"Your manikins are not your servants, Cornelia. They're your employees. You slave-drive them outrageously. If you don't look out, you'll have a strike on your hands before long."
"With you as the strike leader, I dare say?"
"Why not? Your inability to respect other people's time is simply appalling. The moment some whim pops into your head, one of us is called upon to gratify it. You quite forget that when you arbitrarily take us from our jobs, bang goes continuity, a most important factor in good workmanship. Mazie, who came here grovelling in the dust, is now up in arms; the manikins are unitedly rebellious; Harry is almost a nervous wreck. This, with business simply deluging the establishment. I tell you, unless you stop, we all will."
Cornelia quailed under these words, although she kept her face admirably. She was in some respects like a wrongly bound volume: half Becky Sharp and half Hedda Gabler. And it was the Hedda Gabler pages she always turned up to Janet.
"Well, what next?" she exclaimed, on the defensive in spite of her brave words. "I've rescued Mazie Ross out of the gutter where Hutchins Burley flung her; I've sacrificed my own creature comforts to make those of the manikins secure; I've given you a very tidy berth and no questions asked; and I've worked myself to skin and bones for Harry's sake. Now you all turn on me and call me an interfering busybody, or worse. That's human gratitude."
Janet, giving the faintest ironical shrug, merely looked at her.
Cornelia smothered a sob of rage. After a pause, she informed Janet that Mrs. R. H. L. Jerome, her most valued customer, had made an appointment that morning to look at some frocks and gowns. This lady had a single hobby, clothes; and she spent an appreciable fraction of her untold millions ("she's divorced two multimillionaires, Araminta, and driven a third into the diplomatic service!") on this hobby. She had expressed profound dissatisfaction with Paulette's offerings on her last visit two weeks ago. It was therefore of prime importance to please her this time.
"I want you to be in the salon with me when she looks at the models," said Cornelia. "She's extremely susceptible to flattery. As the head of the house, I can't very well lay it on too thick, can I? I have a feeling that your presence will make the sales go smoothly."
"You'd better leave me out of it, Cornelia. I never sold a thing in my life. Why, I couldn't sell a sandwich to a starving man."
"I'll do the selling, my dear. I simply ask you to be on hand. The fact is, you have a peculiar influence over people. When they get to talking with you, they suddenly forget about things—the earth-earthy things by which we are all so obsessed nowadays—they appear to forget about things and begin to occupy themselves with thoughts and dreams. In that condition, a man or woman will buy anything."