as to walk away herself out of that squalid horrible room; to soften
her own defeat by evading the final sledge-hammer blow. What he had said
to the duchess licensed her to do so. If there were no vacancies ... But
she clenched her hands, set her teeth, pulled in a long breath, and
somehow, set herself in motion. Not toward the door, but toward where
John Galbraith was standing.

But before she could get over to him, the pianist and the musical
director had got his attention. So she waited quietly beside him for two
of the longest minutes that ever were ticked off by a clock. Then, with
disconcerting suddenness, right in the middle of one of the musical
director's sentences, he looked straight into her face and said: "What
do you want?"

She'd thought him tall, but he wasn't. He was looking on a perfect level
into her eyes.

"I want a job in the chorus," said Rose.

"You heard what I said to that other woman, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Rose, "but ..."

"But you thought you'd let me say it to you again."

"Yes," she said. And, queerly enough, she felt her courage coming back.
She managed the last "yes" very steadily. It had occurred to her that if
he'd wanted merely to get rid of her, he could have done it quicker than
this. He was looking her over now with a coolly appraising eye.

"What professional experience have you had?" he asked.

"I haven't had any."

He almost smiled when she stopped there.

"Any amateur experience?" he inquired.

"Quite a lot," said Rose; "pageants and things, and two or three little
plays."

"Can you dance?"

"Yes," said Rose.

He said he supposed ballroom dancing was what she meant, whereupon she
told him she was a pretty good ballroom dancer, but that it was
gymnastic dancing she had had in mind.

"All right," he said. "See if you can do this. Watch me, and then
imitate me exactly."

In the intensity of her absorption in his questions and her own answers
to them, she had never given a thought to the bystanders. But now as
they fell back to give him room, she swept a glance across their faces.
They all wore smiles of sorts. There was something amusing about
this--something out of the regular routine. A little knot of
chorus-girls halted in the act of going out the wide doors and stood
watching. Was it just a hoax? The suppressed unnatural silence sounded
like it. But at what John Galbraith did, one of the bystanders guffawed
outright.

It wasn't pretty, the dance step h