"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 br.i.m.m.i.n.g 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."
"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 did to Myrtle, do you?"
"You!" burst from the admiring Spalding. "Say, you"d make a red-flannel petticoat look like crepe de Chine and lace."
"There!" said Grace, triumphant. "That settles it!" And she was off down the hall. They stood a moment in stunned silence. Then:
"But Jock!" protested Emma, following her. "What will Jock say? Grace!
Grace dear! I can"t let you do it! I can"t!"
"Just unhook this for me, will you?" replied Grace Galt sweetly.
At two o"clock, Jock McChesney, returned from his errand of mercy, burst into the office to find mother, step-father, and fiancee all flown.
"Where? What?" he demanded of the outer office.
"Fashion show!" chorused the office staff
"Might have waited for me," Jock said to himself, much injured. And hurled himself into a taxi.
There was a crush of motors and carriages for a block on all sides of Madison Square Garden. He had to wait for what seemed an interminable time at the box-office. Then he began the task of worming his way through the close-packed throng in the great auditorium. It was a crowd such as the great place had not seen since the palmy days of the horse show. It was a crowd that sparkled and shone in silks and feathers and furs and jewels.
"Jove, if mother has half a chance at this gang!" Jock told himself.
"If only she has grabbed some one who can really show that skirt!"