But his voice trembled, he laughed in an awkward manner. Denise and Henriette, whom he had ceased to watch, were at last passing behind him, after having had a great deal of trouble to get out of the crowd. He turned round suddenly, and bowed to his customer with the discreet air of a friend who does not wish to compromise a woman by stopping her in the middle of a crowd of people. But the latter, on the alert, had at once perceived the look with which he had first enveloped Denise. It must be this girl, this was the rival she had had the curiosity to come and see. In the ready-made department, the young ladies were losing their heads. Two of them had fallen ill, and Madame Frédéric, the second-hand, had quietly given notice the previous day, and gone to the cashier's office to take her money, leaving The Ladies' Paradise all in a minute, as The Ladies' Paradise itself discharged its employees. Ever since the morning, in spite of the feverish rush of business, every one had been talking of this adventure. Clara, maintained in the department by Mouret's caprice, thought it grand. Marguerite related how exasperated Bourdoncle was; whilst Madame Aurélie, greatly vexed, declared that Madame Frédéric ought at least to have informed her, for such hypocrisy had never before been heard of. Although the latter had never confided in any one, she was suspected of having given up drapery business to marry the proprietor of some of the baths in the neighbourhood of the Halles. “It's a travelling cloak that madame desires, I believe?” asked Denise of Madame Desforges, after having offered her a chair. “Yes,” replied the latter, curtly, decided on being rude. The new decorations of the department were of a rich severity: high carved oak cupboards, mirrors filling the whole space of the panels, and a red Wilton carpet, which stifled the continued movement of the customers. Whilst Denise was gone for the cloaks, Madame Desforges, who was looking round, perceived herself in a glass; and she continued contemplating herself. She must be getting old to be cast aside for the first-comer. The glass reflected the entire department with its commotion, but she only beheld her own pale face; she did not hear Clara behind her relating to Marguerite instances of Madame Frederic's mysterious ways, the manner in which she went out of her way night and morning to go through the Passage Choiseul, in order to make believe that she perhaps lived over the water. “Here are our latest designs,” said Denise. “We have them in several colours.” She laid out four or five cloaks. Madame Desforges looked at them with a scornful air, and became harsher at each fresh one she examined. Why those frillings which made the garment look so scanty? and the other one, square across the shoulders, one would have thought it had been cut out with a hatchet. Though it was for travelling she could not dress like a sentry-box. “Show me something else, mademoiselle.”