I tell this to my daughter, who wishes to go on the stage.  If you are looking for pleasure, that is different, but when you talk of a living—­well, there is but one way to insure it, and that is to marry a man who is able to provide it—­either as allowance or as alimony.  The best that a woman can do gives her only bread and meat—­an existence, not a living.  Only a man can provide one with the essential things—­with clothes and jewels and carriages and trips to Europe.  These are the important things in life, and what woman was ever able to procure these except from a man?”

Her face, so thickly covered with rouge and liquid powder that it was as expressionless as a mask, turned its hollow eyes on a funeral which was slowly passing in the street; and though her creed was hardly the kind to fortify one’s spiritual part against the contemplation of death, she surveyed the solemn procession as tranquilly as any devoted adherent of either religion or philosophy could have done.  Not a shadow passed over her fantastic mockery of youth as she glanced back at her visitor.

“But you have worked—­you have supported yourself,” insisted Gabriella with firmness.

“Myself and six children, to say nothing of three husbands.  Yes, I supported three of my four husbands, but what did I get out of it?” replied Madame, shrugging her ample shoulders.  “What was there in it for me?  Since we are talking freely, I may say that I have worked hard all my life, and I got nothing out of it that I couldn’t have got with much less trouble by a suitable marriage.  Of course this is not for my girls to hear.  I don’t tell them this, but it is true nevertheless.  Men should do the work of the world, and they should support women; that is how God intended it, that is according to both nature and religion; any priest will say as much to you.”  And she, who had defied both God and Nature, wagged her false golden head toward the funeral procession.

“Yet you have been successful.  You have built up a good business.  The work has repaid you.”

“A woman’s work!” She snapped her gouty fingers with a playful gesture.  “Does a woman’s work ever repay her?  Think of the pleasures I have missed in my life—­the excursions, the theatres, the shows.  All these I might have had if I hadn’t shut myself up every day until dark.  And now you wish to do this!  You with your youth, with your style, with your husband!”

She protested, she pleaded, she reasoned, but in the end Gabriella won her point by the stubborn force of her will.  Madame would take her for a few weeks, a few months, a few years, as long as she cared to stay and gave satisfaction.  Madame would have her taught what she could learn, would discover by degrees the natural gifts and the amount of training already possessed by young Mrs. Fowler.  Young Mrs. Fowler, on the other hand, must “stand around” when required in the showrooms (it was just here that Gabriella won her victory); she must assist at the ordering of gowns, at the selections, and while Madame’s patrons were fitted, young Mrs. Fowler must be prepared to assume graceful attitudes in the background and to offer her suggestions with a persuasive air.  Suggestions, even futile ones, offered in a charming voice from a distinguished figure in black satin had borne wonderful results in Madame’s experience.