In this wise Jack Corey lost himself from his world and entered into his exile on a mountain top.

CHAPTER SIX

MISS ROSE FORWARD

Times were none too prosperous with the Martha Washington Beauty Shop, upon the sixth floor of a Broadway building.  In the hairdressing parlor half the long rows of chairs reached out empty arms except during the rush hours of afternoon; even then impatient patrons merely sprinkled the room with little oases of activity while the girls busied themselves with tidying shelves already immaculate, and prinking before the mirrors whenever they dared.  An air of uncertainty pervaded the place, swept in by the rumor that the shop was going to cut down its force of operators.  No one knew, of course, the exact truth of the matter, but that made it all the worse.

“‘For one shall be taken and the other left,’” a blonde girl quoted into a dismal little group at the window that looked out over the city.  “Has any one heard any more about it?”

“Rumley has been checking up the appointment lists, all morning,” a short, fat girl with henna-auburn hair piled high on her head reported cheerfully.  “Of course, you could never get a word out of her—­but I know what she is up to.  The girls that have the most steady patrons will stay, of course.  I’m certainly glad I kidded that old widow into thinking she’s puhfectly stunning with her hair hennaed.  She don’t trust anybody but me to touch it up.  And she’s good for a scalp and facial and manicure every week of her life, besides getting her hair dressed every Saturday anyway, and sometimes oftener when she’s going out.  And she always has a marcelle after a shampoo.  She’d quit coming if I left—­she told me so last week.  She thinks I’m there on massages.  And then I’ve got sevrul others that ask for me regular as they come in.  You know that big, fat—­”

“Miss Rose forward,” the foreman’s crisp, businesslike voice interrupted.

Miss Rose began nervously pulling her corn-colored hair into the latest plastered effect on her temples.  “This isn’t any appointment.  I wonder if somebody asked for me, or if Rumley—­”

“Well, kid her along, whoever she is, and talk a lot about her good points.  You never can tell when some old girl is going to pull a lot of patronage your way,” the fat girl advised practically.  “Tell ’em your name and suggest that they call for you next time.  You’ve got to get wise to the trick of holding what you get.  Beat it, kiddo—­being slow won’t help you none with Rumley, and she’s got the axe, remember.”

Thus adjured, Miss Rose beat it, arriving rather breathlessly at her chair, which was occupied by a rather sprightly looking woman with pretty hands and a square jaw and hair just beginning to gray over the temples.  She had her hat off and was regarding herself seriously in the mirror, wondering whether she should touch up the gray, as some of her intimate friends advised, or let it alone as her brother Fred insisted.