She did not deign 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 in the least hurry in the midst of the heaps of bills by which he was besieged; whilst, 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 get there, the crowd was becoming so immense. 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, continuing to scatter themselves over Paris; and she had to bow her head beneath the flight of air-balls, when very young children held them, 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, was now in the habit of sometimes calling 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. Besides, about two days before he had openly related to her the affair between Mouret and Clara, without any calculation, out of stupidity, like a fellow who loves a joke; and, stung with jealousy, concealing her wounded feelings beneath an appearance of disdain, she had come to try and discover her rival, a young lady in the dress department he had merely said, refusing to name her. “Do you require anything to-day?” he asked her. “Of course, or else I should not have come. Have you any silk 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 resumed talking to her, whilst waiting for the salesman, who was just finishing serving a customer who 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. Ah, who had she lost--her husband or her father? Not her father, or she would have appeared more melancholy. What had they been saying? She was not a gay woman then; she had a real husband. Unless, however, she should be in mourning for her mother. For a few minutes, notwithstanding the press of business, the department exchanged these various speculations. “Make haste! it's intolerable!” cried Hutin to Favier, who had just returned from showing his customer to the pay-desk. “When that lady is here you never seem to finish. She doesn't care a fig for you!” “She cares a deuced sight more for me than I do for her!” replied the vexed salesman.