id you come to think of it?--Oh, I don't mean that!" he
went on impatiently. "Why should you bother to think of it?"

Her color came up perceptibly as she answered. "Why--I want the piece to
succeed, of course. I was awfully miserable when I saw the sort of
things she was picking out and I spent half an hour trying to think what
I could do about it. And then I saw that the best thing I could do, was
nothing."

"You didn't do nothing though," he said. "That thing you've got on is a
start."

Rose turned rather suddenly to the saleswoman. "I wish you'd get that
little Empire frock in maize and corn-flower," she said. "I'd like Mr.
Galbraith to see that, too." And the saleswoman, now placated, bustled
away.

"This thing that I've got on," said Rose swiftly, "costs a hundred and
fifty dollars, but I know I can copy it for twenty. I can't get the
materials exactly of course, but I can come near enough."

"Will you try this one on, miss?" asked the saleswoman, coming on the
scene again with the frock she had been sent for.

"No," said Rose. "Just hold it up."

Galbraith admitted it was beautiful, but wasn't overwhelmed at all as
he had been by the other.

"It's not quite so much your style, is it? Not drive enough?"

"It isn't for me," said Rose. "It's for Olga Larson to wear in that _All
Alone_ number for the sextette."

"Why Larson especially?" he asked. "Except that she's a friend of
yours."

"She isn't," said Rose, "particularly. And anyway, that wouldn't be a
reason. But--did you ever really look at her? She's the one really
beautiful woman in the company."

"Larson?" said John Galbraith incredulously.

And Rose, with a flush and a smile partly deprecatory over her
presumption in venturing to say such things to a formidable authority
like the director, and partly the result of an exciting conviction that
she was right, told him her mind on the subject, while Galbraith, half
fascinated, half amused, listened.

"I don't happen to remember the portrait of the Honorable Mrs. Graham
that you speak about," he said, "but I won't deny that you may be right
about it."

It was well after closing time by now--a fact that the manager, coming
to reinforce the saleswoman, contrived, without saying so, to indicate.

"Put on your street things," said Galbraith bruskly. "I'll wait."

CHAPTER VI

A BUSINESS PROPOSITION

"Why, this was what I wanted to say," said Rose, taking up the broken
conversation as h