THE SHOP GIRL (continued 6)

Win had heard of a "vicious circle." It seemed that she and Sadie and Ursus were travelling in one, going round and round, and could never get out.

"But I must go down," the mechanical part of herself kept repeating.

She had involuntarily paused near the door to think things out in peace. There were no patients for the two narrow white beds, and the nurse—a small, nervous woman with sentimental eyes—was heating water over a spirit lamp. She suffered from headache and had prescribed herself some tea. The water had begun to boil, and despite the throbbing in her temples she hummed monotonously: "You Made Me Love You."

Winifred heard the tune through her thoughts of Sadie and Earl Usher, and it seemed to make everything sadder and more hopeless. But suddenly the singing broke off—the thin voice rose to a shriek, and was lost in a loud explosion.

In the act of going out Win turned, bewildered and expecting horror. Head down, her hands covering her burned face, the nurse came staggering toward the door. Hair and cap were on fire. All over the white dress and apron were dotted little blue tongues of flame that had spouted out from the bursting lamp.

Often such an accident had been lightly prophesied by this very woman. The spirit sent up for the hospital was of the cheapest. Peter Rolls was "not in business for his health!"

Dazed by the deafening noise, and shocked to the very heart by the woman's shriek of pain, Win was not conscious of thought. She did not tell herself to spring to the nearest bed, tear off the covering, stop the nurse before she could rush wildly into the corridor, and wrap her in the blanket. All she knew for a moment was that she had done and was doing these things, that she was using her strength to hold the maddened creature, and all the while calling out for help.

The doctor had not yet reached the end of the long corridor, and the explosion and cries brought him and others running. Vaguely Win was conscious that there were women there, maids who cleaned floors and windows, and that there were two or three men besides Dr. Marlow. She thought that he ordered some of them out and gave directions to others, but the scene sharpened into detail only when she heard herself told to stay and give assistance.

She aiding the doctor, the nurse's burns were dressed. The little quivering creature, hastily undressed, was put to bed, face, head, arms, and hands covered with oil and bandaged. It was not until another nurse—telephoned for from somewhere to somewhere—had arrived, and the invalid had been given an opiate, that Win realized the tingling pain in her own fingers.

"Why, yes, so I am burned a little!" she exclaimed when the doctor asked to see her hands. "But it's nothing to matter. I can go back to work now. Nurse is all right."

"No, it's nothing to matter, and you can go back to work, all right," briskly echoed Marlow, who was no coddler of any hands at Peter Rolls's; "that is, you can when I've patched you up a bit. And nurse isn't going to be bad, either. She won't be disfigured, I can guarantee that—thanks to you."

"Thanks to me?" Win echoed.

"Yes, just that. Perhaps you don't realize that you probably saved her life."

"No. I—I don't think I've realized anything yet." She found herself suddenly wanting to cry, but remembered a day on the Monarchic (as she always did remember if tears felt near) and swallowed the rising lump in her throat.

"Well, don't bother about it. You can get conceited later. Here, drink this to quiet your nerves in case you feel jumpy, and now run along. It'll be all right for you downstairs. The news will have got to your dep by this time and they'll know why you're late."

Win "ran along" and found the doctor's prophecy correct The news had bounded ahead of her.

"I hear you've been distinguishing yourself," said Mr. Wellby, the floorwalker. "Let's see your hands. Oh, I guess they won't put you out of business, a brave girl like you."

"I'm as well as ever, thank you," said Win.

Stupid of her, wanting to cry again just because people were paying her compliments! But perhaps she hadn't quite got over last night and not sleeping at all. And then Sadie's letter. Things had piled on top of each other, but she mustn't let herself go to pieces. She must keep her wits and think—think—think how to get at Sadie and what to do for her.

Dr. Marlow had covered Win's fingers with something he called "newskin," since it would not do for a "saleslady" to disgust customers by serving them with bandaged hands. It was like a transparent varnish and made her nails shine as brightly as those of the vainest girls who spent all their spare time in polishing. But the redness showed through, as if her hands were horribly chapped. She saw a lady who had asked her to try on a white lace evening coat staring at them.

"What's the matter with your hands?" The question came sharply.

"I scalded them a little this morning," Win explained.

"Oh! I'm glad it isn't a disease."

The girl blushed faintly, ashamed, glanced down at the offending pink fingers, and turning slowly round to display the cloak, suddenly looked up into the eyes of Peter Rolls.

She could not help starting and drawing in her breath. For half a second her brain whirled and she thought that she imagined him, that it was just such another vision as those of last night when she had put on the Moon dress.

His eyes were looking at her as they had looked then, and they were the good blue eyes of Mr. Balm of Gilead. It could not be that he was really here gazing at her. It must be some other man like him. But no! He had taken off his hat. He was saying something in the well remembered—too well remembered!—voice.

"How do you do, Miss Child? When you've finished with this lady, I shall be so much obliged if you can speak to me for a minute."

She bowed her head—quite a polite, ordinary sort of bow, just like that of any well-trained saleslady to a prospective customer intending to wait till she was free. But really it did not mean politeness at all. It meant that she had to hide her face, and that it was taking every square inch of nerve force she had to behave in the least like a saleslady.

It was seeing Peter Rolls suddenly—Peter Rolls in flesh and bone and muscle and magnetism of eyes, which told her in a devastating flash a thing about herself she had feared for months—ever since the day she turned her back upon Mr. Balm of Gilead and the Monarchic.

She was in love with him. Hideously, desperately, overwhelmingly in love with him, just as ridiculous girls always were with men they oughtn't to think of. Probably he had tried to make her so at first with his friendly, chivalrous ways that hid blacknesses underneath.

She had escaped, thanks to his sister. And it looked as if those horrid hints had indeed been true, otherwise he would not have troubled to persist after his snubbing. For he had persisted. Some glint of blue light in the steady eyes told her that. This was not a coincidence. Mr. Rolls had the air of having found her at last. She must make him sorry for it. Because, after her experience of the other man who had persisted—though she thought herself forgotten—why should she hope against hope that this man was different?

At last the customer, who did not hurry in the least—rather the contrary—wore all excuses for lingering to shreds, she waddled fatly away, carrying the lace cloak with her; and Win, not shirking the ordeal as she had done when Jim Logan haunted Toyland, turned to Peter Rolls.

CHAPTER XXV

A PIECE OF HER MIND

"Miss Child, I've been looking for you for months!" were Peter's first words when he had her to himself.

Instantly she knew what her pose ought to be. Not prim stiffness, not suspicious maidenly dignity, but just smiling civility, a recognition of past slight acquaintance. This would do for the beginning. This must surely show him that the tactics Ena credited him with were useless here.

"Have you? How nice of you to say so," she braced herself to reply with gayest indifference. "Well, I've been in this store for—a long time, migrating from one department to another and learning the business. I'm quite a fair saleswoman now, I assure you. Are you going to buy a cloak? Because, if not—this is a busy morning."

"Yes, I'll buy one as a present for my mother," said Peter. "I should like you to choose her something. I described her to you once, but I suppose you've forgotten. She's little, and rather plump, and has beautiful white hair and a rosy complexion. But, Miss Child, I want to talk to you, not about cloaks, about yourself. I've asked permission, and they know who I am, and it's all right. I said you and my sister were friends. That's true, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes!"

"I believed we were friends once. And we were, too. The more I've thought of it, the surer I've been. Something happened to make you change your mind about me. I was struck all of a heap at first. I didn't have the sense to know what to say or do, to try and put myself back where I had been. I let you go. And I lost you. But I'm not going to lose you again. You can see how much in earnest I am when I tell you that I haven't stopped looking for you for one single day after I realized you wouldn't keep your promise about writing my sister."

"It wasn't a promise," breathed Win. "I—never meant to write to her."

"I thought so!"

"Why should I? It was very kind of Miss Rolls to suggest it, if I should ever want help. But I didn't want help. All I wanted was to get on by myself."

"I know you mean me to understand from that, Miss Child, that you don't think I've any right to force myself on you after you showed me so plainly you thought me a bounder," said Peter, not mincing his words or stumbling over them. "But I'm not a bounder. There must be some way of proving to you that I'm not. That's why I'm here for one thing, though there's another––"

"What?" Winifred threw in, frightened, and thinking it better to cut him short in time.

"I want you to meet my mother and let her help you to get some kind of a position more—more worthy of your talents than this."

Win laughed aloud. "You run down your father's shop?"

"It's not good enough for you."

She flushed, and all her pent-up anger against the House of the Hands tingled in that flush.

"You say so because I once had the great honour of being an acquaintance of yours—and your sister's," she hurried breathlessly on. "For all the rest of the people here, the people you don't know and don't want to know, you think it good enough—too good, perhaps—even splendid! It does look so, doesn't it? Magnificent! And every one of your father's employees so happy—so fortunate to be earning his wages. They're worms—that doesn't matter to rich men like you, Mr. Rolls. Unless, perhaps, a girl happens to be pretty—or you knew her once and remember that she was an individual. Oh, you must feel I'm very ungrateful for your interest. Maybe you mean to be kind—about your mother. But give your interest to those who need it. I don't. I've seen your name in the papers—interviews—things you try to do for the 'poor.' It's a sort of fad, isn't it—in your set? But charity begins at home. You could do more by looking into things and righting wrongs in your father's own shop than anywhere else in the world."

She stopped, panting a little, her colour coming and going She had not meant this at first. It was far removed from smiling civility, this—tirade! But, as Sadie Kirk would say, "He had asked for it."

He was looking at her with his straight, level gaze. He was astonished, maybe, but not angry. And she did not know whether to be glad or sorry that she had not been able to rouse him to rage. His look into her eyes was no longer that of a young man for a young woman who means much to him. That light had died while the stream of her words poured out.

For a moment, when she had ceased, they stared at each other in silence, his face very grave, hers flushed and suggesting a superficial repentance.

"Forgive me," she plumped two words into the pause, as if pumping air into a vacuum. "I oughtn't to have said all that. It was rude."

"But true? You think it's true?"

"Yes."

"You have been working here in my father's store for months, and you say I could do more good by righting the wrongs here than anywhere else in the world. That sounds pretty serious."

"It is serious. Whether I ought to have spoken or not."

"I tell you, you ought to have spoken. It was—brave of you. That's the way I always think of you, Miss Child, being brave—whatever happens. And laughing."

"I don't laugh now."

"Not at other people's troubles—I know. But you would at your own."

"I'm not thinking of my own. To-day of all days!"

He wondered what she meant. His mind flashed swiftly back to last night and all that had happened. He could have kissed the hem of her black dress to see her here, safe and vital enough to fling reproaches at him for his sins—of omission. Yet he must stand coldly discussing grievances. No, "coldly" was not the word. No word could have been less appropriate to the boiling emotions under Peter Rolls's grave, composed manner.

He let the baffling sentence go—a sentence which framed thoughts of Sadie Kirk.

"I should like to hear from you the specific wrongs you want righted," he said. "I know a girl of your sort wouldn't speak vaguely. You do mean something specific."

"Yes—I do."

"Then tell me—now."

"You came to buy a cloak for your mother."

"I didn't come for that, and you know it. I came for you. But you put a shield between us to keep me off. When you have emptied your heart of some of these grievances that are making it hot—against me, maybe you won't have to put me at the same distance. Maybe you'll let me be your friend again, if I can deserve it."

"I don't want to talk or think of ourselves at all!" she broke out.

"I don't ask you to. All that—and my mother's cloak, too—you needn't be getting down that box!—can wait. If you won't be my friend, anyhow show me how to help your friends."

"Oh, if you would do that!" Win cried.

"I will. Give me the chance."

Despite his injunction, she had taken from its neat oak shelf a box of summer wraps and placed it on the counter behind which she stood. Now, not knowing what she did, she lifted the cardboard cover and seemed to peep in at the folds of chiffon and silk.

Peter looked not at the box, but at her pitiful, reddened hands on the lid. The blood mounted slowly to his temples and he bit his lip. He, too, was standing, though any one of several green velvet-covered stools was at his service. He turned away, leaning so much weight on the bamboo stick he held that it bent and rather surprised him.

Suddenly the scene struck him as very strange, almost unreal—Winifred Child, his lost dryad, found in his father's store, separated from him by a dignified barrier of oak and many other things invisible! This talk going on between them—after last night! The hum of women's voices in the distance (they kept their distance in this vast department because he was Peter Rolls, Jr., as all the employees by this time knew) and the heavy heat and the smell of oak seemed to add to the unreality of what was going on. Fresias would have helped. But there was nothing here that suggested help—unless you wanted advice about a cloak.

Win had been marshalling her ideas like an army hastily assembled to fight in the dark.

"That is a favour I couldn't refuse to take from you, even if I would," she said in a low voice, "to help my friends."

"It is no favour. You'll be doing me that."

She went on as if he had not spoken.

"I don't know about any shops in New York except this one—only things I've heard. Some of the girls I've met here have worked in other department stores. They say—this is one of the worst. I have to tell you that—now I've begun. There's no use keeping it back—or you won't understand how I feel. There are real abuses. The Hands don't break the laws—that's all. About hours—we close at the right time, but the salespeople are kept late, often very late, looking over stock. Not every night for the same people, but several times a week. We have seats, but we mustn't use them. It would look as if we were lazy—or business were bad. We 'lend' the management half the time we're allowed for meals on busy days—and never have it given back. The meals themselves served in the restaurant—the dreadful restaurant—seem cheap, but they ought to be cheaper, for they're almost uneatable. Those of us who can't go out get ptomain poisoning and appendicitis. I know of cases. Hardly any of us can afford enough to eat on our salaries. I should think our blood must be almost white!

"But nobody here cares how we live out of business hours, so long as we're 'smart' and look nice. When we aren't smart—because we're ill, perhaps—and can't any longer look nice—because we're getting older or are too tired to care—why, then we have to go; poor, worn-out machines—fit for the junk shop, not for a department store! Even here, in Mantles, where we get a commission, the weak ones go to the wall. We must be like wolves to make anything we can save for a rainy day. But any girl or man who'll consent to act the spy on others—there's a way to earn money, lots of it. A few are tempted. They must degenerate more and more, I think! And there are other things that drive some of us—the women, I mean—to desperation. But I can't tell you about them. You must find out for yourself—if you care."

"If I care!" echoed Peter.

"If you do, why haven't you found out all these things, and more, long ago?" she almost taunted him, carried away once again by the thought of those she championed—the "friends" she had not come to in her story yet.

"Because—my father made it a point that I should keep my hands off the Hands. That was the way he put it. I must justify myself far enough to tell you that."

"But—if one's in earnest, need one take no for an answer?"

"I suppose I wasn't in earnest enough. I thought I was. But I couldn't have been. You're making me see that now."

"I haven't told you half!"

"Then—go on."

"You really wish it?"

"Yes."

"The floorwalkers and others above them have power that gives them the chance to be horribly unjust and tyrannical if they like. There are lots of fine ones. But there are cruel and bad ones, too. And then—I can't tell you what life is like for the under dog! And cheating goes on that we all see and have to share in—sales of worthless things advertised to attract women. We get a premium for working off 'dead stock.' Each department must be made to pay, separately and on its own account, you see, whatever happens! And that's why each one is its own sweatshop––"

"I swear to you this isn't my father's fault," involuntarily Peter broke in. "He's not young any more, you see, and he worked so hard in his early years that he's not strong enough to keep at it now. Not since I can remember has he been able to take a personal interest in the store, except from a distance. He leaves it to others, men he believes that he can trust. Not coming here himself, he––"

"Why, he comes nearly every day!" Win cried out, then stopped suddenly at sight of Peter's face.

"I—am sure you're mistaken about that one thing, Miss Child," he said. "You must have been misinformed. They must have told you some one else was he––"

The girl was silent, but Peter's eyes held hers, and the look she gave him told that she was not convinced. "You don't believe me?" he asked.

"I believe you don't know. He does come. It's always been toward the closing hour when I've seen him. The first time he was pointed out to me was by a floorwalker on Christmas Eve. I was in the toy department then. He was with Mr. Croft. How strange you didn't know!"

"If it was father—perhaps I can guess why he didn't want us to find out. But even now I—well, I shall go home and ask him if he realizes what is happening here. Somehow I shall help your friends, Miss Child."

"I haven't told you about them yet," Win said. "It was really one friend who was in my mind. There may be ever so many others just as sad as she. But I love her. I can't bear to have her die just because she's poor and unimportant—except to God. Dr. Marlow thinks she's curable. Only—the things she needs she can't afford to get, and I haven't any money left to buy them for her; just my salary, and no more. There's one thing I can do, though! I'll learn to be a wolf, like some of the others, and snatch commissions."

"Don't do that!" Peter smiled at her sadly. "I shouldn't like to think of you turning into a wolf. Your friend is sick––"

"She was told by the doctor yesterday that it was a case of consumption. I had a letter from her this morning—bidding me good-bye. You see, she was discharged on the spot, with only a week's wages."

"Beastly!" exclaimed Peter. "There ought to be some kind of a convalescent home in connection with this store—or two, rather, one for contagious sort of things and the other not. I––"

"She wrote in her letter that she'd heard of a place where consumptives were taken in and treated free," Win went on when he paused. "But she wouldn't tell me where it was. And Dr. Marlow says there is nothing of the sort––"

"Oh, he can't have read the newspapers these last few days. It's been open a week."

"Then you know about it?"

"Yes. You see—it's a sort of—friend of mine who's started the scheme. The house is not very big yet. But he'll enlarge it if it makes a success."

"Quite free?"

"Yes. Anybody can come and be examined by the doctor. No case will be refused while there's room. I—my friend lost his dearest friend years ago—a boy of his own age then—from consumption. It almost broke his heart. And he made up his mind that when he grew up and had a little money of his own, he'd start one of those open-air places in the country free."

"I believe you're speaking of yourself!" exclaimed Win, her face lighting. Then Ena Rolls's brother couldn't be all bad!

"Well, I'm in the business, too. This must be the place the girl is going to. She shall be cured, I promise you. And when she's well she shall have work in the country to keep her strong and make her happy. Will that please you?"

"Yes," Win answered. "But—it doesn't please me to feel you're doing it for that reason."

"I'm not. Only partly, at least. I'm thankful for the chance to help. And this shan't be all. There'll be other ways. Please don't think too badly of me, Miss Child. I trusted my father, as he wished. And he trusts Mr. Croft—too completely, I fear."

Again Win was silent. She had heard things about Peter Rolls, Sr., which made her fancy that he was not a man to trust any one but himself. And she did not yet dare to trust his son. The look was coming back into his eyes which made her remember that he was a man like other men. Yet it was hard not to trust him! And because it was so hard she grew afraid.

"Give me the address of that convalescent home," she broke her own silence by saying. "I want to write to my friend, Sadie Kirk—and go to see her—if she's really there. Mr. Rolls, I shall bless you if she is cured."

Petro had taken out his cardcase and was writing.

"Then, sooner or later, I shall have my blessing," he said quietly. "Couldn't you give me just a small first instalment of it now? Couldn't you tell me what changed you toward me on the ship? Had it anything to do with my family—any gossip you heard?"

"In a way, yes. But I can't possibly tell you. Please don't ask me."

"I won't. But give me some hope that I can live it down. You see, I can't spare you out of my life. I had you in it only a few days. Yet those days have made all the difference."

Win stiffened.

"I can't let you talk to me like that," she said almost sharply, if her creamy voice could be sharp. "I hate it. You'll make me wish—for my own sake—if it weren't for my friend, I mean—that you hadn't found me here. I thought—I don't see why I shouldn't say it!—when I asked for work in your father's store that none of the family would ever come near the place. I was told they never did. But it wasn't true. You all come!"

"You mean my father and I?"

"And Miss Rolls, too––"

"She came?"

"Yes, with Lord Raygan, and—and I think you and Lady Eileen were here, too."

"We were," Peter said. "And so—you were in the store even then? Nobody told me."

"I hoped they wouldn't."

It was his turn to be silent, understanding Eileen's dream. Raygan must have talked to her about the girl. But there would have been nothing to say, if Ena had not said it first. Ena had "explained things" to Raygan, perhaps—and then––

An old impression came back to Peter. He remembered Ena's protest against his friendship for a "dressmaker," and her kindness later. He remembered asking himself on the dock if Ena could have made mischief. He had put the thought away as treacherous, not once, but many times. Now he did not put it away. He faced it, and wondered if he could ever forgive his sister. It seemed at that moment that he never could.

"Will you choose the cloak for Mrs. Rolls?" Win was asking in the professional tone of the obliging young saleswoman.

"I—er—yes, I suppose so. Which one do you suggest?"

"Any of these would be charming for—the lady you've described. She'd like it better, I'm sure, if you chose it yourself."

"No, I want you to choose, please. I've already told her about you. If it hadn't been for her I shouldn't have found you so soon. She advised me to try the Hands. No matter what you may think of me, there's only one opinion to have of mother. And you can't object to meeting her. You choose the cloak and I'll bring her to see you—in it."

Win kept her eyes on the assortment of silk motoring and dust coats which she had arranged on the broad counter for Mr. Rolls's inspection. Suddenly a great weight was lifted from her head, as if kind hands had gently removed a tight helmet.

Would such a man as Ena Rolls had sketched in her shadow portrait of a brother bring his mother to meet a shop girl whom he fancied? It seemed not. Yet men of that type were the cleverest, as she already knew. Maybe he didn't really mean to bring Mrs. Rolls. It would be easy, from time to time, to postpone her visit. And Win was very proud. She thought of Ena's annoyance at happening upon her in the elevator, and how reluctantly Miss Rolls had taken up the cue of cordiality from Lord Raygan. Oh, it was best—in any case—it was the only way to keep personalities out of her intercourse with the man who had once been Mr. Balm of Gilead.

"This silver gray is one of the prettiest of the new wraps," she glibly advertised her wares.

"Very well, if you like it, I'll marry—I mean, I'll take it. Tell me how you hurt your hands."

"There's nothing to tell," she put him off again, visibly freezing—an intellectual feat in such weather. "And—really, as I said before, I don't care to talk about myself."

Her look, even more than her words, shut Peter up. The cloak saved the situation during a few frigid seconds. But as a situation it had become strained. The only hope for the future was to go now. And Peter went. He went straight back to Sea Gull Manor and to his father.

CHAPTER XXVI

WHEN THE SECRET CAME OUT

Father was in the library when Peter got home. One did not open the door and walk straight into this sacred room. One knocked, and if father happened to be engaged in any pursuit which he did not wish the family eye to see, he had time to smuggle it away and take up a newspaper, or even a book, before calling out "Come in."

To-day, not being well, he was allowing himself the luxury of a jig-saw puzzle, but as he considered the amusement frivolous for a man of his position, at the sound of his son's voice he hustled the board containing the half-finished picture into a drawer of his roll-top desk. In order to be doing something, he caught up a paper. It was Town Tales, and his eye, searching instinctively for the name of Rolls, saw that of the Marchese di Rivoli coupled with it and a slighting allusion. A wave of physical weakness surged over the withered man as he asked himself if he had done wrong in sanctioning his daughter's engagement to the Italian.

"What do you want?" he greeted Petro testily.

He was invariably testy when indigestion had him in its claw, and his tone gave warning that this was a bad moment Still Petro was bursting with his subject. He could not bear to postpone the fight. Instead of putting it off, he resolved to be exceedingly careful in his tactics.

"I want to talk with you, Father, if you don't mind," he began pleasantly. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything important?"

"I am supposed to be left to myself in the mornings," said Peter senior, martyrized. "Though I don't go to the store, I must read Croft's reports and keep in touch with things."

"It's about the store I'd like to talk." Peter was thankful for this opening. He perched hesitatingly on the arm of an adipose easy chair, not having been specifically invited to sit.

"Why, what have you got to say about the Hands?" Defiance underlay tone and look.

"It was in this very room I promised you I'd keep my hands off the Hands," Peter quoted. "But I want you to let me take the promise back."

"I'll do nothing of the sort!" shrilled Peter senior. "What do you mean?"

"I need to work. I've tried other things, but my thoughts always come back to the Hands. I'm proud of your success you know. I want to—to batten on it. And I want to carry it on. I have ideas of my own."

"I bet you have, and damned poor ideas, too," snapped the old man. "I'm not going to have them tried in my place while I'm alive."

"Let me tell you what some of them are, won't you, before you condemn them?" his son pleaded, refusing to be ruffled.

"No. I won't have my time wasted on any such childishness," growled Peter senior. "You ought to know better than to trouble me with every silly, trifling idea you get into your head."

"To me this is not trifling," Peter argued. "It's so serious that if you refuse to take me into your business—I don't care how humble a position you start me—I shall begin to make my own way in the world. I can't go on as I am, living on you, with an allowance that comes out of the Hands, unless you give me some hope that I can soon work up to having a voice in the management."

"I suppose what you are really hinting at is a bigger allowance under a different name," sneered old Peter. "Now you're turning socialist—oh, you don't suppose I'm blind when I come to your name and your quixotic schemes in the newspapers! You don't like the red-hot chaps raving about 'unearned increment,' or whatever they call it."

"No, it isn't that," Peter said simply. "I don't much care what people say, so long as I can help things along a bit; though, of course, I'd rather it would be with my money than yours, no matter how generous you are about giving and asking no questions. I don't ask for more, or want it. But I do want to feel that—forgive me, Father!—I do want to feel that on the money I handle there's no sweat wrung out of men's bodies or tears from women's eyes."

Peter senior had sat only half turned from his desk, as if suggesting to Peter junior that the sooner he was allowed to get back to work, the better. But at these last words, unexpected as a blow, he swung violently round in his revolving chair to glare at the young man.

"Well, I'm damned!" he ejaculated.

Peter sincerely hoped not, but felt that silence was safer than putting his hopes into words.

"This comes of turning socialist! You insult your father who supports you in luxury––"

"I don't mean to insult you, Father, and I don't want to be supported in luxury. I want to work for every cent I have. I want to work hard."

"I never thought," Peter senior reflected aloud, abruptly changing his tone, "to hear a son of mine spout this sort of cheap folderol, and I never thought that any one of my blood would be weak enough to come crawling and begging to break a solemn promise."

"It means strength, not weakness, to break some promises—the kind that never ought to have been made," Peter junior defended himself. "I'd break it without crawling or begging if I thought you'd prefer, except that it would be no use. Unless I had your permission, I couldn't get taken into the Hands."

"Well, you don't get it. See?" retorted the head of the Hands as rudely as he could ever have spoken in old days to his humblest subordinate.

"Then, Father, if that's your last word on the subject," said Petro, rising, "this means for you and me, where business is concerned, the parting of the ways."

The old man's sallow face was slowly, darkly suffused with red. "You're trying to bully me," he grunted. "But I'm not taking any bluff."

"You misjudge me." Petro still kept his temper. "I'd be a disgusting cad to try on such a game with you, and I don't think I am that. I'm more thankful than I can tell you for all you've done for me. You've had a hard life yourself, and you've secured me an easy one. You never had time to see the world, but you let me see it because I longed to—when I saw you had no use for me in the business. You let me give money away and, thanks to your generosity, one or two schemes I had at heart are in working order already. There's enough saved out of my allowance for the last few years to see them through, if I never take another cent from you. And I never will, from this day on, Father, while you run the Hands on present lines."

"You're a blank idiot!" snarled the old man; but a strained, almost frightened look was stretched in queer lines on his yellow face. He was thinking of Ena and of the newspapers. He could hear the dogs yapping round his feet.

"Young Peter Rolls breaks away from home. Earns his living with his own hands, not father's Hands. What he says about his principles"—or some such rot as that would certainly appear in big, black headlines just when Ena and her magnificent marchese were searching the columns for gush over the forthcoming marriage. It would spoil the girl's pleasure in her wedding.

Old Peter was furious with young Peter, but began angrily to realize that the matter was indeed serious. He desired to be violent, but fear of Ena dashed cold water on the fire of his rage. Against his will and against his nature he began to temporize, meaning later to revenge his present humiliation upon his son.

"Who the devil has been upsetting you with lies about the Hands?" he spluttered.

"I'm afraid we must take for granted that what has 'upset' me isn't lies." Peter let his sadness show in face and voice. "I don't wonder you're surprised and perhaps angry at my coming to you and suddenly throwing out some sort of accusations, when year after year I've been receiving money from the Hands as meek as a lamb without a word or question. I don't defend myself for lack of interest in the past or for too much now. Maybe I'm to blame both ways. But please remember, Father, you said that unless I distrusted you, I was to stand aside. After that I was so anxious to prove I trusted you all right, that I hurried to promise before I'd stopped to think. Since then I've been made to think—furiously to think—and––"

"I was brought up to believe there was no excuse for breaking a promise," Peter senior cut him short severely. There was Petro's chance to score, and—right or wrong—he took it.

"Then things have changed since the days when you were being brought up," he said, with one of those straight, clear looks old Peter had always disliked as between son and father. "Because, you know you promised Ena you would give up going to the store except for important business meetings once or twice a year. And you haven't given it up. You go there nearly every night."

Peter senior physically quailed. His great secret was found out! No use to bluster. Somehow young Peter had got hold of the long-hidden truth. He was, in a way, at the fellow's mercy. If Petro chose to tell Ena this thing she would fancy that every one except the family knew how old Peter's grubbing habits had never been shaken off; that with him once a shopkeeper, always a shopkeeper, and that behind her back people must be laughing at the difference between her aristocratic airs and her father's commonness.

The old man's stricken face shocked Peter. He was as much ashamed of himself as if he had kicked his father.

"I oughtn't to have told you, I know," he stammered. "Anyhow, not like this. I'm sorry."

Peter senior gathered himself together and feebly bluffed.

"You needn't be sorry," he blustered in a thin voice at the top of his throat. "What do I care whether you know or not? There's no disgrace in looking after my own business, I guess! To please Ena, I've made a sort of secret of it, that's all. I never 'promised.' I only let her and other folks it didn't concern suppose I lived in idleness, like the lords they admire so much. No harm in that! As for you, you're welcome to know what I do with my time when I go to New York. But it's none of your business, all the same, and you'd better keep still about it, or you'll regret your meddling. Who told you? That's what I want to get at. Who stuffed you up to the neck with all that damned nonsense about 'sweat and tears?' I bet it's the same man who tried to blackmail me with my own son about my going to the Hands nights."

"It wasn't a man who told me," said Peter, "it was a woman—or, rather, a girl. It was me she was blaming, not you. She thought I was responsible for the wrongs she and other employees suffer from. She didn't know it was a secret, your visiting the place. She simply mentioned it as a fact––"

"And you, a son of mine, stood quietly listening to abuse of your father and the house that's made his fortune—his fortune and yours—from a pert young clerk in his store!"

At last Peter senior could speak with the voice of injured virtue. He could reach Peter junior with the well-deserved lash of reproach. But no! The lash striking out, touched air.

"Father, I listened because I love the girl," Peter answered "Wait, please! Let me explain. I fell in love with her on the Monarchic. Then something happened and I lost sight of her. Yesterday I found her at the Hands. I wanted to talk to her about love, but she made me listen to her instead. She said sharp things about the store that cut like knives. Don't think I'm accusing you if the Hands is a sweatshop. You trust Croft, and he's abused his trust. That must be it. For God's sake, give me a chance to help you put things straight."

For a moment—a long moment—Peter senior did not speak, and Peter junior would have given much to know where his thoughts had gone. They were away somewhere—with the Hands or with the girl who had made Petro listen.

"Will you do it, Father? Will you give me a chance?" his son repeated.

Old Peter started. "Old Peter" seemed the only name that fitted him just then.

"One of my children is going to marry a marquis and the other wants to marry a clerk behind my counters," he almost whimpered.

Then Petro knew, without telling, which direction his father's thoughts had taken.

"Don't be afraid that she isn't a lady," the young man humoured the old man's prejudices. "She's English and beautiful and clever and brave. She saved a woman from being burned to death to-day at the Hands. She didn't tell me that story, but I heard it. God made her to be a princess. Misfortune put her behind a counter in our store. Oh, no! not misfortune. Though she's had a hard time at the Hands, and shows it in her face, I believe she'd say herself that she's glad of the experience. And if through her those that have suffered wrong from us can be––"

"Don't talk to me any more about all this just now, my son," Peter senior suddenly implored rather than commanded "You've given me a shock—several shocks. I—I'm not fit for 'em to-day, I guess. I told you I wasn't well. I'm feeling bad. I'm feeling mighty bad."

His looks confirmed his words. In the last few moments since the angry flush had passed, the old man's face had faded to a sicklier yellow than Petro had ever seen upon it—except one day, long ago, when Peter Rolls, Sr., had tried to be a yachtsman in order to please Ena—and the weather had been unkind. The young man was stabbed by remorse. Reason told him that now was the moment to press his point home. But compassion bade him withdraw it from the wound. It was true that his father was not well and had warned him of the fact at the beginning of their conversation. Petro had gone too far.

"I'm sorry, Father," he apologized. "I meant to stir you up, but I didn't mean to give you a shock. Shall I ring? Is there anything you want?"

"Only to be alone," replied the other. "I'll lie down here on the sofa. By and by, if I don't feel better, I'll go to my room maybe and make it dark and sleep this headache off. I don't remember when I've been so bad. But don't say anything to your mother."

"You mean about your going to the Hands? She knows about the girl."

"No, I mean about my head. I don't care whether or no your mother hears that I go to the Hands. It's Ena and outside folks I care for, and them only for Ena's sake. She's so proud! And when she gets home from France––"

"Not a word to her, I promise. Nor to any one outside. But do you know, I believe mother would be glad to hear that you sometimes go to the store? She'd think it was like old times. And she loves the old times."

"Tell your mother anything you like. She's got a still tongue in her head." Peter senior gasped out his words with the desperate air of a man at the end of his tether. "Only go now—go, and let my head rest. You and I can discuss all these things later. That'll be best for us both."

Peter junior was silenced, though he thought he knew his father too well to draw great encouragement from an offer of future discussion. The old man assuredly did feel ill, and it would have been brutal to force him into further argument. The only thing was to go now and attack him again before the sensitive surface of his feelings had had time thoroughly to harden.

Young Peter and his mother lunched alone together at the stately English hour of two which Ena had decreed for the household. Old Peter had ordered a cup of hot milk and had sent word that, his indigestion being rather worse than usual, he intended to spend the afternoon lying down. This had often happened before, and mother, though distressed, was not alarmed.

She would not have admitted it in words to herself, but she was happy in her tête-à-tête with Petro. He had his place moved near hers. They dared to dismiss the dignified servants and help themselves to what they wanted. Or, rather, Petro jumped up and helped her, whether she wanted things or not. They talked about Miss Child, and Petro related his adventure at the Hands, which he had not, until the luncheon hour, been able to describe in detail.

He told his mother again, several times over, how wonderful Win was, and mother was not bored. She listened with a rapt smile, especially to the part about the fire in the hospital room and the girl's quick presence of mind, Win having refused to confess how she had hurt her hands, Petro had used the influence of his name to find out tactfully from another source, all that had happened. And he made quite a good story out of it for his mother. The latter promised gladly to go and see Miss Child and to wear the pearl-gray wrap, which she thought very pretty, reflecting marvellous credit on the taste of the chooser.

Petro did not touch upon Miss Child's indictment of the Hands. It seemed unnecessary to distress mother just when she was interested and even delighted (not at all shocked or startled) at having father's secret broken to her.

"It's more natural," she said, "that he should take an interest in the Hands. More like he used to be. I often wondered––"

Another sentence which she did not need to finish!

For a while Petro's whole soul was so steeped in the joy of mother's sympathy, and in plans for the future, that he forgot the faint uneasiness which had stirred within him at father's message about the milk. Something had seemed to whisper: "It's only an excuse." And his asking not to be disturbed all the afternoon, "can it mean that he's got a special reason for wanting to be let alone hour after hour?"

But Petro and mother had been deep in conversation before the whisper came. In the very midst of it she had asked a beautifully understanding question about Win, and in answering Petro forgot everything else for a time.

They talked intimately in the big, unfriendly, imitation Elizabethan dining-room which for once they had to themselves And then they continued their talk still more intimately in the "den." It was only the grandfather clock striking four that reminded Petro of his uneasiness and of the whisper.

Why it did remind him he could hardly have explained, except that the clock had a very curious individuality for him. It had belonged to his great grandmother and had come down through her to his mother. Even as a little boy he had felt that it was more than a clock: it was an old friend who had ticked through the years, keeping time with the heart-beats of those for whom it told the passing moments of life and death. Often he had imagined that with its ticking it gave good advice, if only one could understand. Now, when it struck four, it seemed to Petro that it did so in a dry, peremptory manner intended to be arresting, to remind him of something important that he was in danger of forgetting.

This pause in his thoughts left room for the whisper to come again. It came, adding to its first suggestion: "Don't you know that while you and mother were lingering so happily over your lunch, father stole away and went off to make mischief between you and the girl?"

Petro sprang up. He was ashamed to harbour such a thought of treachery, but it was there. He could easily learn whether father had gone to New York by inquiring if one of the motors had been taken out. But it was hardly worth while to ask questions. Peter knew that his father had gone, and why.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE BATTLE

All the morning Win was in a state of strange, almost hysterical, exaltation. Again and again she warned her spirit down from the heights, but it would not hear, and stood there in the sunshine singing a wild song of love and joy.

Wonderful, incredible pictures painted themselves before her eyes. She saw Peter, impressed with her words—as indeed he had seemed to be—and remembering them nobly for the benefit of the two thousand hands within the Hands. She saw herself as his wife (oh, bold, forbidden thought, which dared her to push it from her heart!) helping him reach the ideal standard of what a great department store should be, planning new and highly improved systems of insurance, thinking out ways for employees to share profits, and of giving them pensions.

She, who knew what the hands suffered and what they needed, could do for them what no outsider could ever do. With Peter's money and power and the will to aid, there would be nothing they two could not accomplish. Their love would teach them how to love the world. She saw the grand Christmas parties and the summer picnics the Hands would give the hands, and Peter's idea for a convalescent home should be splendidly carried out. She saw the very furniture and its chintz covers—then the picture would vanish like a rainbow—or break into disjointed bits, like the jig-saw puzzle Peter senior had hidden shamefacedly in a drawer.

For some moments Winifred's mind would be a blank save for a jumble of Paris mantles and warm customers, then another picture would form: she would see Peter and herself sending Sadie Kirk to the mountains, where the girl would be even happier and healthier than at the new place which was "free for consumers." Sadie would be Win's own special charge, her Mend, for whom she had the right and privilege to provide. No more work in shops for Sadie! No more work at all till she was cured. Perhaps a winter in the Adirondacks, then such radiant health as the "sardine" had hardly ever known.

Meanwhile the thoughts of Ursus must be turned from the girl who could never love him to the girl who already did. He and Sadie had been good chums since the day when all three marched in procession toward Mr. Meggison's window—how long ago it seemed! The big heart of the lion tamer was easily moved to pity, and pity was akin to love. When she—Win—gently broke it to him that she was going to marry Peter Rolls, whom she had loved before she ever saw her poor Ursus (of course she had loved Peter always! that was why it had hurt her so cruelly to believe Ena) the dear big fellow, pitying Sadie's weakness, would turn to his "little old chum" for comfort.

Oh, yes, everything would come right! warbled the disobedient spirit singing on the heights. Then the common sense and pride in Win would pluck the spirit's robe, and presto! another picture would dissolve into gray cloud.

Going out to luncheon (ice-cream soda and a sponge cake) somehow broke the radiant charm. Common sense put the singing spirit relentlessly into its proper place, where, discouraged, it sang no more. Ugly memories of last night's danger and humiliation crowded back into the brain no longer irradiated by Peter's presence. Win felt dully that none of the glorious fancies of the morning could ever come true, though she still hoped that her words might have some living influence upon the future of the Hands.

Even if Peter really and truly wanted to marry her (which seemed incredible), and his sister misjudged him (also well-nigh incredible), Ena Rolls and Ena Rolls's father would bar the way to any such happiness as the magic pictures had shown. It would be hateful to force herself upon a snobbish family who despised her and let her see that she was unwelcome.

The girl was suddenly surprised because she hadn't seen, the moment Peter's back was turned (even if not before), that the one self-respecting thing was to give up her place at the Hands. It would be decent and rather noble to disappear as she had disappeared before, so that Peter, when he came again (as he surely would), should find her gone.

This thought made so gloomy a picture in contrast with the forbidden bright ones, that Win was nearer tears than she had been in the hospital room.

"Laugh—laugh—if you laugh like a hyena!" she was saying to herself between half-past four and five, when other girls were thinking of the nice things they would do when they got home.

Win envied them. She wished the things that satisfied them could satisfy her. Yet, no, she did not wish that. Divine dissatisfaction was better. She must keep that conviction before her through years which might otherwise be gray. For now she was quite sure that nothing beautiful, nothing glorious, nothing even exciting, could ever happen to her. And it was at this very moment that she received a peremptory summons to Mr. Croft's office.

"It'll be about the fire, maybe," the nicest girl in the department encouraged her. "I shouldn't wonder if they're going to give you a reward. If there was anything wrong, the word would come through Meggison sure."

Win smiled thanks as she went to her fate; the girl was kind, not of the tigress breed. But she couldn't guess how little any paltry act of injustice from the Hands would matter now.

Miss Child had never before been called to the office of the great Mr. Croft, but she knew where it was, and walked to the door persuading herself that she was not in the least afraid. Why should she be afraid when she intended—really quite intended—to leave the Hands of her own accord?

There was an outer office guarding the inner shrine, and here a girl typist and a waxy-faced young man were getting ready to go home. It was now very near the closing hour. The waxy-faced youth, a secretary of Mr. Croft's, minced to the shrine door, opened it, spoke, returned, and announced that Miss Child was to go in. He even held the door for her, which might be a sign of respect, or of compassion for one about to be executed. Then, as the girl stepped in, the door closed behind her, and she stood in an expensively hideous room, looking at a little, dried-up dark man who sat in Mr. Croft's chair at Mr. Croft's desk. But he was not Mr. Croft. He was Peter Rolls, Sr.

Win recognized him instantly and knew not what to think. Luckily he did not keep her long in suspense.

"You Miss Child?" he shortly inquired, holding her with a steady stare, which from a younger man would have been offensive.

"I am, sir," she said in the low, sweet voice that Peter junior loved. Even Peter senior was impressed with it in spite of himself, impressed with the whole personality of the young woman whom Petro had said was "made to be a princess." She looked a more difficult proposition than he had expected to tackle.

"Know who I am?" he continued his catechism.

"You are Mr. Rolls."

"What makes you so sure of that, eh?"

"You were pointed out to me one evening last winter, when you were inspecting the shop with Mr. Croft."

"Nobody had any business pointing me out. Who did?"

"I'm afraid I've forgotten," said the girl, more calmly than she felt. "It was so long ago."

"You seem to have been dead certain he was right."

"I took it for granted."

"That's dangerous, taking things for granted. I advise you not to do it, Miss Child."

Still he stared as she received his advice in silence. Not a feature of the piquant, yet proud, arresting face, not a curve of the slim figure, did his old eyes miss.

"I guess you haven't forgotten who pointed me out," he persisted, after a pause. "Now think again. Have you? It might pay to remember."

"I do not remember, sir." She threw up her head in the characteristic way which the other Peter knew.

"Sure nothing could make you remember?"

"I'm sure nothing could."

"Very well, then, we must let that go for the present. Now to another subject. I hear you showed a good deal of pluck this morning in putting out a fire."

"Oh, after all, it may be only that!" Win thought.

She ought to have been relieved. But she was not certain whether relief was her most prominent emotion. The girl did not quite know what to make of herself, and the man was not giving her much time for reflection.

"The little I did was done on the spur of the moment," she said. "I don't deserve any credit."

"Well, I may be inclined to think different when it comes to settling up. That depends on several things. We'll come to 'em by and by. You're English, ain't you?"

"Yes."

"H-m! You look as if you ought to have titles running in your family. Have you got any?"

Win fancied that this must be her employer's idea of a joke, but his face was grave, and even curiously eager. "Not one," she answered, smiling.

"No connections with titles?"

"Why, yes, we have some cousins afflicted in that way," she lightly admitted, beginning to be faintly amused as well as puzzled. "Almost every one has, in our country, I suppose."

"What sort of title is it?"

"Oh, my father's second cousin happens to be an earl."

"An earl, is he? That stands pretty high, I guess, on your side. Any chance of your father inheriting?"

This time Win allowed herself the luxury of a laugh. What a strange old man! And this was Mr. Balm of Gilead's father!

She was still in the dark as to why he had sent for her. But it must be on account of the fire. His curiosity was very funny. In any one except Peter's father she would have considered it ridiculous. Maybe he wanted to work up a good "story" in the newspapers. Very likely it could be turned into an "ad" for the Hands if the cousin of an English earl had saved a fellow employee from burning up, and it would be still more thrilling if the heroine might some day turn into a haughty Lady Winifred Something. She shook her head, looking charming. Even old Peter, staring so intently, must have admitted that.

"There's not the remotest chance," she replied. "Our cousin, Lord Glenellen, has six sons. Four are married and having more sons every year. I don't know how many there are. And I'm sure that they've forgotten our existence."

"Well, there ain't much show for you in that connection!"

Mr. Rolls reluctantly abandoned the earldom. "What's your father, anyhow?"

"A clergyman," said Win. "A poor clergyman, or I should never have seen America."

"I suppose you'd have married some fellow over there. What did you do for a living on your side?"

"I hadn't begun to do anything till I engaged with Nadine—the dressmaker, you know—to be one of her models on board the Monarchic so as to get my passage free. I thought I should be sure to make a fortune in New York."

"Yes, I guess that was your point of view. You're frank about it, ain't you?"

"One may be about a lost illusion."

"There's more than one way for a girl to make a fortune. Maybe you and I can do business. So you were one of those models when you first met my son?"

Win would not have been flesh and blood if that shot had not told, especially after the old man's funny catechizing had lured her amusingly away from suspicion. She quivered, and a bright colour stained her cheeks. Nevertheless those peering eyes found no guilt in her look.

"Yes," she answered bravely. "He bought a dress from us for his sister."

"One excuse is as good as another for a young fellow. What else did he do?"

"Gave us patent medicine. We were all dreadfully seasick."

"You don't mean to tell me he fell in love with you when you were seasick?"

"I don't mean to tell you that he fell in love with me at all, Mr. Rolls."

"I guess you didn't mean to. But, you see, I made you own up."

"There was nothing to tell."

"Well, the murder's out, anyhow. And that brings us back to a point I want to make. Now that affair of this morning. You say you're entitled to no credit. But I've been thinking I'd like to make it up to you by giving a reward."

"I couldn't think of taking it!" cried Win.

Strange that he should break off suddenly from the subject of his son (which, apparently, he had intended pursuing to some end), and jump back to that of the fire! He must have a motive—he looked a man to have motives for everything. She felt that he was laying a trap for her, if she could only find it.

"Wait a minute. Give me time to make myself clear," he went on. "I'm not talking about medals or lockets or silver cups for good girls. I mean a thumping sum, a big enough stone to kill two birds. Folks not in the know would think that it was for saving life. Those in the know (meaning me and you, and nobody else) would understand that it was for saving my son. No disrespect to you. I want to put it delicately, miss. Saving him from a mistake."

Win had always thought "How dare you?" a very silly expression, no matter what the provocation. Yet now she was tempted to use it. Only her subconscious sense of humour, which warned her it would be ridiculous from Peter Rolls's "saleslady" to Peter Rolls himself, made her bite back the words that rushed to the end of her tongue.

"You have a strange idea of putting things delicately!" she cried. "You offer me a reward if I—if I—oh, I can't say it!"

"I can," volunteered the old man coolly. "And I'll tell you just how much I offer. Maybe that'll help your talking apparatus. I'll give you ten thousand dollars. Wouldn't that be something like making your fortune in New York?"

"If it were ten millions it would make no difference," the girl flung at him. "I––"

"Say, you set a high value on my son Peter. But if he marries you, my girl, he won't be worth any millions, or even thousands, I tell you straight. He won't be worth a red cent. You'd better pick up my offer while it's going, and drop Peter. Maybe with ten thousand dollars of your own, one of your young cousins, the earls, might find you worth while."

Never had Win even dreamed that it was possible for a human soul so to boil with anger as hers had now begun to boil. She wanted to scald this hateful old man with burning spray from the geyser. At last she understood the rage which could kill. Yet it was in a low, restrained voice that she heard herself speaking.

"Please don't go on," she warned him. "I suppose you don't quite realize how hideously you're insulting me. A man who could say such things wouldn't. And only such a man could misunderstand—could think that instead of refusing his money I was bidding for more. I wanted to say that you could save your son and your pocket, too. Neither are in danger from me."

"That ain't the way the boy feels about it," Peter senior slipped the words in slyly. "If he did, I wouldn't have sent for you."

This was the last drop in the cup.

"What?" cried the girl, towering over the shrunken figure in the revolving chair. "Your son asked you to send for me? Then he's as bad, as cruel, as you are."

A red wave of rage swept over her. She no longer knew what she was saying. Her one wish—her one object in life, it seemed just then—was to hurt both Peters.

"I hate him!" she exclaimed. "Everything I've heard about him is true, after all. He's a false friend and a false lover—a dangerous, cruel man to women, just as I was warned he was."

"Stop right there," broke in Peter's father. "That's damn nonsense, and you know it. Nobody ever warned you that my boy was anything of the kind."

"I was warned," she beat him down, "that it was a habit of your son to win a girl's confidence with his kind ways and then deceive her."

"Then it was a damned lie, and no one but a damned fool would believe it," shouted Peter Rolls, Sr. "My boy a deceiver of women? Why, he's a Gala-what-you-may-call-it! He'd die any death sooner than harm a woman. I'm his father, and I know what I'm talking about. Who the devil warned you? Some beast, or some idiot?"

"It was neither."

"Who was it, then? Come, out with it. I dare you to. I'll have him sued for slander. I'll––"

"It wasn't a he. It was a woman who ought to know at least as much about him as you do."

"There's no such woman, except his mother, and she worships the ground he walks on. Thinks he's a kind of up-to-date Saint George, and I'm hanged if she's far wrong. Why, since Peter was a boy he's never cared that"—and a yellow thumb and finger snapped for emphasis under Win's eyes—"for any woman till he got silly over you."

The girl laughed a fierce little laugh. "You tell me this? You defend him to me? Is that policy?"

Peter senior suddenly looked foolish. He had straightened himself to glare at the upstart. Now he collapsed again.

"No, it ain't policy," he confessed, "but I guess it's human nature. My blood ain't quite dried up yet, and I can't sit quiet while anybody blackguards my own flesh and bone. You tell me who said these things about him!"

"I will not tell you."

"Don't you know I'm liable to have you discharged for impudence?"

"You can't discharge me, for I've already discharged myself. I'd rather starve than serve one more day at your horrid old Hands."

"Horrid old Hands, eh? I can keep you from getting a job in any other store."

"I don't want one. I've had enough of stores. I am not afraid of anything you can do, Mr. Rolls. Though they do call you 'Saint Peter' behind your back—meaning just the opposite—you haven't the keys of heaven."

"You're an impudent young hussy."

"Perhaps. But you deserve impudence. You deserve worse, sir. A moment ago I hated you. I—think I could have killed you. But—but now I can't help admiring something big in you, that makes you defend your son in spite of yourself, when it was policy to let me loathe him."

"'Loathe' is no word to use for my boy," the old man caught her up again. "I don't want you to marry him, no! But, whatever happens, I can't have you or any one else doing him black injustice."

"Then, 'whatever happens,' I'll admit to you that never in the bottom of my heart did I believe those things. I didn't believe them to-day, but I—you were so horrible—I had to be horrible, too. There! The same motive that made you defend him against your own interest has made me confess that to you now. But you needn't be afraid. I don't think in any case I could have married him knowing how his—his family would feel. Still I might, if he'd tried to persuade me; I can't be sure. I might have been weak. As it is, though—after you've insulted me in this cruel way, I believe nothing would induce me to say yes if he asked me. And he never has asked me."

"Never has asked you?" echoed Peter senior, dumbfounded.

Some one had begun to knock at the door, but he did not hear. Neither did Winifred. Each was absorbed in the other. Insensibly their tones in addressing each other were changed. Some other ingredient had mysteriously mingled with their rage; or, poured upon its stormy surface, had calmed the waves. They were enemies still, but the girl had found the man human; the man, because he was man, found himself yielding to her woman's domination.

Petro said God had made her a princess. She was only a shop girl, and the vain old man wanted her out of his way—intended to put her out of his way, by hook or by crook; but all the same in look and manner she was his ideal of a girl queen, and he could understand Petro being a fool over her.

"He never has asked you? But I thought––"

(Tap, tap, for the second and third time.)

"I know what you thought. You wouldn't listen when I tried to explain."

(Tap, tap, tap! No answer. And so the door opened.)

"It isn't only that your son hasn't asked me to marry him, he hasn't even told me he cared."

"But he does both now," said Peter Rolls, Jr., on the threshold.

As he spoke he came into the room with a few long, quick steps that took him straight to Win, as if he wanted to protect her against his father if need be. And timidly, yet firmly, he was followed by Mrs. Rolls, wearing the new gray wrap.

"I'd have told you long ago if I'd had the chance," he went on. "I told father this morning that I'd loved you ever since the first minute I saw you, and that you were the only girl who ever was or ever would be. I don't know what he's been saying to you, but I felt he meant to—to—see what you were like. So I came. And nothing matters if you can care a little and have faith enough in me to––"

"That's just what she doesn't do and hasn't got!" interpolated Peter senior. "The girl's been calling you every name she could turn her tongue to. Said she was warned against you by some woman—she wouldn't tell me who it was––"

"I know who it was," put in his son.

"You do? We'll send her a writ, then––"

"We can't. She isn't in the country just now."

"I did say the most hateful things," Win admitted, "because your father made me so angry. And—he defended you against me! He said nobody but a fool could ever for a minute have believed such things were true. And he was perfectly right. Can you forgive me?"

"Why, I love you, you know," said Peter. "And whether you ever believed anything wrong of me or not, I—I almost think you love me a little now to make up. You couldn't look at me like that if you didn't, could you? It wouldn't be fair."

"I mustn't look at you at all, then," Win answered, pushing him gently away as he tried to take her hands. "Please let me go. I can't––"

"I wouldn't let you go, if he did, my dear," said a gentle voice that had not spoken yet. "I guess a girl that saves people from themselves when they're on fire, burning up, and don't know in the least what they're doing, would be just the kind of new daughter we would like to have now when we have to let our own leave us. Why, you would be worth your weight in gold at our house. Isn't that so, Father?"

For once mother had finished four consecutive sentences in her husband's presence. But this was an unusual occasion It seemed to her that its like could never come again, and that here was her chance of a lifetime to stand by Petro.

"H-m!" grunted Peter senior. "The girl ain't a coward, anyhow. She stood up to me like a wildcat. Said she hated me. Said she wouldn't take Peter if I paid her to—or words to that effect. Well, I didn't exactly offer to pay her for doing that, rather the other way around. But when she had the gorgeous cheek to up and say, after all, that she liked me for defending you, why, I—well, I don't know how it was, but all of a sudden I weakened to her. She got me same way as she got you, Peter, I suppose. Maybe it was with one of her laughs! Anyhow—look here, miss. If you'll take back your words, I'll take back mine. Cut 'em right out."

"Which words?" Win cautiously wanted to know.

"The whole lot, while we're about it. I guess a sister-in-law who's got earls for cousins ought to be good enough for a marchesa. You've got me, I tell you! And you can have Peter, too, if you want him. Do you?"

"I do," answered Win—and laughed again, the happiest, most surprised, and excited laugh in the world.

"Then we've got each other—forever!" cried Petro. "And, Father, you and I will have each other, too, after this, as we never had before. You shall bless this day as I do, and as mother will."

"All right," said old Peter. "We'll see about that. Anyhow, shake hands."

Petro shook.

"And you, too, girl."

Winifred hesitated slightly, then held out her burned fingers.

Peter senior gave them deliberately to his son.

"There you are!" he exclaimed. "Now we're all three in the business."

"And this is the way we're going to run it in future," said Petro. "With love."

THE END