"No, thanks, I've just come down." Hutin was waiting, concealing his impatience beneath a smile that did not quit his lips. Were they going to keep him there long? Really the women took things very coolly, it was like stealing money out of his pocket. At last, however, Madame Guibal went off to resume her stroll, turning round the large display of silks with an enraptured air. "Well, if I were you I should buy the mantle ready-made," said Madame Desforges, suddenly returning to the Paris Delight. "It won't cost you so much." "It's true that the trimmings and making-up----" murmured Madame Marty. "Besides, one has more choice." All three had risen; Madame Desforges, turning to Hutin, said to him: "Have the goodness to show us to the mantle department." He remained dumbfounded, unaccustomed as he was to such defeats. What! the dark lady bought nothing! Had he made a mistake then? Abandoning Madame Marty he thereupon attacked Madame Desforges, exerting all his ability as a salesman on her. "And you, madame, would you not like to see our satins, our velvets? We have some extraordinary bargains." "Thanks, another time," she coolly replied, looking at him no more than she had looked at Mignot. Hutin had to take up Madame Marty's purchases and walk off before the ladies to show them to the mantle department. But he also had the grief of seeing that Robineau was selling Madame Boutarel a large quantity of silk. Decidedly his scent was playing him false, he wouldn't make four sous! Beneath the amiable propriety of his manners his heart swelled with the rage of a man robbed and devoured by others. "On the first floor, ladies," said he, without ceasing to smile. It was no easy matter to reach the staircase. A compact crowd of heads was surging under the galleries and expanding like an overflowing river in the middle of the hall. Quite a battle of business was going on, the salesmen had this population of women at their mercy, and passed them on from one to another with feverish haste. The moment of the formidable afternoon rush, when the over-heated machine led its customers such a feverish dance, extracting money from their very flesh, had at last arrived. In the silk department especially a gust of folly seemed to reign, the Paris Delight had brought such a crowd together that for several minutes Hutin could not advance a step; and Henriette, half-suffocated, having raised her eyes to the summit of the stairs there beheld Mouret, who ever returned thither as to a favourite position, from which he could view victory. She smiled, hoping that he would come down and extricate her. But he did not even recognise her in the crowd; he was still with Vallagnosc, showing him the establishment, his face beaming with triumph the while.