The telephonist returned.
“Madame says you can take the hat at once, but you are not to linger. She says it ought net to take you more than an hour if you hurry.”
“Very well,” Sheena nodded.
She was used to Madame’s peremptory commands when it came to any of them wasting time.
“Time is money! Time is money!” Madame Gabrielle would repeat it over and over again, coming swiftly round the corner to rebuke a girl who had stopped work to powder her nose or another who might be arranging her hair in the mirror or sitting down for a second to rest her aching feet.
“Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” she would say to Sheena.
Sheena thought sometimes that those words were an accompaniment to everything she did, even in her hours of freedom.
“Hurry! Hurry!”
The words themselves sang now as she ran downst
