ecidedly complex look which she
interpreted--pretty accurately as she found out later--as saying, "Well,
you're about what I expected; ornamental and enthusiastic; just what an
otherwise sane and successful man of fifty would pick out for an
'assistant.' Aren't they just children at that age! But you're welcome.
They deserve it. Good luck to you!"

But when Rose returned the look with a comprehending smile which said
good-naturedly, "All right! You wait and see," Gertrude's expression
altered into a frankly questioning frown. Two or three days later she
dropped in at a rehearsal, ostensibly with a message from Shuman to
Galbraith. He was on the point of leaving and had turned over the
rehearsal to Rose. Gertrude, when he had gone, settled down comfortably
in the back of the auditorium and watched through a solid hour,
obviously under instructions from Abe to bring back a report as to
whether Galbraith's infatuation should be tolerated or suppressed. At
the end of the hour, during a brief lull in the rehearsal, she came down
the aisle and stopped beside Rose who still had her eye on the stage.

"I apologize," she said.

Rose grinned around at her. It was not necessary to ask what for. "Much
obliged," she said.

"I didn't know that a woman could do that," Gertrude went on. "Didn't
think she'd have the--drive. But you've got it, all right. I don't
suppose you've got an idea when you'll be free for lunch?"

Rose hadn't, but it was not many days before they got together for that
meal at a business woman's club down on Fortieth Street, and from then
on their acquaintance progressed rapidly. She helped Rose find the
little apartment on Thirteenth Street, entertaining her during the
search with a highly instructive disquisition on the social topography
of New York, and on the following Sunday she ran in, she said, to see if
she could help her get settled. There was no settling to do, but she sat
down and talked--most of the time--for an hour or so. It was a theory of
Gertrude's that the way to find out about people was to talk to them.

"You can't tell much," she used to say, "by the things people say to
you. Perhaps they've just heard somebody else say them. Maybe they've
got a repertory that it will take you weeks to get to the end of. Or
they may not be able to show you at all what's really inside them. But
from how they take the things you say to them--the things they light up
at and the things they look blank about,