Suddenly she realized that this was the visiting hour for the hospital where the blind man was being held in durance by the little plot against him. The fighting light came into her eyes again, she clapped on her hat--you will note it is the second time this day she has put on her hat without looking at herself in the glass--and swept out to do combat, all her firm, small, erect person animated by the same joy in battle which had sent her crusading forefathers into the fight singing and tossing their swords up into the air. She was gone an hour and a half, and when she came back, although she looked several degrees more tired even than before, a grim satisfaction sat upon her hard, small mouth. She had won her point. The blind man was to be allowed to come. But there was Philippe, the man with whom she had begun the day. By looking out of the window, she could see him idling, as usual, in the garden, ostensibly taking a lesson in English from a volunteer professor, and in reality doing his best mildly to flirt with her. The Directrice frowned and smiled at the same time. What an absurd, lovable fellow he was! Thank Heaven, there was one of her "pensionnaires" whom it was impossible to take tragically. She gave a few orders for the disposition of the office work, wondered when she would ever have time really to go over her accounts thoroughly, and went out again to interview the head of a big wholesale groceries firm. In the old days, when she and hers lived in a château, they bought _en gros_ their supplies from this firm, and the head of it still had a respectful attention for any one of her name. This time she looked at herself when she put on her hat, looked very intently, rearranged her hair, noticed with impatience, quite impersonally, that the gray was beginning to show more every day, put on a little touch of powder and bit her lips to make them red. Then she took a fresh pair of gloves and put on a crisp veil. Thus accoutered, looking inimitably chic, the grande dame entirely in spite of her few inches, she went forth to triumph. After a long conversation with the big grocer, she extracted from him a promise to try Philippe as a traveling salesman. She felt very young and almost gay, as she brought back this news. "If Philippe cannot sell anything to anybody, whether he wants it or not, I am much mistaken," she thought, watching him out of the window, wheedle a would-be stern professor of typewriting into lounging there instead of going back for the lesson. Somehow, in the intervals of this day, which you will see to have been reasonably full, she had worked out all the details with what device in Braille Philippe could take down his orders, what kind of a typewriter he could carry about him to copy them, how he could be met at the station by such a volunteer to settle him in his hotel, and at the other station by another--our Directrice had a network of acquaintances all over France.