do, Emma--when she has her hair done differently, and if
she'll only stand up."

But Emma shook her head.

"T. A., something tells me you're going to have a wonderful chance to
say, 'I told you so!' at three o'clock this afternoon."

"You know I wouldn't say it, Emma."

"Yes; I do know it, dear. But what's the difference, if the chance is
there?"

Suspense settled down on the little office. Billy Spalding entered,
smiling. After five minutes of waiting, even his buoyant spirits sank.

"Don't you think--if you were to go in and--and sort of help adjust
things----" suggested Buck vaguely.

"No; I don't want to prop her up. She'll have to stand alone when she
gets there. She'll either do, or not. When she enters that door, I'll
know."

When Myrtle entered, wearing the fascinatingly fashioned new model,
they all knew.

Emma spoke decisively.

"That settles it."

"What's the matter? Don't it look all right?" demanded Myrtle.

"Take it off, Myrtle."

Then, to the others, as Myrtle, sulking, left the room:

"I can stand to see that skirt die if necessary. But I won't help
murder it."

"But, Mrs. Buck," protested Spalding, almost tearfully, "you've got to
exhibit that skirt. You've got to!"

Emma shook a sorrowing head.

"That wouldn't be an exhibition, Billy. It would be an expose."

Spalding clapped a desperate hand to his bald head.

"If only I had Julian Eltinge's shape, I'd wear it to the show for you
myself."

"That's all it needs now," retorted Emma grimly.

Whereupon, Grace Galt spoke up in her clear, decisive voice.

"Wait a minute," she said quietly. "I'm going to wear that skirt at
the fashion show."

"You!" cried the three, like a trained trio.

"Why not?" demanded Grace Galt, coolly. Then: "No; don't tell me why
not. I won't listen."

But Emma, equally cool, would have none of it.

"It's impossible, dear. You're an angel to want to help me. But you
must know it's quite out of the question."

"It's nothing of the kind. This skirt isn't merely a fad. It has a
fortune in it. I'm business woman enough to know that. You've got to
let me do it. It isn't only for yourself. It's for T. A. and for the
future of the firm."

"Do you suppose I'd allow you to stand up before all those people?"

"Why not? I don't know them. They don't know me. I can make them get
the idea in that skirt. And I'm going to do it. You don't object to
me on the same grounds that you di