t was three hours later, towards two o'clock in the afternoon, that
she came on foot, slowly, along the Rue St. Honore, seeking the
establishment which had proclaimed in the Journal its desire to
employ, for purposes of "reception," a young lady of good figure and
pleasant manners. She had discovered, at the cost of one of her
remaining francs for omnibus fares, that a 50-franc a month governess
must possess certificates, that governessing is a skilled trade
overcrowded by women of the most various and remarkable talents. At
the shop that advertised for a cashier a floor-walker had glanced at
her over his shoulder for an instant, snapped out that the place was
filled, and walked away.

The name she sought appeared across the way, lettered upon a row of
first-floor windows; it was a photographer's.

"Now!" said Annette. "The end this is the end!"

A thrill touched her as she went up the broad stairway of the
building; the crucial thing was at hand. The morning had been bad,
but at each failure there had still been a possibility ahead. Now,
there was only this and nothing beyond.

A spacious landing, carpeted, and lit by the tall church-windows on
the staircase, great double doors with a brass plate, and a dim
indoor sense pervading all the place! Here, evidently, the sharp
corners of commerce were rounded off; its acolytes must be engaging
female figures with affable manners.

Annette's ringer on the bronze bell-push evoked a manservant in
livery, with a waistcoat of horizontal yellow and black stripes like
a wasp and a smooth, subtle, still face. He pulled open one wing of
the door and stood aside to let her pass in, gazing at her with
demure eyes, in whose veiled suggestion there was something satiric.
Annette stepped past him at once.

"There is an advertisement in the Journal for a young lady," she
said. "I have come to apply for the post."

The smooth manservant lowered his head in a nod that was just not a
bow, and closed the tall door.

"Yes," he said. "If mademoiselle will give herself the trouble to be
seated I will inform the master."

The post was not filled, then. Annette sat down, let the wasp-hued
flunkey pass out of sight, and looked round at the room in which she
found herself. It was here, evidently, that the function of
"reception" was accomplished. The manservant admitted the client; one
rose from one's place at the little inlaid desk in the alcove and
rustled forward across the gleaming pa