“You—­old!” This from Miss Ready-to-Wear.  “You’re younger now than I’ll ever be.  Oh, Ella, I got six stunning models at Estelle Mornet’s.  There’s a business woman for you!  Her place is smart from the ground floor up—­not like the shabby old junk shops the others have.  And she greets you herself.  The personal touch!  Let me tell you, it counts in business!”

“I’d go slow on those cape blouses if I were you; I don’t think they’re going to take at home.  They look like regular Third Avenue style to me.”

“Don’t worry.  I’ve hardly touched them.”

They talked very directly, like men, when they discussed clothes; for to them a clothes talk meant a business talk.

The telephone buzzed.  The three sprang up, rustling.

“That’ll be for us, Ella,” said Miss Fancy Goods.  “We told the office to call us here.  The boys are probably downstairs.”  She answered the call, turned, nodded, smoothed her gloves and preened her laces.

Ella Morrissey, in kimonoed comfort, waved a good-bye from her armchair.  “Have a good time!  You all look lovely.  Oh, we met Max Tack downstairs, looking like a grand duke!”

Pert Miss Laces turned at the door, giggling.

“He says the French aristocracy has nothing on him, because his grandfather was one of the original Ten Ikes of New York.”

A final crescendo of laughter, a last swishing of silks, a breath of perfume from the doorway and they were gone.

Within the room the two women sat looking at the closed door for a moment.  Then Ella Morrissey turned to look at Sophy Gold just as Sophy Gold turned to look at Ella Morrissey.

“Well?” smiled Ella.

Sophy Gold smiled too—­a mirthless, one-sided smile.

“I felt just like this once when I was a little girl.  I went to a party, and all the other little girls had yellow curls.  Maybe some of them had brown ones; but I only remember a maze of golden hair, and pink and blue sashes, and rosy cheeks, and ardent little boys, and the sureness of those little girls—­their absolute faith in their power to enthrall, and in the perfection of their curls and sashes.  I went home before the ice cream.  And I love ice cream!”

Ella Morrissey’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

“Then the next time you’re invited to a party you wait for the ice cream, girlie.”

“Maybe I will,” said Sophy Gold.

The party came two nights later.  It was such a very modest affair that one would hardly call it that—­least of all Max Tack, who had spent seventy-five dollars the night before in entertaining an important prospective buyer.

On her way to her room that sultry June night Sophy had encountered the persistent Tack.  Ella Morrissey, up in her room, was fathoms deep in work.  It was barely eight o’clock and there was a wonderful opal sky—­a June twilight sky, of which Paris makes a specialty—­all grey and rose and mauve and faint orange.