At first he took no interest in Gervaise, but after a while he began
to like her and treated her like a sister, with abrupt familiarity.

Cadet-Cassis, who was a thorough Parisian, thought Gueule-d'Or very
stupid. What was the sense of turning away from all the pretty girls
he met in the street? But this did not prevent the two young fellows
from liking each other very heartily.

For three years the lives of these people flowed tranquilly on
without an event. Gervaise had been elevated in the laundry where
she worked, had higher wages and decided to place Etienne at school.
Notwithstanding all her expenses of the household, they were able to
save twenty and thirty francs each month. When these savings amounted
to six hundred francs Gervaise could not rest, so tormented was she by
ambitious dreams. She wished to open a small establishment herself and
hire apprentices in her turn. She hesitated, naturally, to take the
definite steps and said they would look around for a shop that would
answer their purpose; their money in the savings bank was quietly
rolling up. She had bought her clock, the object of her ambition; it
was to be paid for in a year--so much each month. It was a wonderful
clock, rosewood with fluted columns and gilt moldings and pendulum.
She kept her bankbook under the glass shade, and often when she was
thinking of her shop she stood with her eyes fixed on the clock, as
if she were waiting for some especial and solemn moment.

The Coupeaus and the Goujets now went out on Sundays together. It was
an orderly party with a dinner at some quiet restaurant. The men drank
a glass or two of wine and came home with the ladies and counted up
and settled the expenditures of the day before they separated.