last, "what can that matter to you since I assure you that there is nothing whatever between them?"