"And that is your ultimate offer?" said Patty, looking at her squarely. "Yes, and I am foolish to offer that; but, as we agreed, it is only for one week, and so----" "Spare your arguments, madame; I do not accept your proposal. Twelve dollars a week is not enough. And now, I will bid you good-afternoon. Am I entitled to pay for my day's work?" With Patty's final refusal, the manner of Madame Villard had changed. No longer placating and bland, she frowned angrily as she said: "Pay, indeed! You should be charged for the materials you spoiled in your morning's work." "But in the afternoon," said Patty, "I trimmed three hats that will bring you big profits." "Nothing of the sort," snapped Madame. "The hats you trimmed are nothing of any moment. Any of my girls could have done as well." "Then why don't you pay them twelve dollars a week?" cried Patty, whose harassed nerves were making her irritable. "I will call our financial account even, but if any of your workwomen can trim hats that you like as well as those that I trimmed, I trust you will give them the salary you offered me. Good-afternoon." Patty bowed politely, and then, with a more kindly bow and smile to Miss O'Flynn, she went through the draperies, through the front salesroom, and out at the front door. The milliner and her forewoman followed her with a dignified slowness, but reached the window in time to see Patty get into an elaborately-appointed motor-car which rolled rapidly away. "She's one of those society women who spy out what wages we pay," said Madame Villard, with conviction. "She's not old enough for that," returned Miss O'Flynn, "but she's not looking for real work, either. I can't make her out." "Well, we have three stunning hats, anyway. Put them in the window to-morrow. And you may as well put Paris labels inside; they have an air of the real thing." That evening Patty regaled her parents with a truthful account of her day. "I'm 'foiled again'!" she said, laughing. "But the whole performance was so funny I must tell you about it." "Couldn't you have coaxed fifteen dollars a week out of her?" asked Mr. Fairfield, after Patty had told how Madame Villard's price had gradually increased. "Oh, father, I was so afraid she _would_ say fifteen! Then I should have felt that I ought to go to her for a week; for I may not get another such chance. But I couldn't live in that place a week, I _know_ I couldn't!" "Why?" asked Nan, curiously. "I don't know exactly why," returned Patty, thoughtfully. "But it's mostly because it's all so artificial and untrue. Miss O'Flynn talks as if she were a superior being; Madame Villard talks as if she were a Royal personage. They talk about their customers and each other in a sort of make-believe grandiose way, that is as sickening as it is absurd. I don't know how to express it, but I'd rather work in a place where everybody is real, and claims only such honour and glory as absolutely belong to them. I hate pretence!"