"Is your sale still fixed for next Monday?" Madame Marty was just asking.
"Certainly, madame," replied Mouret, in a flute-like voice, an actor's voice, which he assumed when speaking to women.
Henriette thereupon intervened. "We are all going, you know. They say you are preparing wonders."
"Oh! wonders!" he murmured, with an air of modest fatuity. "I simply try to deserve your patronage."
But they pressed him with questions: Madame Bourdelais, Madame Guibal, even Blanche wanted to know something.
"Come, give us some particulars," repeated Madame de Boves, persistently. "You are making us die of curiosity."
And they were surrounding him, when Henriette observed that he had not even taken a cup of tea. At this they were plunged into desolation and four of them set about serving him, stipulating however that he must answer them afterwards. Henriette poured the tea out, Madame Marty held the cup, whilst Madame de Boves and Madame Bourdelais contended for the honour of sweetening it. Then, when he had declined to sit down, and began to drink his tea slowly, standing up in the midst of them, they all drew nearer, imprisoning him in the circle of their skirts; and with their heads raised and their eyes sparkling, they smiled upon him.
"And what about silk, your Paris Delight which all the papers are talking of?" resumed Madame Marty, impatiently.
"Oh!" he replied, "it's an extraordinary article, large-grained faille, supple and strong. You'll see it, ladies, and you'll see it nowhere else, for we have bought the exclusive right to it."
"Really! a fine silk at five francs sixty centimes!" said Madame Bourdelais, enthusiastic. "One can hardly believe it."