"Come," resumed Pauline, "I assure you that Baugé won't bring any one. We shall be all by ourselves. As you don't want me to, I won't go and marry you off, of course."
Denise hesitated, tormented by such a strong desire to go that the blood rushed to her cheeks. Since the girls had been talking about their country pleasures she had felt stifled, overcome by a longing for fresh air, dreaming of tall grass into which she might sink to the neck, and of giant trees whose shadows would flow over her like so much cooling water. Her childhood, spent amidst the rich verdure of Le Cotentin, was awakening with a regret for sun and air.
"Well! yes," said she at last.
Then everything was soon arranged. Baugé was to come and fetch them at eight o'clock, on the Place Gaillon; whence they would take a cab to the Vincennes Station. Denise, whose twenty-five francs a month was quickly exhausted by the children, had only been able to do up her old black woollen dress by trimming it with some strips of check poplin; but she had made herself a bonnet, by covering a shape with some silk and ornamenting it with blue ribbon. In this quiet attire she looked very young, like an overgrown girl, displaying all the cleanliness of careful poverty, and somewhat shamefaced, and embarrassed by her luxuriant hair, which waved round the bareness of her bonnet. Pauline, on the contrary, displayed a pretty spring costume in silk, striped white and violet, a feathered bonnet, with bows matching the dress, and jewels about her neck and rings on her fingers, which gave her the appearance of a well-to-do tradesman's wife. It was like a Sunday revenge on the woollen gown which she was obliged to wear throughout the week in the shop; whereas Denise, who wore her uniform silk from Monday to Saturday, resumed, on Sundays, her thin woollen dress of poverty-stricken aspect.
"There's Baugé," said Pauline, pointing to a tall young man standing near the fountain.
And thereupon she introduced her lover, and Denise felt at her ease at once, he seemed such a nice fellow. Big, and strong as an ox, with a long Flemish face, in which his expressionless eyes twinkled with infantile puerility, Baugé was the younger son of a grocer of Dunkerque and had come to Paris, almost driven from home by his father and brother, who thought him a fearful dunce. However, he now made three thousand five hundred francs a year at the Bon Marché. Certainly in some things he was rather stupid, but he proved a very good hand in the linen department.
"And the cab?" asked Pauline.
They had to go on foot as far as the Boulevard. The sun was already warming the streets and the glorious May morning seemed to be smiling on the pavements. There was not a cloud in the sky; all was gay in the blue air, transparent as crystal. An involuntary smile played about Denise's lips; she breathed freely; it seemed to her that her bosom was throwing off a stifling fit of six months duration. At last she no longer felt the stuffy air and the heavy stones of The Ladies' Paradise weighing her down! She had the prospect of a long day in the country before her! and it was like a new lease of life, an infinite delight, into which she entered with all the glee of a little child. However, when they were in the cab, she turned her eyes away, feeling ill at ease as Pauline bent over to kiss her lover.
"Oh, look!" said she, her head still at the window, "there's Monsieur Lhomme. How he does walk!"
"He's got his French horn," added Pauline, leaning out. "What an old fool he is! One would think he was running off to meet his girl!"