It was her ambition to make her fortune thereby, and she was investing all her savings in it.

She was full of great ideas and meditated increasing the business and hiring a house and combining all the delights within its walls.

It was with this in view that she had tried to entice Satin, a little pig at that moment dying in hospital, so terribly had she done for herself.
Mignon still insisted with his offer and spoke of the risks run in the commercial life, but Zoe, without entering into explanations about the exact nature of her establishment, smiled a pinched smile, as though she had just put a sweetmeat in her mouth, and was content to remark: "Oh, luxuries always pay.

You see, I've been with others quite long enough, and now I want others to be with me." And a fierce look set her lip curling.

At last she would be "Madame," and for the sake of earning a few louis all those women whose slops she had emptied during the last fifteen years would prostrate themselves before her.
Mignon wished to be announced, and Zoe left him for a moment after remarking that Madame had passed a miserable day.