In the silence of the neighborhood the a-a-a and o-oo, persistently prolonged, repeated again and again, with windows open, gave the factory the atmosphere of a boarding-school.
And it was in reality a schoolgirl who was practising these exercises, an inexperienced, wavering little soul, full of unconfessed longings, with everything to learn and to find out in order to become a real woman.

But her ambition confined itself to a superficial aspect of things.
"Claire Fromont plays the piano; I will sing.

She is considered a refined and distinguished woman, and I intend that people shall say the same of me." Without a thought of improving her education, Sidonie passed her life running about among milliners and dressmakers.

"What are people going to wear this winter ?" was her cry.

She was attracted by the gorgeous displays in the shop-windows, by everything that caught the eye of the passers-by.
The one thing that Sidonie envied Claire more than all else was the child, the luxurious plaything, beribboned from the curtains of its cradle to its nurse's cap.