Walking back from the station after bidding her mother-in-law a tearful and tender good-bye, she tried despairingly to gather her scattered thoughts and summon all her failing resources; but in front of her plans there floated always the pathetic brightness of Mrs. Fowler’s eyes gazing up at her from the heavy shadow of the crape veil she had lifted.  So that was the end—­a little love, a little hope, a little happiness, and then separation and death.  Effort appeared not only futile, but fantastic, and yet effort, she knew, must be made if she were to ward off destitution.  She must recover her cheerfulness, she must be strong, she must be confident.  Alone, penniless, with two children to support, she could not afford to waste her time and her energy in useless regret.  Whatever it cost her, she must keep alive her fighting courage and her belief in life.  She had youth, health, strength, intelligence, resourcefulness on her side; and she told herself again that there were thousands of women living and fighting around her who were far worse off than she.  “What others have done, I can do also, and do better,” she murmured aloud as she walked rapidly back to Dinard’s.

In the long front room the crowded mid-winter sale was in progress, and the six arrogant young women, goaded into a fleeting semblance of activity, were displaying dilapidated “left over” millinery to a throng of unfashionable casual customers.  Madame, herself, scorned these casual customers, but her scorn was as water unto wine compared with the burning disdain of the six arrogant young women.  They sauntered to and fro with their satin trains trailing elegantly over the carpet, with their fashionable curves accentuated as much as it was possible for pride to accentuate them, with their condescending heads turning haughtily above the high points of their collars.  As Gabriella entered she saw the tallest and the most scornful of them, whose name was Murphy, insolently posing in the green velvet toque before a jaded hunter of reduced millinery, who shook her plain, sensible head at the hat as if she wished it to understand that she heartily disapproved of it.

Madame was not visible, but Gabriella found her a little later in the workroom, where she was volubly elucidating obscure points in business morality to the forewoman.  Of all the women employed in the house, this particular forewoman was the only one who appeared to Gabriella to be without pretence or affectation.  She was an honest, blunt, capable creature, with a face and figure which permanently debarred her from the showrooms, and a painstaking method of work.  There was no haughtiness, no condescension, about her.  She had the manner of one who, being without fortuitous aids to happiness, is willing to give good measure of ability and industry in return for the bare necessaries of existence.  “She is the only genuine thing in the whole establishment,” thought Gabriella while she watched her.