There was a dry-goods store on the principal corner of the street, which she’d selected as she walked along as the place to begin her quest.  She made a detour around two or three blocks in order to avoid retracing her steps down Main Street and slipped into the door of this establishment as unostentatiously as she could.

She was saved inquiring for the proprietor by the conviction that the rather dapper-looking gray-haired man who came blinking toward her in a near-sighted way as she paused in the main aisle, was he.  He had a good deal of manner and was evidently proud of it.  But he looked neither weak nor foolish.

“My name’s Rose Stanton,” she said as he came up.  “I’ve come to see if I can get employment in your store.”

His manner changed instantly.  He came a step closer and stared at her with a surprise he didn’t try to conceal.

“I haven’t had any experience as a saleswoman,” she went on, “and I know there’s a lot to learn.  But I’d work hard and learn as fast as ...”

“Excuse me,” he said, “but aren’t you a member of that theatrical company that was here last night?”

The intensity with which he was staring at her made her look away and her eyes rested on a young man whose strong family likeness to the proprietor identified him for her as his son; he had come up and was waiting for a word with his father.  At this question he stared at her too.

The older man whipped around on his son.  “Clear out, Jim,” he said sharply.  And then to Rose:  “You haven’t answered my question.”

“I was a member of that company,” she said.  “But ...”

“We have no vacancy at present,” he said sharply.  “Good day.”

She flinched a little but stood her ground.  “I said I wasn’t experienced as a saleswoman,” she said, “but there are some things I know a good deal about—­clothes and hats....”

He hadn’t stayed to listen; had walked straight to the door and opened it.  Reluctantly she followed him.

“There’s no place,” he said, “in this store, or I trust in the town either, for young women of your sort.  Good day!”

Rose made five more applications for work on Main Street, all with the same result.  Some of those who refused her were panicky about it; one threatened to have her put in jail.  One looked knowing and after he had expressed in jocular though emphatic terms, his sense of her impossibility as a publicly acknowledged employee, intimated a desire to prosecute a personal acquaintance with her further.

She had left the first store incredulous rather than angry, under the impression that she had encountered a chance fanatic.  It seemed impossible that anybody with a well-balanced mind, could treat her as if she carried contamination, merely because she had earned a living for a while in the chorus of a musical comedy.  It was fortunate for her that her first applications were met by anger, rude discourtesy, and openly avowed suspicion, because this treatment roused in her, for the first time in months, a strong surge of indignation.  Her blood came up after these encounters, nearer and nearer the boiling point.  The man who smiled at her like a satyr, was shriveled by the blaze of her blue eyes, and was left, red-faced, blustering weakly after her.