“That won't do! You know they only take virgins there, and there's a confessional box permanently fixed for the salesmen who venture to look at them. A house where they marry you--no, thanks!” The other fellows began to laugh. Liénard, who belonged to the crew, added: “It isn't like the Louvre. There they have a midwife attached to the ready-made department. My word of honour!” The gaiety increased; Pauline herself burst out, the idea of the midwife seemed so funny. But Baugé was annoyed by the jokes about the innocence of his house. He launched out all at once: “Oh, you're not too well off at The Ladies' Paradise. Sacked for the slightest thing! And a governor who seems to tout for his lady customers.” Hutin no longer listened to him, but commenced to praise the house in the Place Clichÿ. He knew a young girl there so excessively aristocratic that the customers dared not speak to her for fear of humiliating her. Then, drawing up closer, he related that he had made a hundred and fifteen francs that week; oh! a capital week. Favier left behind with fifty-two francs, the whole lot floored. And it was visible he was bursting with money, he would not go to bed till he had liquidated the hundred and fifteen francs. Then, as he gradually became intoxicated, he attacked Robineau, that fool of a second-hand who affected to keep himself apart, going so far as to refuse to walk in the street with one of his salesmen. “Shut up,” said Liénard; “you talk too much, old man.” The heat had increased, the candles were guttering down on to the table-cloths stained with wine; and through the open windows, when the noise within ceased for an instant, there entered a distant prolonged voice, the voice of the river, and of the tall poplars sleeping in the calm night. Baugé had just called for the bill, seeing that Denise was now quite white, her throat choked by the tears she withheld; but the waiter did not appear, and she had to submit to Hutin's loud talk. He was now boasting of being more superior to Liénard, because Liénard cared for nothing, simply squandering his father's money, whilst he, Hutin, was spending his own earnings, the fruit of his intelligence. At last Baugé paid, and the two girls went out. “There's one from the Louvre,” murmured Pauline in the outer room, looking at a tall thin girl putting on her mantle. “You don't know her. You can't tell,” said the young man. “Oh, can't I? They've got a way of draping themselves. She belongs to the midwife's department! If she heard, she must be pleased.” They got outside at last, and Denise heaved a sigh of relief. For a moment she had thought she was going to die in that suffocating heat, amidst all those cries; and she still attributed her faintness to the want of air. Now she breathed freely in the freshness of the starry night As the two young girls were leaving the garden of the restaurant, a timid voice murmured in the shade: “Good evening, ladies.”