“I believe you can do better there than in the workroom,” she added, “and, after all, that is really very important—­to tell people what they want.  It is astounding how few of them have the slightest idea what they are looking for.”

“But I want to get that hat right.  I left it unfinished, and I don’t like to give up while it is wrong,” replied Gabriella, not wholly pleased by the command.

But Madame, of a flightier substance notwithstanding her business talents, waved aside the remark as insignificant and without bearing upon her immediate purpose.

“I am going to try you with the gowns,” she said resolutely; “I want to see if you catch on there as quickly as you did with the hats—­I mean with the sale, of course, for your work, I’m sorry to say, has been rather poor so far.  But I’ll try you with the next customer who comes to place a large order.  They are always so eager for new suggestions, and you have suggestions of a sort to make, I am sure.  I can’t quite tell,” she concluded uncertainly, “whether or not your ideas have any practical value, but they sound well as you describe them, and to talk attractively helps; there is no doubt of that.”

It was closing time, and Miss Fisher, one of the skirt fitters, came up, in her black alpaca apron with a pair of scissors suspended by red tape from her waist, to ask Madame a question.  As Mrs. Bydington had not kept her appointment, was it not impossible to send her gown home as they had promised?

“Oh, it makes no difference,” replied Madame blandly, for she was in a good humour.  “She’ll come back when she is ready.  The next time she is here, by the way, I want her to see Mrs. Fowler—­I mean Mrs. Carr.  She has worn out every one else in the place, and yet she is never satisfied; but I’d like her to take that pink velvet from Gautier, because nobody else is likely to give the price.”  The day was over and Madame’s blandness was convincing evidence of her satisfaction.

As Gabriella passed through the last showroom, where the disorder of the sale was still visible, she saw Miss Murphy, the handsomest and the haughtiest of the young women, wearily returning the few rejected hats to the ivory-tinted cases.

“You are glad it is over, I know,” she remarked sympathetically, less from any active interest in Miss Murphy’s state of feeling than from an impulsive desire to establish human relations with her fellow saleswoman.  If Miss Murphy would have it so, she preferred to be friendly.

“I am so tired I can hardly stand on my feet,” replied Miss Murphy, piteously.  Her pretty rose-leaf skin had faded to a dull pallor; there were heavy shadows under her eyes; her helmet of wheaten-red hair had slipped down over her forehead, and even her firmly corseted figure appeared to have grown limp and yielding.  Without her offensive elegance she was merely a pathetic and rather silly young thing.

“I’ll help you,” said Gabriella, taking up several hats from a chair.  “The others have gone, haven’t they?”