However, there was but little room for dangerous dreams in her daily working life. During the thirteen hours of hard toil in the shop, there was no time for any display of affection between the salesmen and the saleswomen. If the continual fight for money had not abolished all sexual difference, the unceasing press of business which occupied their minds and fatigued their bodies would have sufficed to stifle desire. But very few love-affairs had been known in the establishment amidst the various hostilities and friendships between the men and the women, the constant elbowing from department to department. They were all nothing but pieces of mechanism forced to contribute of the working of the immense machine, abdicating all individuality and simply contributing their strength to the total, commonplace, phalansterian power. It was only outside the shop that they resumed their individual lives, with a sudden flaming of awakened passion.
Denise, however, one day saw Albert Lhomme slip a note into the hand of a young lady in the under-clothing department, after several times passing by with an air of indifference. The dead season, which lasts from December to February, was commencing; and she now had periods of rest, hours spent on her feet with her eyes wandering all over the shop whilst waiting for customers. The young ladies of her department were especially friendly with the salesmen who served the lace, but their intimacy never seemed to go any further than whispered banter. In the lace department there was a second-hand, a gay young spark who pursued Clara with all sorts of suggestive stories, simply by way of a joke--for he really cared so little for her that he made no effort to meet her out of doors; and thus it was from counter to counter, the gentlemen and the young ladies would exchange winks, nods, and remarks, which they alone understood. At times with their backs half turned and a dreamy look on their faces in order to put the terrible Bourdoncle off the scent, they would indulge in some sly gossip. As for Deloche, he long contented himself with smiling at Denise when he met her; but, getting bolder, he at last occasionally murmured a friendly word. On the day she had noticed Madame Aurélie's son giving a note to the young lady in the under-linen department, it precisely happened that Deloche was asking her if she had enjoyed her lunch, feeling a desire to say something, and unable to think of anything more amiable. He also saw the billet pass; and as he glanced at the young girl, they both blushed at thought of this intrigue carried on under their eyes.