"No," said Rose. "Just hold it up."
Galbraith admitted it was beautiful, but wasn't overwhelmed at all as he had been by the other.
"It's not quite so much your style, is it? Not drive enough?"
"It isn't for me," said Rose. "It's for Olga Larson to wear in that All Alone number for the sextette."
"Why Larson especially?" he asked. "Except that she's a friend of yours."
"She isn't," said Rose, "particularly. And anyway, that wouldn't be a reason. But—did you ever really look at her? She's the one really beautiful woman in the company."
"Larson?" said John Galbraith incredulously.
And Rose, with a flush and a smile partly deprecatory over her presumption in venturing to say such things to a formidable authority like the director, and partly the result of an exciting conviction that she was right, told him her mind on the subject, while Galbraith, half fascinated, half amused, listened.
"I don't happen to remember the portrait of the Honorable Mrs. Graham that you speak about," he said, "but I won't deny that you may be right about it."
It was well after closing time by now—a fact that the manager, coming to reinforce the saleswoman, contrived, without saying so, to indicate.