Without her the business would collapse like a house of cards, and it was because she knew this, because Madame also knew this, that she had been able to perfect the arrangements she had planned that May afternoon after her depressing visit to Judge Crowborough.

For she managed the house of Dinard's now by an arrangement which gave her one third of the profits; and in the last six months, since this scheme had gone into effect, the business had grown tremendously in certain directions.

The millinery department, for instance, which Madame had once treated with such supercilious disdain, had become to-day the most fashionable hat shop in Fifth Avenue.

The work was hard, but the returns were wonderful; and with a strange gloating, she told herself that she was making money--always more money for the children.

"When Fanny finishes school year after next, we'll take a large apartment in Park Avenue, and spend every summer in Europe," she concluded.
In the morning she rather expected to see O'Hara, but a month passed before she met him one evening in October, when she came home late from work.