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A few days after sending the cable he went in the morning with Mrs. Campbell to Paquin’s—Mrs. Campbell was at Paris for her annual shopping. She was to be fitted for six dresses, she explained, and that meant an hour—perhaps two or three hours. But Grafton was so attracted by the scene that he said he would wait, at least until he was tired. He seated himself on the sofa against the wall, near the door. It was in line with the passage-way into which the fitting-salons open.

The general room was crowded with women—women in the fashions of the day preparing for the fashions of the morrow; girls—the pretty, graceful, polite dressmakers’ assistants famed in Parisian song and story—persuading, soothing, cajoling, flattering. There were a few men, all of them fitters except two. The exceptions were Grafton, trying to efface himself, and Paquin, trying to escape. He had come forth at the request of a customer important enough to be worthy of personal attention, but not important enough to be admitted to the honor of his private consultation-room. The women had seized him and, regardless of his bored and absent expression and speech, were swarming about him, impeding his retreat.