that Abe Shuman had simply
snatched her away from him.

"The funny thing is the way she does them," Jimmy said. "Everybody else
who designs costumes, just draws them; dinky little water-colored
plates, and the plates are sent out to a company like The Star Costume
Company, and they execute them. But Rose can't draw a bit. She got a
manikin--not an ordinary dressmaker's form, but a regular painter's
manikin with legs, and made her costumes on the thing; or at least cut
out a sort of pattern of them in cloth. But somehow or other, the
designing of them and the execution are more mixed up together by Rose's
method than by the orthodox one. She wanted to get some women in to sew
for her, and see the whole job through herself; deliver the costumes
complete, and get paid for them. But it seems that the Shumans, on the
side, owned The Star Company and raked off a big profit on the costumes
that way. I don't know all the details. I don't know that Galbraith did.
But, anyhow, the first thing anybody knew, Rose had financed herself.
She got one of those rich young bachelor women in New York to go into
the thing with her, and organized a company, and made Abe Shuman an
offer on all the costumes for _Come On In_. Galbraith thinks that Abe
Shuman thought she was sure to lose a lot of money on it and go broke
and that then he could put her to work at a salary, so he gave her the
job.

"But she didn't lose. She evidently made a chunk out of it, and her
reputation at the same time."

Violet was immensely thrilled by this recital. "Won't she be perfectly
wonderful," she exclaimed, "for the Junior League show, when she comes
back!"

Jimmy found an enormous satisfaction in saying, "Oh, she'll be too
expensive for you. She's a regular robber, she says."

"She _says_!" cried Violet. "Do you mean you've talked with her?"

"Do you think I'd have come hack from New York without?" said Jimmy.
"Galbraith told me to drop in at the Casino that same afternoon. Some of
the costumes were to be tried on, and either 'Miss Dane' or some one of
her assistants would be there. Probably she herself, though he knew she
was dreadfully busy.

"Well, and she came. I almost fell over her out there in the dark,
because of course the auditorium wasn't lighted at all. I'll admit she
rather took my breath, just glancing up at me, and peering to make out
who I was, and then her face going all alight with that smile of hers. I
didn't know what to call her, a