"I was sure you did. That is what attracted my attention."
"You are a person of taste, if you will pardon a perfectly obvious compliment from a total stranger, and they need such a woman's guidance. But they need, even more, a little bit of feminine tact and sympathy. Look!" He showed Gus Briskow's blank check. "The whole store is theirs, if they wish it. Think what that ought to mean to two poor starved creatures who have never owned enough clothing to wad a shotgun."
"The girl is stunning. All she needs is the right sort of things—"
Impulsively Gray seized the speaker's hand. "I knew it!" he cried. "I can choose gowns for her, but how can I tell her the sort of—well, corsets she ought to wear? How can I select for her things a bachelor is presumed to know nothing about? Haven't you an hour or two in which to play Fairy Godmother?"
"I have all day," the young woman confessed. "I merely came in to yearn over the pretty things."
"O messenger from Heaven!" he cried, more hopefully. "Would it appear presumptuous if I asked you, in return for this favor, to select the very prettiest gown in this shop for your very own?"
The offer was refused pleasantly, but firmly. "I'd be paid ten times over by the fun of spending oodles of money even if it were not my own. But would they consent to have a stranger—?"
"If you will permit a tiny deceit, I'm sure they will. I shall burden my conscience with a white lie and pretend that you are a friend to whose judgment I have appealed. My poor conscience is scandalously overburdened, but—that girl is suffering!"
"I thought they must have struck oil. I've seen others like them."
Without further ado, Gray hurried his new acquaintance back to the dress department, then, in his easiest manner, introduced her to the Briskows. She flashed him a look of amusement as he glibly made her known as "Miss Good." He had invited Miss Good to join their picnic immediately upon hearing that Ma and Allie were coming to Dallas, and she had been overjoyed. Miss Good, as they could see, possessed unerring good taste, but what was more, she had a real genius for finding bargains. As a bargain hunter Miss Good was positively unique.