This caressing politeness affected Denise deeply. It was like a brotherly hand extended to her; she raised her eyes and looked at Hutin, and everything in him touched her--his handsome face, his looks which dissolved her fears, and his voice which seemed to her of a consoling softness. Her heart swelled with gratitude, and she bestowed her friendship in the few disjointed words her emotion allowed her to utter. “Really, sir, you are too kind. Pray don't trouble to come any further. Thank you very much.” Hutin had already rejoined Favier, to whom he coarsely whispered: “What a bag of bones--eh?” Upstairs the young girl suddenly found herself in the midst of the dress department. It was a vast room, with high carved oak cupboards all round, and clear glass windows looking on to the Rue de la Michodière. Five or six women in silk dresses, looking very coquettish with their frizzed chignons and crinolines drawn back, were moving about, talking. One, tall and thin, with a long head, having a runaway-horse appearance, was leaning against a cupboard, as if already knocked up with fatigue. “Madame Aurélie?” inquired Denise. The saleswoman looked at her without replying, with an air of disdain for her shabby dress, then turning to one of her friends, a short girl with a sickly white skin and an innocent and disgusted appearance, she asked: “Mademoiselle Vadon, do you know where Madame Aurélie is?” The young girl, who was arranging some mantles according to their sizes, did not even take the trouble to raise her head. “No, Mademoiselle Prunaire, I don't know at all,” replied she in a mincing tone. A silence ensued. Denise stood still, and no one took any further notice of her. However, after waiting a moment, she ventured to put another question: “Do you think Madame Aurélie will be back soon?” The second-hand, a thin, ugly woman, whom she had not noticed before, a widow with a projecting jaw-bone and coarse hair, cried out from a cupboard, where she was checking some tickets: “You'd better wait if you want to speak to Madame Aurélie herself.” And, addressing another saleswoman, she added: “Isn't she downstairs?” “No, Madame Frédéric, I don't think so,” replied the young lady. “She said nothing before going, so she can't be far off.”