“It is a splendid investment,” croaked the old woman in the midst of Gabriella’s painful reflections.  “The house was never more flourishing.”

The ruling principle which decreed that Gabriella should keep her temper had disciplined her not less thoroughly in the habit of holding her tongue.  The house was in a flourishing condition; but she remembered how fragile and thinly rooted had been its showy prosperity, when she had entered it; and had she cared to confound Madame utterly, she might have reminded her of that unwritten history of the past ten years in which the secret episode of Mrs. Pletheridge occurred.  For Gabriella was not inclined to underrate her own efficiency, and her confidence was supported by the knowledge that if she left Dinard’s the most fashionable of Madame’s clientele would follow her.

“You’ll never have such another opportunity—­not if you live to be a hundred.  At your age I should have jumped at the idea,” persisted Madame.

“So should I,” responded Gabriella merrily, “if I were sure of landing on my feet.”

“You’ll always land on your feet—­you’re that sort.  You’ve got push, and it’s push that counts most in business.  A woman may have all the brains in the world, but without push she might as well give up the struggle.  That was what brought me up in spite of four husbands and six children,” pursued Madame, while she took out a small flask from one of the drawers of her desk and measured out, as she remarked in parenthesis, “a little stimulant.”  “Yes, I had a great success in my line, and if I could only have kept clear of men, I might have saved a fortune to retire on in my old age.  But I had a natural taste for men, and they were the ruin of me.  As soon as I lost one husband and managed to get on a bit, another would come, and I couldn’t resist him.  I never could resist marriage; that was the undoing of me as a woman of business.”

“Four husbands, and yet you were remarkably successful,” observed Gabriella, because it was the only thing with a cheerful sound she could think of to utter, and an intermittent cheerful sound was all that Madame required from a listener when she was under the enlivening influence of brandy.

“But think what I might have done with my talent if I had remained a widow, as you have done.  It was my misfortune to attract men whether I wanted to or not,” wheezed Madame, wiping her eyes; “some women are like that.”

“So I have heard,” murmured Gabriella, seeing that Madame paused for the note of encouragement.

“I don’t suppose that has been your trouble, for there’s a stand-offishness about you that puts men at a distance, and they don’t like to be put at a distance.  Then, though your figure is very fine for showing off models, it isn’t exactly the kind that men lean to.  If you’d fatten up it might be different, but that would spoil you for the clothes, and that, after all, is more important.  It’s strange, isn’t it?” she croaked, with an alcoholic chuckle, “how partial men are to full figures even after they have gone out of fashion?”