"N-no," she began; "that is—"
"Almost, then?"
"Yes."
"And you did nothing?"
"I didn't dare do anything. I don't see how you dared. It's too big a risk."
"I would have risked more in keeping quiet. I simply had to take it higher up."
"But you said Mr. Rose offered to let it drop," Amy timidly reminded. "You could have done that."
"That!" She had no words to voice her scorn.
They went to bed and rose again in an atmosphere of constraint, and Jean walked to her day's work alone. She dreaded meeting Rose, and apprehended another interview with the junior partner, an ordeal which wore a more forbidding aspect by day. But neither happened. The floor-walker did not appear in the toy department at all, though some one had seen him enter the building. It was rumored that he was ill.
Toward the end of the afternoon Jean noticed that she had become an object of some interest to the forewoman, and wondered hopefully if this influential personage had marked her for promotion. Her pay-envelope, for it was Saturday, shortly furnished a clew to the mystery in the shape of a neat slip informing her that her services were no longer required.