es, give me a job as a pot slinger even,
low as that is. Oh, I _hate_ working people! I love
refinement. Up to Murray's last night I sat there, eating my
lobster and drinking my wine, and I pretended I was a
lady--and, my, how happy I was!"

The stockroom now opened. Susan, with the help of Miss Hinkle
and the stock keeper, dressed in one of the tight-fitting satin
slips that revealed every curve and line of her form, made
every motion however slight, every breath she drew, a gesture
of sensuousness. As she looked at herself in a long glass in
one of the show-parlors, her face did not reflect the
admiration frankly displayed upon the faces of the two other
women. That satin slip seemed to have a moral quality, an
immoral character. It made her feel naked--no, as if she were
naked and being peeped at through a crack or keyhole.

"You'll soon get used to it," Miss Hinkle assured her. "And
you'll learn to show off the dresses and cloaks to the best
advantage." She laughed her insinuating little laugh again,
amused, cynical, reckless. "You know, the buyers are men.
Gee, what awful jay things we work off on them, sometimes!
They can't see the dress for the figure. And you've got such
a refined figure, Miss Sackville--the kind I'd be crazy about
if I was a man. But I must say----" here she eyed herself in
the glass complacently--"most men prefer a figure like mine.
Don't they, Miss Simmons?"

The stock keeper shook her fat shoulders in a gesture of
indifferent disdain. "They take whatever's handiest--that's
_my_ experience."

About half-past nine the first customer appeared--Mr. Gideon,
it happened to be. He was making the rounds of the big
wholesale houses in search of stock for the huge Chicago
department store that paid him fifteen thousand a year and
expenses. He had been contemptuous of the offerings of
Jeffries and Jonas for the winter season, had praised with
enthusiasm the models of their principal rival, Icklemeier,
Schwartz and Company. They were undecided whether he was
really thinking of deserting them or was feeling for lower
prices. Mr. Jeffries bustled into the room where Susan stood
waiting; his flat face quivered with excitement. "Gid's come!"
he said in a hoarse whisper. "Everybody get busy. We'll try
Miss Sackville on him."

And he himself assisted while they tricked out Susan in an
afternoon costume of pale gray, putting on her head a big pale
gray hat with harmonizing feath