CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The first week in June found her back in New York. That
month of absence had worked a subtle change. The two weeks
spent in crossing and recrossing had provided her with a
let-down that had been almost jarring in its completeness.
Everything competitive had seemed to fade away with the
receding shore, and to loom up again only when the skyline
became a thing of smoke-banks, spires, and shafts. She had
had only two weeks for the actual transaction of her
business. She must have been something of a revelation to
those Paris and Berlin manufacturers, accustomed though they
were to the brisk and irresistible methods of the American
business woman. She was, after all, absurdly young to be
talking in terms of millions, and she was amazingly well
dressed. This last passed unnoticed, or was taken for
granted in Paris, but in Berlin, home of the frump and the
flour-sack figure, she was stared at, appreciatively. Her
business, except for one or two unimportant side lines, had
to do with two factories on whose product the Haynes-Cooper
company had long had a covetous eye. Quantity, as usual,
was the keynote of their demand, and Fanny's task was that
of talking in six-figure terms to these conservative and
over-wary foreign manufacturers. That she had successfully
accomplished this, and that she had managed to impress them
also with the important part that time and promptness in
delivery played in a swift-moving machine like the Haynes-
Cooper concern, was due to many things beside her natural
business ability. Self-confidence was there, and