His announcement that Rose was going to be put into the sextette was entitled to consideration, even though it couldn’t be banked on.  There were three mediums and three big girls in the sextette. (Olga Larson was one of the mediums and so needn’t fear replacement by Rose, who was a big girl.) Besides appearing in two numbers as a background to one of the principals, they had one all to themselves, a fact which constituted them a sort of super-chorus.  Galbraith used to keep them for endless drills after the general rehearsal was dismissed.

But the intimation that Rose was to be promoted to this select inner circle, didn’t, as it first came to her, give her any pleasure.  Somehow, as Larson told her about it, she could fairly see the knowing greasy grin that would have been Dave’s comment on this prophecy.  And in the same flash, she interpreted the Larson girl’s look, half incredulous, half satirical, and her, “You’ve got as good a chance of losing your job as Galbraith has of losing his.”

“I haven’t heard anything about being put in the sextette,” she said quietly, “and I don’t believe I will be.”

“Well, I don’t know why not.”  There was a new warmth in the medium’s voice.  Rose had won a victory here, and she knew it.  “You’ve got the looks and the shape, and you can dance better than any of the big girls, or us mediums, either.  And if he doesn’t put that big Benedict lemon into the back line where she belongs, and give you her place in the sextette, it will be because he’s afraid of her drag.”

Rose forbore to inquire into the nature of the Benedict girl’s drag.  Whatever it may have been, John Galbraith was evidently not afraid of it, because as he dismissed that very rehearsal, calling the rest of the chorus for twelve the following morning, and the sextette for eleven, he told Rose to report at the earlier hour.  And a moment later, she heard Dave say to the big show girl named Vesta Folsom (some one with a vein of playful irony must have been responsible for this christening), “Well, maybe I didn’t call that turn.”

“You’re the original wise guy, all right,” Vesta admitted.  “You’re Joseph to all the sure things.”

Barring Olga Larson, the chorus was probably unanimous, Rose reflected, in looking at it like that.  They accounted for her having got a job in the first place at Grant’s expense, and a promotion so soon thereafter to the sextette, by assuming that John Galbraith had a sentimental interest in her.  Whether his reward had been collected in advance, or was still unpaid, was an interesting theme for debate.  But that, past or present, the reward was his actuating motive, it wouldn’t occur to anybody to question.

There was no malice in this.  Rose didn’t lose caste with any of them on account of it.  But a chorus-girl is the most sentimental person in the world.  If there’s anybody who really believes that love makes the world go round, she is that one.  It’s love that actuates men to deeds of heroism or of crime; it’s love that makes men invest good money in musical comedies; love that makes stars out of her undeserving sisters in the chorus; love that is always waiting round the corner to open the door to wealth and fame for her.