[Illustration:  “I want a job in the chorus.”]

He said it not unkindly, but he exercised some power of making it evident that as he finished speaking, the duchess, for him, simply ceased to exist.  Anything she might say or do thereafter, would be so much effort utterly wasted.

The duchess drew herself up and walked away.

And Rose?  Well, the one thing she wanted passionately to do just then, was 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.