pirit of the thing,
as Milly knew he would, and turned out a creditable imitation of a Paris
shop, with stucco marbles, black woodwork, and glass everywhere, even to
red plush sofas along the walls and a row of little tables and chairs in
front. It had a very gay appearance--"distinguished" in its sombre
setting. "No one could help walking in to buy a cake, could they?" Sam
appealed to Ernestine.

"Hope they'll have the price for more than one," the former Laundryman
observed.

"Oh, you'll do a big business," Sam rejoined encouragingly. "Mostly on
tick, if Milly runs the cash drawer."

"She won't!" Ernestine retorted.

The last touch was the sign,--a long, thin black board on which was
traced in a delicate gilt script,--_The Cake Shop--Madame Millernine_.
The firm name was Sam's personal contribution to the business. "You must
have a suitable name, and who ever heard of a Bragdon or a Geyer keeping
a cake shop? There are proprieties in all these things."

But long before the sign was in place, Milly had sailed away from New
York for Paris. It had been discovered that a good French pastry cook
was not to be found in Chicago. A few were said to exist in America,
chiefly in New York hotels, but their handiwork was not up to Milly's
standard and their demands for wages were exorbitant. Also real _chic_
French _dames des comptoirs_ were exceedingly rare. Jeanne's Grenoble
sister-in-law proved to be, in Reddon's words,--"so infernally homely
that she would scare the customers from the door." So it was agreed that
while Ernestine attended to the numerous details of the preparations in
Chicago, Milly should make a hurried trip abroad consult with her
friend, Madame Catteau, and secure among other things a competent
pastry-cook and a few good-looking girls for waitresses.

Milly enjoyed her trip immensely. She had an air of importance about her
that Sam Reddon described as "diplomatic." She was a woman of affairs
now--large affairs and getting larger all the time. She spent two
rapturous weeks, so breathlessly absorbed in consulting with Madame
Catteau (who was ravished by Milly's scheme and deplored almost
tearfully her fate in having a husband and two children to keep her from
returning with Madame Brag-donne) and in interviewing men cooks and
young Frenchwomen, that she had no time for memories or sentimental
griefs of any sort. Once, flitting through the rue Gallilee in a cab,
she saw the hotel-pension where she and J