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“Yes; I thought so. I’m the lingerie and infants’-wear buyer for Schiff, Chicago.”

“A buyer!” The plump woman’s eyes jumped uncontrollably again to Sophy Gold’s scrambled features. “Well! My name’s Miss Morrissey–Ella Morrissey. Millinery for Abelman’s, Pittsburgh. And it’s no snap this year, with the shops showing postage-stamp hats one day and cart-wheels the next. I said this morning that I envied the head of the tinware department. Been over often?”

Sophy made the shamefaced confession of the novice: “My first trip.”

The inevitable answer came:

“Your first! Really! This is my twentieth crossing. Been coming over twice a year for ten years. If there’s anything I can tell you, just ask. The first buying trip to Paris is hard until you know the ropes. Of course you love this town?”

Sophy Gold sat silent a moment, hesitating. Then she turned a puzzled face toward Miss Morrissey.

“What do people mean when they say they love Paris?”

Ella Morrissey stared. Then a queer look came into her face–a pitying sort of look. The shrewd eyes softened. She groped for words.

“When I first came over here, ten years ago, I–well, it would have been easier to tell you then. I don’t know–there’s something about Paris–something in the atmosphere–something in the air. It–it makes you do foolish things. It makes you feel queer and light and happy. It’s nothing you can put your finger on and say ‘That’s it!’ But it’s there.”

“Huh!” grunted Sophy Gold. “I suppose I could save myself a lot of trouble by saying that I feel it; but I don’t. I simply don’t react to this town. The only things I really like in Paris are the Tomb of Napoleon, the Seine at night, and the strawberry tart you get at Vian’s. Of course the parks and boulevards are a marvel, but you can’t expect me to love a town for that. I’m no landscape gardener.”

That pitying look deepened in Miss Morrissey’s eyes.

“Have you been out in the evening? The restaurants! The French women! The life!”

Sophy Gold caught the pitying look and interpreted it without resentment; but there was perhaps an added acid in her tone when she spoke.

“I’m here to buy–not to play. I’m thirty years old, and it’s taken me ten years to work my way up to foreign buyer. I’ve worked. And I wasn’t handicapped any by my beauty. I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to buy the smoothest-moving line of French lingerie and infants’ wear that Schiff Brothers ever had.”

Miss Morrissey checked her.

“But, my dear girl, haven’t you been round at all?”

“Oh, a little; as much as a woman can go round alone in Paris–even a homely woman. But I’ve been disappointed every time. The noise drives me wild, to begin with. Not that I’m not used to noise. I am. I can stand for a town that roars, like Chicago. But this city yelps. I’ve been going round to the restaurants a little. At noon I always picked the restaurant I wanted, so long as I had to pay for the lunch of the commissionnaire who was with me anyway. Can you imagine any man at home letting a woman pay for his meals the way those shrimpy Frenchmen do?

“Well, the restaurants were always jammed full of Americans. The men of the party would look over the French menu in a helpless sort of way, and then they’d say: ‘What do you say to a nice big steak with French-fried potatoes?’ The waiter would give them a disgusted look and put in the order. They might just as well have been eating at a quick lunch place. As for the French women, every time I picked what I took to be a real Parisienne coming toward me I’d hear her say as she passed: ‘Henry, I’m going over to the Galerie Lafayette. I’ll meet you at the American Express at twelve. And, Henry, I think I’ll need some more money.'”