"No—this way, mademoiselle, if you please," said he.
And he even went with her a little way, as far indeed as the foot of the staircase on the left-hand side of the hall. There he bowed, and smiled at her, as he smiled at all women.
"When you get upstairs turn to the left," he added. "The mantle department will then be in front of you."
This caressing politeness affected Denise deeply. It was like a brotherly hand extended to her; she raised her eyes and looked at Hutin, and everything in him touched her—his handsome face, his smiling look which dissolved her fears, and his voice which seemed to her of a consoling softness. Her heart swelled with gratitude, and she gave him her friendship in the few disjointed words which her emotion allowed her to utter.
"Really, sir, you are too kind. Pray don't trouble to come any further. Thank you very much."
Hutin was already rejoining Favier, to whom he coarsely whispered: "What a bag of bones—eh?"
Upstairs the young girl suddenly found herself in the midst of the mantle department. It was a vast room, with high carved oak cupboards all round it and clear glass windows overlooking the Rue de la Michodière. Five or six women in silk dresses, looking very coquettish with their frizzy chignons and crinolines drawn back, were moving about and talking. One of them, tall and thin, with a long head, and a run-away-horse appearance, was leaning against a cupboard, as if already knocked up with fatigue.
"Madame Aurélie?" inquired Denise.
The saleswoman did not reply but looked at her, with an air of disdain for her shabby dress; then turning to one of her companions, a short girl with a sickly white skin and an innocent and disgusted expression of countenance, she asked: "Mademoiselle Vadon, do you know where Madame Aurélie is?"
The girl, who was arranging some mantles according to their sizes, did not even take the trouble to raise her head. "No, Mademoiselle Prunaire, I don't know at all," she replied in a mincing tone.