"What! you're getting angry?" all at once said a voice behind Denise.
It was Pauline, on her way across the department. She had noticed the scene, and spoke in a low tone, smiling.
"But I'm obliged to," replied Denise in the same tone, "I can't manage them otherwise."
Pauline shrugged her shoulders. "Nonsense, you can be queen over all of us whenever you like," she replied. She was still unable to understand her friend's refusal.
Since the end of August, Pauline had been married to Baugé; a most stupid affair, she would sometimes gaily remark. That terrible Bourdoncle treated her anyhow, now, considering her as lost for trade. Her great fear was that they might some fine day send her to love her husband elsewhere, for the managers had decreed love to be execrable and fatal to business. So great was her dread, that when she met Baugé in the galleries she often affected not to know him. She had just had a fright—old Jouve having nearly caught her talking to her husband behind a pile of dusters.
"See! he's followed me," she added, after hastily relating the adventure to Denise. "Just look at him sniffing for me with his big nose!"
Jouve, in fact, was just then coming from the lace department, correctly arrayed in a white tie, and with his nose on the scent for some delinquent. But when he saw Denise, his face relaxed and he passed by with an amiable smile.
"Saved!" murmured Pauline. "My dear, you made him swallow that! I say, if anything should happen to me, you would speak for me, wouldn't you? Yes, yes, don't put on that astonished air, we know that a word from you would revolutionize the house."
And thereupon she ran off to her counter. Denise had blushed, troubled by these friendly allusions. It was true, however. She had a vague sensation of her power from the flattery with which she was surrounded. When Madame Aurélie returned, and found the department quiet and busy under the surveillance of the second-hand, she smiled at her amicably. She threw over Mouret himself, and her amiability daily increased for the young person who might some fine morning desire her situation as first-hand. In a word Denise's reign was commencing.
Bourdoncle alone still stood out. In the secret warfare which he carried on against the young girl, there was in the first place a natural antipathy. He detested her for her gentleness and her charm. Then too he fought against her as against a fatal influence which would place the house in peril on the day when Mouret should succumb. The governor's commercial genius seemed certain to founder in this stupid affection: all that they had gained by women would be swallowed up by this one. None of them touched Bourdoncle's heart, he treated them all with the disdain of a passionless man whose business was to live by them, and whose last illusions had been dispelled by seeing them so closely amidst the worries of his trade. And what made him especially anxious in the presence of this little saleswoman, who had gradually become so redoubtable, was that he did not in the least believe in her disinterestedness, in the genuineness of her refusals. In his opinion she was playing a part, the most skilful of parts, rendering Mouret absolutely mad, capable of any folly.