Denise, wounded to the heart, clung to the banister. They must have seen her, for they all disappeared, laughing. He was right, she thought, and she reproached herself for her former ignorance, when she had been wont to think of him. But what a coward he was, and how she scorned him now! A great trouble had come upon her; was it not strange that she should have found the strength just now to repulse a man whom she adored, when she had felt herself so feeble in bygone days before that worthless fellow, whom she had only dreamed of? Her sense of reason and her bravery foundered in these contradictions of her being, which she could not clearly read. Then she hastened to cross the hall but a sort of instinct prompted her to raise her head, whilst an inspector was opening the door, closed since the morning. And still at the top of the stairs, on the great central landing dominating the gallery, she perceived Mouret. He had quite forgotten the stock-taking, he no longer beheld his empire, that building bursting with riches. Everything had disappeared, his former uproarious victories, his future colossal fortune. With a desponding look he was watching Denise and when she had crossed the threshold everything disappeared, a darkness came over the house. CHAPTER XI. That day, Bouthemont was the first to arrive at Madame Desforges's four o'clock tea. Waiting alone in her large Louis XVI. drawing-room, the brasses and brocatel of which shone with a clear gaiety, she rose with an air of impatience, saying, "Well?" "Well," replied the young man, "when I told him that I should no doubt call on you he formally promised me to come." "You made him thoroughly understand that I expected the baron to-day?" "Certainly. That's what appeared to decide him." They were speaking of Mouret, who, the year before, had suddenly taken such a liking to Bouthemont that he had admitted him to share his pleasures; and had even introduced him to Henriette, glad to have an agreeable fellow always at hand to enliven an acquaintanceship of which he was getting tired. It was thus that Bouthemont had ultimately become the confidant of his employer and the handsome widow; he did their little errands, talked of the one to the other, and sometimes reconciled them. Henriette, in her jealous fits, displayed a familiarity which sometimes surprised and embarrassed him, for she was losing the prudence of a woman of the world who employed all her art to save appearances. "You ought to have brought him," she exclaimed violently. "I should have been sure then." "Well," said he, with a good-natured laugh, "it isn't my fault if he escapes so frequently now. Oh! he's very fond of me, all the same. Were it not for him I should be in a bad way at the shop."