“Certainly,” smiled Sophy, and moved over a bit on the little French settee.

The plump woman sat down heavily.  In five minutes Sophy was conscious she was being stared at surreptitiously.  In ten minutes she was uncomfortably conscious of it.  In eleven minutes she turned her head suddenly and caught the stout woman’s eyes fixed on her, with just the baffled, speculative expression she had expected to find in them.  Sophy Gold had caught that look in many women’s eyes.  She smiled grimly now.

“Don’t try it,” she said, “It’s no use.”

The pink, plump face flushed pinker.

“Don’t try—­”

“Don’t try to convince yourself that if I wore my hair differently, or my collar tighter, or my hat larger, it would make a difference in my looks.  It wouldn’t.  It’s hard to believe that I’m as homely as I look, but I am.  I’ve watched women try to dress me in as many as eleven mental changes of costume before they gave me up.”

“But I didn’t mean—­I beg your pardon—­you mustn’t think—­”

“Oh, that’s all right!  I used to struggle, but I’m used to it now.  It took me a long time to realise that this was my real face and the only kind I could ever expect to have.”

The plump woman’s kindly face grew kinder.

“But you’re really not so—­”

“Oh, yes, I am.  Upholstering can’t change me.  There are various kinds of homely women—­some who are hideous in blue maybe, but who soften up in pink.  Then there’s the one you read about, whose features are lighted up now and then by one of those rare, sweet smiles that make her plain face almost beautiful.  But once in a while you find a woman who is ugly in any colour of the rainbow; who is ugly smiling or serious, talking or in repose, hair down low or hair done high—­just plain dyed-in-the-wool, sewed-in-the-seam homely.  I’m that kind.  Here for a visit?”

“I’m a buyer,” said the plump woman.

“Yes; I thought so.  I’m the lingerie and infants’-wear buyer for Schiff, Chicago.”

“A buyer!” The plump woman’s eyes jumped uncontrollably again to Sophy Gold’s scrambled features.  “Well!  My name’s Miss Morrissey—­Ella Morrissey.  Millinery for Abelman’s, Pittsburgh.  And it’s no snap this year, with the shops showing postage-stamp hats one day and cart-wheels the next.  I said this morning that I envied the head of the tinware department.  Been over often?”

Sophy made the shamefaced confession of the novice:  “My first trip.”

The inevitable answer came: 

“Your first!  Really!  This is my twentieth crossing.  Been coming over twice a year for ten years.  If there’s anything I can tell you, just ask.  The first buying trip to Paris is hard until you know the ropes.  Of course you love this town?”

Sophy Gold sat silent a moment, hesitating.  Then she turned a puzzled face toward Miss Morrissey.

“What do people mean when they say they love Paris?”