She did not condescend to answer. Things were being offered around her more feverishly than ever. She wanted, however, to find out where she was. Albert Lhomme's pay-desk was on her left; he knew her by sight and ventured to give her an amiable smile, not showing the least hurry amidst the heaps of bills by which he was besieged; though behind him, Joseph, struggling with the string-box, could not pack up the articles fast enough. She then saw where she was; the silk department must be in front of her. But it took her ten minutes to reach it, so dense was the crowd becoming. Up in the air, at the end of their invisible strings, the red air-balls had become more numerous than ever; they now formed clouds of purple, gently blowing towards the doors whence they continued scattering over Paris; and she had to bow her head beneath their flight whenever very young children held them with the string rolled round their little fingers. "What! you have ventured here, madame?" exclaimed Bouthemont gaily, as soon as he caught sight of Madame Desforges. The manager of the silk department, introduced to her by Mouret himself, now occasionally called on her at her five o'clock tea. She thought him common, but very amiable, of a fine sanguine temper, which surprised and amused her. Moreover some two days previously he had boldly told her of the intrigue between Mouret and Clara, He had not done this with any calculating motive but out of sheer stupidity, like a fellow who loves a joke. She, however, stung with jealousy, concealing her wounded feelings beneath an appearance of disdain, had that afternoon come to try and discover her rival, a young lady in the mantle department, so Bouthemont had told her, though declining to give the name. "Do you require anything to-day?" he inquired. "Of course, or I should not have come. Have you any _foulard_ for morning gowns?" She hoped to obtain the name of the young lady from him, for she was full of a desire to see her. He immediately called Favier; and then went on chatting whilst waiting for the salesman, who was just serving another customer. This happened to be "the pretty lady," that beautiful blonde of whom the whole department occasionally spoke, without knowing anything of her life or even her name. This time the pretty lady was in deep mourning. Whom could she have lost--her husband or her father? Not her father, for she would have appeared more melancholy. What had they all been saying then? She could not be a questionable character; she must have had a real husband--that is unless she were in mourning for her mother. For a few minutes, despite the press of business, the department exchanged these various speculations. "Make haste! it's intolerable!" cried Hutin to Favier, when he returned from showing his customer to the pay-desk. "Whenever that lady is here you never seem to finish. She doesn't care a fig for you!"