Silence fell. Denise stood still, and no one took any further notice of her. However, after waiting a moment, she ventured to put another question: "Do you think Madame Aurélie will be back soon?"
Thereupon, the second-hand, a thin, ugly woman, whom she had not noticed before, a widow with a projecting jaw-bone and coarse hair, cried out from a cupboard, board, where she was checking some tickets: "You'd better wait if you want to speak to Madame Aurélie herself." And, addressing another saleswoman, she added: "Isn't she downstairs?"
"No, Madame Frédéric, I don't think so," was the reply. "She said nothing before going, so she can't be far off."
Denise, thus meagrely informed, remained standing. There were several chairs for the customers; but as she had not been asked to sit down, she did not dare to take one although her perturbation well nigh deprived her legs of strength. All these young ladies had evidently guessed that she was an applicant for the vacancy, and were taking stock of her, ill-naturedly pulling her to pieces with the secret hostility of people at table who do not like to close up to make room for hungry outsiders. Then Denise's confusion increasing, she slowly crossed the room and looked out of the window into the street, for the purpose of keeping countenance. Over the way, The Old Elbeuf, with its rusty front and lifeless windows, appeared to her so ugly and so wretched, thus viewed from amidst the luxury and life of her present standpoint, that a sort of remorse filled her already swollen heart with grief.
"I say," whispered tall Mdlle. Prunaire to little Mdlle. Vadon, "have you seen her boots?"
"And her dress!" murmured the other.
With her eyes still turned towards the street, Denise divined that she was being devoured. But she was not angry; she did not think them handsome, neither the tall one with her carroty chignon falling over her horse-like neck, nor the little one with her curdled-milk complexion, which gave her flat and, as it were, boneless face a flabby appearance. Clara Prunaire, daughter of a clogmaker of the woods of Vivet had begun to misconduct herself at the time when she was employed as needlewoman at the Château de Mareuil. Later on she had come to Paris from a shop at Langres, and was avenging herself in the capital for all the kicks with which her father had regaled her when at home. On the other hand Marguerite Vadon, born at Grenoble, where her parents kept a linen shop, had been obliged to come to Paris, where she had entered The Ladies' Paradise, in order to conceal a misfortune due to her frailty. Since then, however, she had ever been a well-conducted girl, and intended to return to Grenoble to take charge of her parents' shop, and marry a cousin who was waiting for her.
"Ah! well," resumed Clara, in a low voice, "that girl won't be of much account here even if she does get in."
But they all at once stopped talking, for a woman of about forty-five was coming in. It was Madame Aurélie, very stout and tightly laced in her black silk dress, the body of which, strained over her massive shoulders and full bust, shone like a piece of armour. Under dark folds of hair, she had big fixed eyes, a severe mouth, and broad and rather drooping cheeks; and in the majesty of her position as manageress her face seemed to swell with pride like the puffy countenance of a Cæsar.
"Mademoiselle Vadon," said she, in an irritated voice, "you didn't return the pattern of that mantle to the workroom yesterday, it seems?"