She found the other girls on the point of departure. But Olga offered to wait for her.
"No, you run along," Rose said. "I've some errands and I don't feel like seeing a movie to-night, anyway."
Olga looked a little odd about it, but hurried along after the others.
A saleswoman--the same one the manager assigned to Rose under the misconception which that smart French ulster of hers had created when she came into the store--now came around behind the screen to gather up the frocks the girls had shed.
"Will you please bring me," said Rose, "that Poiret model you showed me before the others came in? I'll try it on."
The saleswoman's manner was different now and she grumbled something about its being closing time.
"Then, if you'll bring it at once ..." said Rose. And the saleswoman went on the errand.
Five minutes later, Galbraith from staring gloomily at the mournful heap of trouble Mrs. Goldsmith had left on his hands, looked up to confront a vision that made him gasp.
[Illustration: "It isn't quite so much your style, is it?"]
"I wanted you to see if you liked this," said Rose.
"If I liked it!" he echoed. "Look here! If you know enough to pick out things like that, why did you let that woman waste everybody's time with junk like this? Why didn't you help her out?"
"I couldn't have done much," Rose said, "even if my offering to do anything hadn't made her angry--and I think it would have. You see, she's got lots of taste, only it's bad. She wasn't bewildered a bit. She knew just what she wanted and she got it. It's the badness of these things she likes. And I thought ..." She hesitated a little over this. "I thought as long as they couldn't be good, perhaps the next best thing would be to have them as bad as possible. I mean that it would be easier to throw them all out and get a fresh start."
He stared at her with a frown of curiosity. "That's good sense," he said. "But how did 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."