Part 32

"I can't help it if I am willowy"--listlessly.

"Your hair!" Myrtle's hand went vaguely to her head. "I can't have you wear it that way."

"Why, this is the French roll!" protested Myrtle, offended.

"Then do it in a German bun!" snapped Emma. "Any way but that. Will you walk, please?"

"Walk?"--dully.

"Yes, walk; I want to see how you----"

Myrtle walked across the room. A groan came from Emma.

"I thought so." She took a long breath.

"Myrtle, listen: That Australian crawl was necessary when our skirts were so narrow we had to negotiate a curbing before we could take it. But the skirt you're going to demonstrate is wide. Like that! You're practically a free woman in it. Step out! Stride! Swing! Walk!"

Myrtle tried it, stumbled, sulked.

Emma, half smiling, half woeful, patted the girl's shoulder.

"Oh, I see; you're wearing a tight one. Well, run in and get into the skirt. Miss Loeb will help you. Then come back here--and quickly, please."

The three looked at each other in silence. It was a silence brimming with eloquent meaning. Each sought encouragement in the eyes of the other--and failed to find it. Failing, they broke into helpless laughter. It proved a safety-valve.

"She may 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."