“In the meantime, you’ll give up your workroom and spend most of your time with me. There are a lot of little points about the business you need to learn—I need a pair of strong, young shoulders on which to rest a part of my burdens”—here Madame Francine gave a gentle upward motion of her shoulders that would have convinced even a Parisian of her Gallicism—“and from all I can see, you’re the best one here to share these burdens with me.” …
For six weeks while the shops above them rushed through young mountains of work, making creations of all sorts for the Palm Beach migration of the socially and financially elect, Mimi and Madame Francine spent several hours together each day in the sheltered quietness of Madame Francine’s private office—“my studio” she called it. Mimi saw and met and heard about women and men whose names she had seen in society columns and in the smartest magazines but whom she had never seen in the flesh. She heard of the idiosyncrasies, the foibles, and the predilections of each of them. She learned the things each liked to hear. More important, she memorized the things they did not like to hear. She listened to lengthy accounts of the business routine until her head swam and she felt sure she could never by any means digest a tenth of it.
And there were other things she learned too—phases of the business which she had never suspected before, marooned as she had been in the workrooms. Had she gossiped more with the girls, she reflected, she would have known these things sooner. She learned the names of the men customers whose wives and whose mistresses both purchased their gowns at Francine’s. And she was properly impressed with the necessity of never— never —permitting any mix-ups in the delivery of gowns or hats. She learned the necessary precautions in advising the bookkeepers about the bills for these goods—which bill was to be sent to the man’s home and which to his office, marked “Personal.”