ush your dressing," he suggested, as he moved away.
"I've got plenty to do."

The sextette dressed together in a sort of pen--big enough, because they
had all sorts of room down under the old Globe stage, but so far as
appointments went, decidedly primitive. The walls were of matched
boards; there was a shelf two feet wide or so around three sides of it,
to make a sort of continuous dressing-table; there were six mirrors, six
deal chairs and a few hooks. These were for your street clothes. The
stage costumes hung in neat ranks outside under the eye of the wardrobe
mistress. When you wanted to put one on you went out and got it, and if
the time allowed for the change were sufficient you took it back into
your dressing-room. Otherwise you plunged into it just where you were.
When you wanted to wash before putting on or after taking off your
make-up you went to a row of stationary wash-bowls down the corridor.

All told it wasn't a place to linger in over the indulgence of
day-dreams. But the first glimpse Rose caught, as she opened the door,
in the mirror next her own, was the entranced face of Olga Larson. The
other girls were in an advanced state of undress, intent on getting out
as quickly as they could. They were all talking straight along, of
course, but that didn't delay their operations a bit. They talked
through the towels they were wiping off the make-up with, talked bent
double over shoe-buckles, talked in little gasps as they tugged at tight
sweaty things that didn't want to come off. And they made a striking
contrast to Olga, who sat there just as she'd left the stage, without a
hook unfastened, in a rapturous reverie, waiting for Rose.

In the instant before her entrance was noticed, Rose made an effort to
shake herself together so that she should be not too inadequate to the
situation that awaited her.

She was, of course, immensely pleased over Olga's little triumph.

(For it had been a triumph. Galbraith had persuaded Goldsmith and Block
to buy the little Empire dress in maize and corn-flower; Rose had done
her hair, and Olga had been allowed to sing, on the first _encore_, the
refrain to _All Alone_, quite by herself. She'd gone up an octave on the
end of it to a high A, which in its perfect clarity had sounded about a
third higher and had brought down the house. Patricia had been furious,
of course, but was at bottom too decent to show it much and had actually
congratulated Olga when she came off. It