When Lhomme and Albert had retired, mopping their faces, Mouret remained for a moment motionless, lost, his eyes fixed on the money. Then, raising his head, he perceived Denise, who had drawn back. He began to smile again, forced her to come forward, and finished by saying he would give her all she could take in her hand; and there was a sort of love-bargain beneath his playfulness. “Look! out of the bag. I bet it would be less than a thousand francs, your hand is so small!” But she drew back again. He loved her, then? Suddenly she understood, she felt the growing flame of desire with which he had enveloped her since, her return to the shop. What overcame her more than anything else was to feel her heart beating violently. Why did he wound her with all this money, when she was overflowing with gratitude, and he could have done anything with her by a friendly word? He was coming closer to her, continuing to joke, when, to his great annoyance, Bourdoncle appeared, under the pretence of informing him of the number of entries--the enormous number of seventy thousand customers had entered The Ladies' Paradise that day. And she hastened away, after having again thanked him. CHAPTER X. The first Sunday in August every one was busy with the stock-taking, which had to be finished by the evening. Early in the morning all the employees were at their posts, as on a week-day, and the work commenced with closed doors, in the immense establishment, entirely free from customers. Denise, however, had not come down with the other young ladies at eight o'clock. Confined to her room for the last five days by a sprained ankle, caused when going up stairs to the work-rooms, she was going on much better; but, sure of Madame Aurélie's indulgence, she did not hurry down, and sat putting her boots on with difficulty, resolved, however, to show herself in the department. The young ladies' bed-rooms now occupied the entire fifth storey of the new buildings, along the Rue Monsigny; there were sixty of them, on either side of a corridor, and they were much more comfortable than formerly, although still furnished with the iron bedstead, large wardrobe, and little mahogany toilet-table. The private life of the saleswomen became more refined and elegant there, they displayed a taste for scented soap and fine linen, quite a natural ascent towards middle-class ways as their positions improved, although high words and banging doors were still sometimes heard amidst the hôtel-like gust that carried them away, morning and evening. Denise, being second-hand in her department, had one of the largest rooms, the two attic windows of which looked into the street. Being much better off now, she indulged in several little luxuries, a red eider-down coverlet for the bed, covered with Maltese lace, a small carpet in front of the wardrobe, and two blue-glass vases containing a few faded roses on the toilet table.