Two days later, Marguerite came up after dinner with another piece of news. "A nice thing, I've just seen the unkempt one's sweetheart--a workman, just fancy! Yes, a dirty little workman, with yellow hair, who was watching her through the windows."
From that moment it became an accepted fact: Denise had a workman for a lover, and an infant concealed somewhere in the neighbourhood. They overwhelmed her with spiteful allusions. The first time she understood them she turned quite pale at the monstrosity of their suppositions. It was abominable; she tried to explain, and stammered out: "But they are my brothers!"
"Oh! oh! her brothers!" said Clara in a bantering tone.
Madame Aurélie was obliged to interfere. "Be quiet! young ladies. You had better go on changing those tickets. Mademoiselle Baudu is quite free to misbehave herself out of doors, if only she worked a bit when she is here."
This curt defence was a condemnation. The poor girl, suffocating as if they had accused her of a crime, vainly endeavoured to explain the facts. They laughed and shrugged their shoulders, and she felt wounded to the heart. On hearing the rumours Deloche was so indignant that he wanted to slap the faces of the young ladies in Denise's department; and was only restrained from doing so by the fear of compromising her. Since the evening at Joinville, he had harboured a submissive love, an almost religious friendship for her, which he proved by his faithful doglike looks. He was careful not to show his affection before the others, for they would have laughed at him, still that did not prevent him dreaming of the avenging blow he would deal if ever any one should attack her in his presence.
Denise finished by not answering the insults. It was all too odious, nobody would believe it. When any of her companions ventured a fresh allusion, she contented herself with looking at her with a sad, calm air. Besides, she had other troubles, material anxieties which took up her attention. Jean went on as badly as ever, always worrying her for money. Hardly a week passed that she did not receive some fresh story from him, four pages long; and when the house postman brought her these letters, in a big, passionate handwriting, she hastened to hide them in her pocket, for the saleswomen affected to laugh, and hummed snatches of some doubtful ditties. Then, after inventing some pretext to enable her to go to the other end of the establishment and read these letters, she became full of fear; poor Jean seemed to be lost. All his fibs succeeded with her, she believed in all his extraordinary love adventures, her complete ignorance of such things making her exaggerate his dangers. Sometimes it was a two-franc piece he wanted to enable him to escape some woman's jealousy, at other times five francs, six francs, to get some poor girl out of a scrape as her father would otherwise kill her. And so, as her salary and commission did not suffice, Denise conceived the idea of looking for a little work after business hours. She spoke about it to Robineau, who had shown a certain sympathy for her since their first meeting at Vinçard's, and he procured her the making of some neckties at five sous a dozen. At night, between nine and one o'clock, she could sew six dozen of these which represented thirty sous, out of which she had to deduct four sous for a candle. And as this sum kept Jean going she did not complain of the want of sleep, and would have thought herself very happy had not another catastrophe once more upset her budgetary calculations. At the end of the second fortnight, when she went to the necktie-dealer's, she found the door closed; the woman had failed, become bankrupt, thus carrying off her eighteen francs six sous, a considerable sum on which she had been relying for the last week. All the annoyances she experienced in the department disappeared before this disaster.