Upon the day following this dinner and momentous conversation, Sally was working listlessly amid the hum of girls' chatter, which proceeded unchecked while Miss Summers was out of the room, when she had a singular knowledge of something in store. She was struck almost by fear. Quickly she looked up, and across at Rose Anstey, and beyond Rose to the door of Madam's room. Miss Summers stood in the doorway, smiling, and beckoning to Sally. Smiling--so it could not be anything.... Madam wanted Sally; but Madam would not tell Miss Summers.... Had she found out about Gaga? Sally's heart was like lead. But Miss Summers was smiling kindly and significantly, which she would not have done if she had thought the interview promised to be unpleasant. Besides, Gaga had said Miss Summers called Sally her best worker. It was nevertheless a nervous girl who went into the room, heard the door close behind her, and found herself alone with Madam. The room was that tawny one in which Sally had first seen Madame Gala. It was lighted by one large window and it was not really a large room, although it contained Madam's enormous table and a bureau and a number of shelves upon which reference books stood. It was very quiet and cool in summer, and warm in winter; and Madam sat at her writing desk in a stylish costume unconcealed by any overall. Seated, she did not look so terrifyingly tall; but her faded eyes had still that piercing scrutiny which had disturbed Sally at the first encounter. Her face was lined; her hair bleached and brittle; but the long thin nose, and hard thin mouth, and parched thin cheeks all gave to her glance a chilling quality hard to endure. Her hands were those of a skeleton: all the bones could be seen white under the cream skin. Sally, abashed and full of flutterings of secret guilt, stood before her as she might have stood before one omniscient; but her brain was not abashed, and her hearing was as strained as her alert wits. So the two hard personalities encountered. Presently Madam smiled--a smile that was tortured, like Gaga's, and showed anæmic gums but a row of astonishingly good teeth. "Sally," she said. "Sit down there, will you. Now, you've been here nearly a year. D'you know that? You were seventeen when you came. You're eighteen now. "Nearly," interjected Sally.