It was perhaps his influence, dominating that circle, which made them all so serious and intent on mastering their profession, so respectful of their chosen occupation, so willing to give it the very best of their judgment and taste. This was the more remarkable as, with the exception of my new friend, they were quite the opposite of serious-minded men and women, and, in the intervals of the exercise of their profession, enjoyed rather more than was good for their health, morals, and pocketbooks, the multiple occasions offered by a great city to damage those possessions. I was not at all in sympathy with what seemed to me the indifference of their relaxations in a country so stricken as France; but I could not withhold my astonished admiration for the excellent seriousness with which they approached their business. I would have blushed to disclose to them the light shallow femininity of my careless, rather slighting attitude towards "la mode." Also I was amazed at the prodigious financial importance of their operations. The sums which, without a blink, they paid out for hats, and the number of hats they thus secured and the further sums which they looked forward to paying into the coffers of the United States Customs, sounded to me as unbelievable as those nightmare calculations as to the distance of the stars from the earth or how much it has cost to build the Panama Canal. "All that for _hats_!" I cried, "and every year, twice a year!" "Oh, this is only the smallest part of what goes into hats," the expert assured me. "What I'm buying now are only single models, you understand; the successful ones, the well-chosen ones, will be copied by the hundred dozen in the States and in Canada. That chenille toque you saw me buy the other day..." "That little, plain, ugly scrap of a thing you paid a hundred dollars for?" I asked, giddy again with the remembered shock of that price. "Yes. Well, probably that will be very widely copied, at first in New York and then everywhere. It's a fair guess to say, that being a model that's sure to be popular, there will be at least twenty thousand toques like it sold in different places in the States for five dollars apiece." I was staggered. "A hundred thousand dollars spent in _one_ season, just for _one_ out of all the different models of women's hats!" My old superficial scorn for "the style" disappeared in an alarmed dismay at its unsuspected scope. "Why, that's _terrible_! It's appalling! When there isn't enough money to make the schools what they ought to be, nor to take care of the sick, nor to keep up the...." He showed an unexpected humanity. "Yes, it is awful," he agreed gravely--"very, very awful. And still more awful is the way we live right along beside such an awful force and never have the slightest idea that it rules our lives and not what we wish or decide." For all my consternation I found this excessive. "Oh, come, it's not so bad as _that_!" I cried.