he was hunting for living models for his new department
store. He looked the girls over, and picked Ruby out from several
hundred. He had her call at his office after business hours, tried her
out in cloaks and evening gowns, and offered her a position. She never,
however, appeared as a model in the Sixth Avenue store. Her likeness to
the newly arrived prima donna suggested to Stein another act in the play
he was always putting on. He gave two of her sisters positions as
saleswomen, but Ruby he established in an apartment on Waverly Place.

"To the outside world Stein became more mysterious in his behaviour
than ever. He dropped his Bohemian friends. No more suppers and
theatre-parties. Whenever Kitty sang, he was in his box at the Manhattan,
usually alone, but not always. Sometimes he took two or three good
customers, large buyers from St. Louis or Kansas City. His coat factory
is still the biggest earner of his properties. I've seen him there with
these buyers, and they carried themselves as if they were being let in on
something; took possession of the box with a proprietory air, smiled and
applauded and looked wise as if each and every one of them were friends
of Kitty Ayrshire. While they buzzed and trained their field-glasses
on the prima donna, Stein was impassive and silent. I don't imagine he
even told many lies. He is the most insinuating cuss, anyhow. He probably
dropped his voice or lifted his eyebrows when he invited them, and let
their own eager imaginations do the rest. But what tales they took back
to their provincial capitals!

"Sometimes, before they left New York, they were lucky enough to see
Kitty dining with their clever garment man at some restaurant, her back
to the curious crowd, her face half concealed by a veil or a fur collar.
Those people are like children; nothing that is true or probable
interests them. They want the old, gaudy lies, told always in the same
way. Siegmund Stein and Kitty Ayrshire--a story like that, once launched,
is repeated unchallenged for years among New York factory sports. In St.
Paul, St. Jo, Sioux City, Council Bluffs, there used to be clothing
stores where a photograph of Kitty Ayrshire hung in the fitting-room or
over the proprietor's desk.

"This girl impersonated you successfully to the lower manufacturing world
of New York for two seasons. I doubt if it could have been put across
anywhere else in the world except in this city, which pays you so
magnificently