In the glove department there was quite a row of ladies seated before the narrow counter covered with green velvet and edged with nickel silver; and before them the smiling shopmen were heaping up flat boxes of a bright pink, taken out of the counter itself, and resembling the ticketed drawers of a secrétaire. Mignot, in particular, was bending his pretty doll-like face forward, and striving to impart tender inflections to his thick Parisian voice. He had already sold Madame Desforges a dozen pairs of kid gloves, the Paradise gloves, one of the specialties of the house. She had then asked for three pairs of Suèdes, and was now trying on some Saxon gloves, for fear the size should not be exact. "Oh! the fit is perfect, madame," repeated Mignot. "Six and a quarter would be too large for a hand like yours." Half-lying on the counter, he held her hand, taking her fingers one by one and slipping the glove on with a long, renewed, persistently caressing touch, looking at her the while as if he expected to see in her face some sign of pleasure. But she, with her elbow on the velvet counter and her wrist raised, surrendered her fingers to him with the same unconcerned air as that with which she gave her foot to her maid so that she might button her boot. For her indeed he was not a man; she utilized his services with the disdain she always showed for servants and did not even look at him. "I don't hurt you, madame?" he inquired. She replied "No," with a shake of the head. The smell of the Saxon gloves--a savage smell resembling sugared musk--troubled her as a rule, but seated at this commonplace counter she did not notice it. "And what next, madame?" asked Mignot. "Nothing, thanks. Be good enough to carry the parcel to pay-desk No. 10, for Madame Desforges." Being a constant customer, she gave her name at a pay-desk, and had each purchase sent there without requiring a shopman to follow her. When she had gone away, Mignot turned towards his neighbour and winked, and would have liked him to believe that some wonderful things had just taken place.