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Miss Ella Morrissey’s twinkling eyes almost disappeared in wrinkles of laughter; but Sophy Gold was not laughing. As she talked she gazed grimly ahead at the throng that shifted and glittered and laughed and chattered all about her.

“I stopped work early one afternoon and went over across the river. Well! They may be artistic, but they all looked as though they needed a shave and a hair-cut and a square meal. And the girls!”

Ella Morrissey raised a plump, protesting palm.

“Now look here, child, Paris isn’t so much a city as a state of mind. To enjoy it you’ve got to forget you’re an American. Don’t look at it from a Chicago, Illinois, viewpoint. Just try to imagine you’re a mixture of Montmartre girl, Latin Quarter model and duchess from the Champs Elysees. Then you’ll get it.”

“Get it!” retorted Sophy Gold. “If I could do that I wouldn’t be buying lingerie and infants’ wear for Schiffs’. I’d be crowding Duse and Bernhardt and Mrs. Fiske off the boards.”

Miss Morrissey sat silent and thoughtful, rubbing one fat forefinger slowly up and down her knee. Suddenly she turned.

“Don’t be angry–but have you ever been in love?”

“Look at me!” replied Sophy Gold simply. Miss Morrissey reddened a little. “As head of the lingerie section I’ve selected trousseaus for I don’t know how many Chicago brides; but I’ll never have to decide whether I’ll have pink or blue ribbons for my own.”

With a little impulsive gesture Ella Morrissey laid one hand on the shoulder of her new acquaintance.

“Come on up and visit me, will you? I made them give me an inside room, away from the noise. Too many people down here. Besides, I’d like to take off this armour-plate of mine and get comfortable. When a girl gets as old and fat as I am–“

“There are some letters I ought to get out,” Sophy Gold protested feebly.

“Yes; I know. We all have; but there’s such a thing as overdoing this duty to the firm. You get up at six to-morrow morning and slap off those letters. They’ll come easier and sound less tired.”

They made for the lift; but at its very gates:

“Hello, little girl!” cried a masculine voice; and a detaining hand was laid on Ella Morrissey’s plump shoulder.

That lady recognised the voice and the greeting before she turned to face their source. Max Tack, junior partner in the firm of Tack Brothers, Lingerie and Infants’ Wear, New York, held out an eager hand.

“Hello, Max!” said Miss Morrissey not too cordially. “My, aren’t you dressy!”

He was undeniably dressy–not that only, but radiant with the self-confidence born of good looks, of well-fitting evening clothes, of a fresh shave, of glistening nails. Max Tack, of the hard eye and the soft smile, of the slim figure and the semi-bald head, of the flattering tongue and the business brain, bent his attention full on the very plain Miss Sophy Gold.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” he demanded.

Miss Morrissey introduced them, buyer fashion–names, business connection, and firms.

“I knew you were Miss Gold,” began Max Tack, the honey-tongued. “Some one pointed you out to me yesterday. I’ve been trying to meet you ever since.”

“I hope you haven’t neglected your business,” said Miss Gold without enthusiasm.

Max Tack leaned closer, his tone lowered.

“I’d neglect it any day for you. Listen, little one: aren’t you going to take dinner with me some evening?”

Max Tack always called a woman “Little one.” It was part of his business formula. He was only one of the wholesalers who go to Paris yearly ostensibly to buy models, but really to pay heavy diplomatic court to those hundreds of women buyers who flock to that city in the interests of their firms. To entertain those buyers who were interested in goods such as he manufactured in America; to win their friendship; to make them feel under obligation at least to inspect his line when they came to New York–that was Max Tack’s mission in Paris. He performed it admirably.