“They got out before I’d finished waiting on that middle-aged frump who doesn’t know what she wants any more than the policeman out there at the corner does.  She’s made me show her all we’ve got left, and after she’d tried them all on, she said they’re too high, and she’s going to think over them before she decides.  She’s still waiting for something, and my head’s splitting so I can hardly see what I’m doing.”  With a final surrender of her arrogance, she grew suddenly confidential and childish.  “I’m sick enough to die,” she finished despairingly, “and I’ve got a friend coming to take me to the theatre at eight o’clock.”

“Well, run away.  I’ll attend to this.  But I’d try to rest before I went out if I were you.”

“You’re a perfect peach,” responded Miss Murphy gratefully.  “I said all along I didn’t believe you were stuck up and snobbish.”

Then she ran out, and Gabriella, after surveying the customer for a minute, selected the most unpromising hat in the case, and presented it with a winning smile for the woman’s inspection.

“Perhaps something like this is what you are looking for?” she remarked politely, but firmly.

The customer, an acidulous, sharp-featured, showily dressed person—­the sort, Gabriella decided, who would enjoy haggling over a bargain—­regarded the offered hat with a supercilious and guarded manner, the true manner of the haggler.

“No, that is not bad,” she observed dryly, “but I don’t care to give more than ten dollars.”

“It was marked down from thirty,” replied Gabriella, and her manner was as supercilious and as guarded as the other’s.  There were women, she had found, who were impressed only by insolence, and, when the need arose, she could be quite as insolent as Miss Murphy.  Unlike Miss Murphy, however, she was able to distinguish between those you must encourage and those you must crush; and this ability to draw reasonable distinctions was, perhaps, her most valuable quality as a woman of business.

“I don’t care to pay more than ten dollars,” reiterated the customer in a scolding voice.  Rising from her chair, she fastened her furs, which were cheap and showy, with a defiant and jerky movement, and flounced out of the shop.

That disposed of, Gabriella put on her coat, which she had taken off again for the occasion, and went out into the street, where the night had already fallen.  After her long hours in the overheated air of the showrooms, she felt refreshed and invigorated by the cold wind, which stung her face as it blew singing over the crossings.  Straight ahead through the grayish-violet mist the lights were blooming like flowers, and above them a few stars shone faintly over the obscure frowning outlines of the buildings.  Fifth Avenue was thronged, and to her anxious mind there seemed to be hollowness and insincerity in the laughter of the crowd.