"Nothing," she stammered, "but it's rather warm here."
However Hutin's table was close to theirs, and when Hutin perceived Baugé, whom he knew, he commenced a conversation in a shrill voice, in order to attract further attention.
"I say," he cried, "are you as virtuous as ever at the Bon Marché?"
"Not so much as all that," replied Baugé, turning very red.
"That won't do! You know there's a confessional box at your place for the salesmen who venture to look at the young ladies there. No, no! A house where they insist on their employees marrying, that won't do for me!"
The other fellows began to laugh, and Liénard who was one of Hutin's crew added some jocular remark about the Louvre establishment at which Pauline herself burst into a merry peal.
Baugé, however, was annoyed by the joke about the staid propriety and innocence of his establishment, and all at once he retorted: "Oh, you needn't talk, you are not so well off at The Ladies' Paradise. Sacked for the slightest thing! And a governor too who is always smirking round his lady customers."
Hutin no longer listened to him, but began to praise the Place Clichy establishment. He knew a girl there who was so inexpressibly dignified that 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 had been left behind with merely fifty-two francs, in fact the whole lot had been floored. And it could be seen that he was telling the truth. He was squandering his cash as fast as possible and did not mean to go to bed till he had rid himself of the hundred and fifteen francs. Then, as he gradually became intoxicated, he fell foul of Robineau, that fool of a second-hand who affected to keep himself apart, to such a point that he refused to walk down the street with one of his salesmen.
"Shut up," said Liénard; "you talk too much, old man."
The heat had yet increased, the candles were guttering down on to the wine-stained table-cloths; and through the open windows, whenever the noise within ceased for an instant, there came a distant prolonged murmur, the voice of the river, and of the lofty poplars falling asleep in the calm night. Baugé had just called for the bill, seeing that Denise was no better; indeed she was now quite white, choking from the tears she withheld; however, the waiter did not appear, and she had to submit to more of Hutin's loud talk. He was now boasting of being much superior to Liénard, because Liénard simply squandered his father's money, whereas he, Hutin, spent his own earnings, the fruit of his intelligence. At last Baugé paid, and the two girls went out.