to submit to such an extortion, but they, believe them, were not.  Many of the costumes could be bought, ready made, on State Street or Michigan Avenue.  Some of the fancy things could be executed by a competent wardrobe mistress, if some one would give her the ideas.  And ideas—­one could pick them up anywhere.  Mrs. Goldsmith, now,—­she was the wife of the senior of the two owners—­had splendid taste and would be glad to put it at their service.  There was no reason why she should not at once take the sextette down-town and fit them out with their dresses.

Galbraith shrugged his shoulders, but made no further complaint.  It was, he admitted, as they had repeatedly pointed out, their own money.  So a rendezvous was made between Mrs. Goldsmith and the sextette for Lessing’s store on Michigan Avenue at three o’clock on an afternoon when Galbraith was to be busy with the principals.  He might manage to drop in before they left to cast his eye over and approve the selection.

It was with some rather uncomfortable misgivings that Rose set out to revisit a part of town so closely associated with the first year of her married life.  The particular shop wasn’t, luckily, one that she had patronized in that former incarnation.  But it was in the same block with a half dozen that were, and she hadn’t been east of Clark Street since the day Otto had driven her to the Polk Street Station.

The day was cold and blustery—­a fact that she was grateful for, as it gave her an excuse for wearing a thick white veil, which was almost as good as a mask.  It was with a rather breathless excitement that persisted in feeling like guilt—­her heart wouldn’t have beaten any faster, she believed, if she had just robbed a jewelry store and were walking away with the swag in her pocket—­that she debouched out of Van Buren Street, around the corner of the Chicago Club, and into the avenue.  Unconsciously, she had been expecting to meet every one she knew, beginning with Frederica, in the course of the two blocks or so she had to walk.  Very naturally, she didn’t catch even a glimpse of any one she even remotely knew.  Suppose there should be any one in the store!  But this, she realized, wasn’t likely.

It wasn’t a really smart shop.  It paid an enormous rent there in that neighborhood in order to pretend to be, and the gowns on the wax figures in its windows, were taken on faith by pleasurably scandalized pedestrians as the very latest scream of fashion.  The prices on these confections were always in the process of a violent reduction, as large exclamatory placards grievously testified.  The legend eighty-eight dollars crossed out in red lines, with thirty-nine seventy-five written below, for a sample.  The most exclusive smartness for the economy-loving multitude.  This was the slogan.