"No, no," repeated Denise.
"Well! you are very foolish. It's inevitable, my dear, we all come to it sooner or later. Look at me, I was a probationer, like you, without a sou. We are boarded and lodged, it's true; but there's our dress; besides, it's impossible to go without a copper in one's pocket and shut oneself up in one's room, watching the flies. So you see girls forcibly drift into it."
She then spoke of her first admirer, a lawyer's clerk whom she had met at a party at Meudon. After him, had come a post-office clerk. And, finally, ever since the autumn, she had been keeping company with a salesman at the Bon Marché, a very nice tall fellow. However, her advice had no effect whatever upon Denise.
"No," the latter replied in a tone of decision; and a fresh silence fell. In the small cold room they were smiling at each other, greatly affected by this whispered conversation. "Besides, one must have affection for some one," she resumed, her cheeks quite scarlet.
Pauline was astonished. She set up a laugh, and embraced her a second time exclaiming: "But, my darling, when you meet and like each other! You are really droll! Look here, would you like Baugé to take us somewhere in the country on Sunday? He'll bring one of his friends."
"No," again said Denise in her gently obstinate way.
Then Pauline insisted no further. Each was free to act as she pleased. What she had said was out of pure kindness of heart, for she felt really grieved to see a comrade so miserable. And as it was nearly midnight, she got up to leave. But before doing so she forced Denise to accept the six francs she wanted to make up Pépé's board-money, begging her not to trouble about the matter, but to repay her the amount whenever she earned more.
"Now," she added, "blow your candle out, so that they may not see which door opens; you can light it again immediately afterwards."
The candle having been extinguished, they shook hands; and then Pauline ran off to her room, giving no sign of her passage through the darkness save the vague rustling of her petticoats amidst the deep slumber that had fallen on the occupants of the other little rooms.
Before going to bed Denise wished to finish her boot and do her washing. The cold became sharper still as the night advanced; but she did not feel it, the conversation had stirred her heart's blood. She was not shocked; it seemed to her that every woman had a right to arrange her life as she liked, when she was alone and free in the world. For her own part, however, she had never given way to such ideas; her sense of right and her healthy nature naturally maintained her in the respectability in which she had always lived. At last, towards one o'clock she went to bed. No, she thought, she did not love any one. So what was the use of upsetting her life, the maternal devotion which she had vowed for her two brothers? However, she did not sleep; insomnia gained upon her and a crowd of indistinct forms flitted before her closed eyes, then vanished in the darkness.