The conquest of Mrs. R. H. L. Jerome produced a sensation in the Paulette establishment. It also gave an element of security to Janet’s precarious tenure of office there. Janet knew full well that Madame Paulette had received her in the Boulevard Haussman with nothing like the enthusiasm that Cornelia had welcomed her in the Lorillard tenements. In the interval between these events the two friends had burned several bridges behind them. It was obvious that Cornelia was now glutted with hands to wait on her, ears to pay heed to her, and tongues to flatter her. Her natural taste for dependents being completely gratified, she felt less need than ever for friends of an independent turn of mind like Janet. Moreover, in a year and a half of compact adventure, Janet had matured more rapidly than many young people do in ten years of tame drifting. Time, which had whittled away some of her imprudence, had robbed her of none of her daring; it had left her with her almost naive freedom of utterance intact. Her candor was a trait to which Cornelia had formerly been much drawn. But that was in the days of her first arrival in Kips Bay, the days when the young girl had all but worshipped the experienced woman. Now that blind devotion had given way to challenging criticism, Janet’s candor seemed far less attractive. That is, far less attractive to Cornelia. As regards Paulette’s in general, Janet was a great favorite. Her official duties were chiefly those of an assistant to Harry Kelly in the physical training of the manikins, (a branch of their professional instruction on which Kelly laid great stress). She bore somewhat the same relation to her chief that the concert master of an orchestra does to the conductor. This arrangement was Cornelia’s doing. In one and the same bold stroke she had thought to cut down the time that Kelly spent with the manikins (this being the time in which his heart lay most); and to shift to Janet’s shoulders the odium that frequently devolves on the deputy chief (who exercises authority without possessing power). But Cornelia’s spirit of negation, active as ever, accomplished only one-half of its object. Janet discharged her duties with so much vivacity and with such invincible good-will that she was idolized by everybody in the Paulette firm from Kelly and the manikins down to the work girls and the magnificent porter who daily consented to guard the street door. In short, she was the life of the house; than which, Cornelia could have brought no stronger indictment against her of unimaginable _lese majeste_. The two had a long private conversation in Cornelia’s office the day after Mrs. Jerome’s visit. "Araminta, you’ve certainly made a hit with the old lady. Just as I predicted. It’s a fine thing for us both. Paulette’s prestige will go up and up. And it should mean a great deal to you." "How, I wonder?" "You can make her friendship a stepping stone."