got--the
secret is an open one--is but the incognita of a business-like English
countess who finds it financially profitable to sign articles on
costume written by someone else, and be sponsor for the newest
fashions which someone else designs. As a way of turning an
impoverished historic title to account it is as good as any other.

Without knowing who Margot was Letty knew what she was. She couldn't
have frequented studios without hearing that much, and once or twice
in her wanderings about the city she had paused to admire the door. It
was all there was to admire, since Margot, to Letty's regret, didn't
display confections behind plate-glass.

It was a Flemish chateau which had been a residence before business
had traveled above Forty-second Street. A man in livery would have
barred them from passing the wrought-iron grille had it not been for
the car from which they had emerged. Only people worthy of being
customers of the house could afford such cars, and he saw that Steptoe
was a servant. What Letty was he couldn't see, for servants of great
houses never looked so nondescript.

In the great hall a beautiful staircase swept to an upper floor, but
apart from a Louis Seize mirror and console flanked by two Louis Seize
chairs there was nothing and no one to be seen. Steptoe turned to the
right into a vast saloon with a cinnamon-colored carpet and walls of
cool French gray. A group of gilded chairs were the only furnishings,
except for a gilded canape between two French windows draped with
cinnamon-colored hangings. A French fender with French andirons filled
the fireplace, and on the white marble mantelpiece stood a _garniture
de cheminee_, a clock and two vases, in biscuit de Sevres.

At the end of the room opposite the windows a woman in black, with
coiffure a la Marcel, sat at a white-enamelled desk working with a
ledger. A second woman in black, also with coiffure a la Marcel,
stood holding open the doors of a white-enamelled wardrobe, gazing at
its multi-colored contents. Two other women in black, still with
coiffure a la Marcel, were bending over a white-enamelled drawer in a
series of white-enamelled drawers, discussing in low tones. There were
no customers. For such a house the season had not yet begun. Though in
this saloon voices were pitched as low as for conversation in a
church, the sharp catgut calls of Frenchwomen--and of French
dressmakers especially--came from a room beyond.

Overawed by this va