"I must be out of my mind," she told herself, at the same time telling him that she desired an engagement as an extra hand.
"What references?" he inquired, with the mechanical intonation of one who has put the same question thousands of times.
"I—haven't any," stammered Win. "I'm lately over from England––"
"You don't need to mention that," broke in the superintendent. "I know London. Have you worked in any of the big department stores there—Harrods' or Selfridge's?" He looked, Win thought (clinging to a straw of hope), as if he were not unwilling to help her.
"No, none. I was a model for Nadine. I'm quick at doing figures––"
"The figures that models cut are more to the point, I guess!" The cherub Mephistopheles smiled at this joke and did not seem to care just then that his every extra word kept the procession back an extra instant. "We're not wanting models at present. But if you've had any experience as a saleslady—you look all right—well, see here, I'll try and give you a chance. It's up to you to make good, though. What money do you want? Write it down."
He indicated one of those forms which Win had seen. She hesitated, then felt that the blue eyes were watching her keenly. Hesitation was not the way to succeed in this home of hustle. She remembered that the red-haired girl, though she must have had experience or she would not have possessed references, had said something about eight dollars. "I'll say seven," Win told herself, and wrote accordingly on the paper.
"We can't pay seven dollars per week to a girl without experience," pronounced the superintendent promptly. "If you want to take six, I'll give you a test of character. You ought to be thankful for six. By and by you may work up into one of the departments where we pay commissions."
"I'll take six," Win said.
Though already she knew something of the expense of living in New York, six dollars a week certainly seemed generous compared with shop-girls' wages at home. She had been told that there they got only twelve or fourteen shillings, and sometimes less. Of course, in England, you "lived in." Win had heard that expression, and was aware of its meaning. She was not yet quite sure what you did in America, for she had talked to none of her very few acquaintances about the need she had to look for work in a department store. There was only one thing she did know in that connection: it would be unwise to ask Father questions.
She must appear to be "all there," and trust to finding out the routine of a New York shop-girl's life from one of themselves. She hoped the sardine would be engaged—nice, trim little sardine with smooth black pompadour, small white face, jewel-bright eyes, pugnacious nose, determined chin! A snappy yet somehow trustworthy sardine.
Still the superintendent was observing her, as if to see whether she were warranted sound and kind. "I'm going to put you into a bargain square," said he thoughtfully. "Do you know what that means?"
"I can guess," said she.
"One of our two-hour bargain sales will tell better than anything else whether you've got stuff in you," he went on. "Have you ever seen a check book?" was the question now flashed at her.
Win had just sense enough left not to blurt out any nonsense about a bank. In an instant she realized that the pads upon which salespeople did hasty sums must be called check books, anyhow in America. She answered that she had seen one.
"Know what to do with it?"
"On principle. I can soon learn the method."
"Soon's a long word. You may have time for it, your side. We haven't. Things have gotta be learned on the nail. See here, what about your dress? Are you wearing black under that jacket?"
Win's heart jumped. She had not expected, if engaged, to begin work the next moment. She had supposed that she would be told to return the next morning before the opening hour for customers; otherwise it might have occurred to her that it would be well to get a ready-made black dress. But she must not throw away this chance which seemed to be hanging in the balance.
"No," she answered quickly. "I thought it would be better to buy something here when I knew just what was wanted. I can find a dress which will fit, I know. I always can, and I can be in it fifteen minutes from now."
"Well," the superintendent said with half-grudging approval that lit a faint twinkle in his eyes, "you're no slow coach for an Englishwoman. You may do. We sell 10 per cent. off to our employees. Here's the key of your locker. Here's your check book. When you've got your dress, ask for the schoolroom. Take fifteen minutes' lesson on the blackboard for making out your checks, and the rest's up to you. But look sharp. We've been open to customers for half an hour now. At ten-thirty a two-hours' bargain sale of blouses, sashes, and ladies' fancy neckwear opens on the first floor. That's yours. You must be in the square more than half an hour before the sale begins, to see stock and learn your job."
He eyed her sharply to see if she were "feazed." But Win had the feeling that a "stiff upper lip" was needed for the honour of England and the pluck of its womanhood. She remembered one of the stories she had loved best as a child—the story of the task Venus set for Psyche before she could be worthy of Cupid, the lover whose wings she had burned with a drop of oil from her lamp. Now the girl, grown out of childhood, understood how Psyche had felt when told to count the grains of wheat in Venus's granary within a certain time limit.
"Well, anyhow, Psyche didn't ask questions, and I won't," she said to herself. "The kind ants came and told her things: maybe the sardine will come to me."
Looking almost preternaturally intelligent and pleased with life, Win accepted the key and check book, and learned with a shock that, as one of Peter Rolls's hands, she was No. 2884.
THE TEST OF CHARACTER
The sardine's ears must have been sharp, for although the lion tamer was between her and Win (like a thick chunk of ham in a thin sandwich), she had heard something of the conversation at the superintendent's window.
"Try the basement bargain counters for your dress; you'll get it cheaper," she flung after the tall Effect in a shrill whisper as the newly engaged hand flashed by.
There wasn't a second, or even half a second to lose, yet Win slackened her pace to say "Thank you. I do hope we shall meet again."
Even the lion tamer threw her a look, though already he had taken his turn at the window; but Win did not see the admiring glance. She was flying down the stairs she had come up so slowly, and did not pause for breath until she was in the basement. There it was so crowded and so hot, though the store had been open to customers not quite an hour, that there seemed little air to breathe, even had there been time.
Win could see no means of ventilation in the immense room, which was brightly and crudely lit by pulsing white globes of electricity. There were no partitions to divide one department from another, and it seemed as if samples of every article in the world were being sold on these rows upon rows of heaped-up tables.
Taking her for a customer, a floorwalker saved the bewildered girl from wasting more than a minute of her valuable time. The thermometer of his manner fell a degree when he learned that she was an employee; nevertheless, he directed her to the bargain counter where black dress skirts were being sold. There was another nearby which offered black silk and satin blouses. The man asked if she had been told that extra hands, if on probation, must give money down for anything above the first week's wage, and looked impressed when the tall girl answered that she preferred to pay cash for the whole.
"Princess, queen!" he murmured sotto voce, and Win might have had the privilege of exchanging a smile with him on the strength of the joke, but thought it might be wiser not to have heard.
Luckily black skirts and blouses were not the craze of the moment. Women were besieging a beehive of corsets and a hotbed of petticoats, reduced (so said huge red letters overhead) to one third of their original price. In less than five minutes Win had secured a costume with the right measurements, and for the two portions of which it consisted, had paid exactly one week's salary.
With an unwrapped parcel rolled under one arm, she battled her way back to the staircase she had descended (not daring to squeeze her unworthy body into a crowded elevator), and toiled up to the eighth floor. There, she had been told, were dressing-rooms as well as lockers; a rest room (converted into a schoolroom from the hour of eight until ten), and the restaurant for women employees.
Lightning change act first! Black Effect to take the place of brown, a rush for the dressing-room, vague impression of near marble basins and rows of mirrors; tall, slim girl in front of one, quite the proper "saleslady" air, in new, six-dollar black skirt and silk blouse lightened with sewed-in frills of white, fit not noticeably bad; dash along corridor again for locker room, but sudden wavering pause at sight of confused group: half-fainting girl in black being handed over to capped and aproned nurse by two youths at an open door, glimpse of iron bedsteads etched in black against varnished white wall, door shut with slap; youths marching light heartedly away, keeping time to the subdued whistle of "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee."
Girls sometimes faint here, then, before ten o'clock in the morning! And quite a matter of course to shed them in the hospital room, otherwise one wouldn't try one's tango steps going away. But never mind; laugh first, or the world will! Life easier for Peter Rolls's hands as well as other people if they can live it in ragtime. Your turn to fall to-day. Mine to-morrow. "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee!" And whatever you may think, don't lose a minute.
Winifred did not. Perhaps she, too, was beginning to think in ragtime. She was telling her number to the doorkeeper of the locker room as the slap of the hospital door ceased to vibrate through the long corridor on the eighth story.
The locker room had countless rows of narrow cells with iron gratings for doors; and the gimlet gaze of two stalwart young females pierced each newcomer. It was their business to see that Peter Rolls's hands did not pilfer each other's belongings. The gimlet eyes must note the outdoor clothing each girl wore on arrival, in order to be sure that she did not go forth at evening clad in the property of a comrade. Being paid to cultivate suspicion had soured the guardian angels' tempers. One had a novel by Laura Jean Libbey, the other an old-fashioned tale by Mary J. Holmes, to while away odd minutes of leisure; but it appealed to the imagination of neither that any or all of the girls flitting in and out might be eligible heroines for their favourite authors, stolen at birth from parent millionaires, qualifying through pathetic struggles with poverty to become the brides of other millionaires, or, perhaps, to win an earl or duke.
All the regularly engaged hands had long ago shut up their hats and cloaks in prison and gone about their business. It was only the extras who were arriving at this late hour to show their numbers and claim their lockers. There were comparatively few amateurs. Most of the girls had had shop experience, but greenhorns betrayed ignorance as they entered. To them, shortly and succinctly, were explained the rules: the system of "stubs" dealt out to newcomers as they gave their numbers and had lockers assigned them—stubs to be religiously kept for the protection of property from false claimants; the working of a slot machine, in which must be slipped a card, and the moment of the morning and midday arrival thus recorded with ruthless exactitude (twenty-five cents docked off your pay if you were late), and other odds and ends of routine information, such as the hours at which lockers might or might not be opened without the presentation of special passes.
As Win fitted her key into the grated door which would in future pertain to No. 2884, into the locker room bounced the sardine.
"Hello, Lady Ermyntrude!" said she. "I thought I'd pick you up some place. Just a jiffy, and we can skip to the schoolroom together, if your ladyship pleases."
"I am glad!" said Win, and as they went out side by side she ventured to add: "Please do tell me why you call me Lady Ermyntrude. I hope I'm not like anything so awful as that?"
"Oh, there's always a Lady Ermyntrude in every English book you read, and you look as if you'd walked out of one. I don't know why, but you do. I kind of like you, though."
"So do I you," said Win, but did not tell her that she was a sardine. This might be a worse epithet in a foreign language even than Lady Ermyntrude.
"I'm for the toy department. What are you?" rapped out the clear little voice that matched the clear little personality—a personality which, at the top of its pompadour, did not reach the tip of Win's ear.
"Mine is called a two-hour bargain sale––"
"Heaven help you! Basement?"
"No, ground floor."
"Thank your stars. That's a cut above. Most amatoors start in the basement bargain sales. If they live through the first day of that—well! But you're all right. You've got the look of the ones who win."
"That's my name—'Win'—Winifred Child."
"If you ain't the Champion Giant Kid! I'm Sadie Kirk. Here's the schoolroom. When it ain't that, it calls itself the rest room, you know. I'm here only because there's a little difference in Rolls's check system from Bimgel's, where I worked till the grippe laid me low and my place was filled. I thought I'd try the Hands for a change, though they say it's the limit and down the other side. So me for the school! We'll sit together, and if I can help you I will."
"You're a dear," whispered Win.
"You're another. Go there yourself," was the swift retort.
The rest room was really very nice, if there were ever a chance to rest in it—which, Miss Kirk whispered, was not likely to be the case. There were wall bookcases with glass doors, a few oak-framed engravings with a pale-green, "distempered" background, several chintz-covered sofas with cushions, and plenty of easy chairs.
On small tables lay very back numbers of illustrated papers and magazines. The high windows had green curtains which softened their glare and (said Sadie) prevented dust from showing. The brown-painted floor had decorative intervals of rugs, like flowery oases. Altogether the room would have been an excellent "show place" if any influential millionairess began stirring up public interest in "conditions of shop-girl life."
One end wall of the long, narrow room was almost entirely covered by an immense blackboard, supposed to represent a check book. In front of this stood a pale young man with a timid air, who coughed and cleared his throat a good deal as he explained to a group of girls Peter Rolls's specially simplified, modernly improved system of adding up the prices of purchased "goods" in the quickest and most scientific manner. Win listened intently, easily catching the idea, but wondering if she should get "rattled" when she had to put it into practice in the coming "two-hour bargain sale." Miss Kirk, however, soon saw that the difference between this and other systems was not complicated enough to trouble her, and let her wits wander from one subject to another.
"That's a salesman teaching," she whispered up to her tall protégée. "He's new to the job, I guess, and scared of us guyls; but I bet he bullies men when he gets the chance! He'll tuyn out another Father."
Win, not having forgotten her curiosity concerning the red-haired girl's mysterious murmur to the superintendent, longed to question the sardine, who had the air of knowing everything she ought and ought not to know. But the newcomer could not afford to lose a word that dropped from the nervous teacher's lips. "Do tell me about it later," she pleaded. "I must listen to this."
"All right. Are you lunching in or out?"
"Oh, in, I suppose."
"So will I, then, though I hear it's filthy and the grub vile. We'll try and make a date."
Win dared not answer. With difficulty she caught the last part of the lecture. Then her fifteen minutes of schooling were over and the real battle of life as one of Peter Rolls's hands was to begin.
No time for the luxury of luncheon appointments. The two girls must meet or not, as luck ordained. The toy department was on the sixth floor, so the parting came almost at once, and Win went down to meet her fate alone.
A floorwalker, or "aisle manager," showed her the place where the "great two-hour bargain sale of coloured blouses, sashes, and ladies' fancy neckwear" was advertised to begin at ten-thirty. As he steered the girl through the crowd he looked at her with interest, and she would have looked with interest at him could she have done so without his knowing it. She had vaguely heard that shopwalkers in England could make or break the salespeople. Probably floorwalkers in America were the same, or more powerful, because everybody in this free country who had any power at all seemed to have more than he could possibly have anywhere else.
This man was extremely handsome she saw in the one quick, veiled glance which can tell a girl as much as a boy is able to take in with a long stare. He was tall and dark and clean shaven, with polished black hair like a jet helmet, and brown eyes. Few princes could hope to be as well dressed, and if he had been an actor, only to see his shoulders would have made a matinée girl long to lay her head upon one. Why wasn't he an actor, then, at many dollars a week, instead of a floorwalker at a few? It must be that his fairy godmother had forgotten to endow him with some essential talent.
Seeing that he looked at her sympathetically with his rather sad, dark eyes, Win ventured with all respect to beg a little enlightenment as to a two-hour bargain sale.
"It means that certain things are marked down for two hours," he explained, "and after that anything left of the lot goes up to the old price again. It's a pretty hard test for one who's new to the whole business. The superintendent, Mr. Meggison, has put you on to a pretty stiff thing," he added. And then again, after an instant's pause: "You're going to land in a wasps' nest over there. There's some electricity in the atmosphere this morning. But keep your head and you'll be all right."
They came within sight of a hollow square formed by four long counters. Above it was a placard with red and black lettering which announced the sale to begin at half-past ten; everything to be sold at bargain price till twelve-thirty. Within were six saleswomen, two for each side of the square; and the question flashed through Win's head: Why had she been imported to make an odd number? It was an exciting question, taken in connection with the floorwalker's warning.
Until sale time these counters were out of the congested region; and the six saleswomen were taking advantage of the lull before the storm to put finishing touches on the arrangement of the stock. The instant that Win was inside the square it was as if she had been suddenly swallowed up in a thunder cloud. The head saleswoman (she must be that, Win thought, judging from the attention paid her by the rest) was in a black rage—a beautiful Jewess, older than the others, and growing overplump, but magnificently browed, and hardly thirty yet.
"It's damnable!" she panted, full breast heaving, throat swelling with stifled sobs, "to put this onto me! Anybody with half an eye can see through the trick. The Queen of England couldn't get rid of these nasty rags at a charity bazaar."
She went on without noticing the newcomer, except to flash across Win's face and figure a lightning, Judith glance which seemed to pitch a creature unknown and unwanted into the bottomless pit where all was vile. Her satin-smooth olive hands, with brilliantly polished coral nails, trembled as, gesticulating, she waved them over the stock which littered the four counters. She seemed to be throwing her curse upon blouses, sashes, and ladies' neckwear; and had she been a witch, with power of casting spells, the masses of silk and satin would have burst into coloured flame.
"Oh, Miss Stein, don't feel that way about it," pleaded a thin girl who looked utterly bloodless. "The things are marked down so low maybe they'll go off."
"Look at them—look at them!" broke out the Jewess. "Is there anything you'd take for a present, one of you? They might as well have sent me to the basement and be done with it. But I'll show him, and her, too, how much I care before the day's out."
So fierce was the splendid creature's emotion that Win felt the hot contagion of it. What had happened she did not know, though evidently the others did and sympathized, or pretended to. But even she, a stranger, could spring at a conclusion.
Miss Stein was called upon to sell things which she thought no customers would buy. Somebody in power had put her in this position, out of spite, to get her into trouble. There was another woman in the case. There must be jealousy. This tigerish Judith was suffering as keenly as a human creature could suffer, and all because of some blouses, some sashes, and ladies' fancy neckwear, which certainly had an unattractive appearance as they lay on the counters in confused heaps.
"He says, 'it's up to you, Miss Stein!'" the quivering voice jerked out in bitter mimicry. "Up to me, indeed! And he gives me this rag bag!"
"It'll be nuts to her if you're downed," remarked a girl with a round, pink face.
"Don't you think I know it?" Miss Stein demanded fiercely. Her eyes filled with tears, which she angrily dried with a very dirty handkerchief that looked strangely out of keeping in the manicured hands. "There's nothing to do, or I'd do it, except to give him a piece of my mind and throw up the job before they have the chance to fire me."
"You wouldn't—just at this time!" cried the anemic girl.
"Wouldn't I? You'll see. I don't care a tinker's curse what becomes of me after to-day."
Win's ears were burning as if they had been tweaked. The minutes were passing. She could ask no help, no information concerning her duties. If she put a question as to what she was to do she would be snubbed, or worse. Could the far-away and almost omnipotent Mr. Meggison have had secret knowledge of this lion's den into which he had thrown her? He had said the bargain square and the two-hours' sale would be a test of character. At this rate, she would fail ignominiously, and she did not want to fail. But neither did she want the beautiful Jewess to fail. Her anxiety was not all selfish. "A test of character!" Was there nothing, nothing she could do for her own and the general good?
Suddenly her spirit flew back to the ship. Peter Rolls's face came before her. She saw his good blue eyes. She heard him say: "If ever I can help––"
How odd! Why should she have thought of him then? And no one could help, least of all he, who had probably forgotten all about her by this time, Miss Rolls having spoiled his horrid, deceitful game. She must help herself Yet it was just as if Peter had come and suggested an idea—really quite a good idea, if only she had the courage to interrupt Miss Stein.
She and Peter had chatted one night on B deck about the Russian dancers and Leon Bakst's designs. She had lectured Peter on the amazing beauty of strangely combined colours, mixtures which would not have been tolerated before the "Russian craze." Now Peter seemed to be reminding her of what she had said then, a silly little boast she had made, that with "nothing but a few rags and a Bakst inspiration" she could put together a gorgeous costume for a fancy-dress ball.
"When you want to set up for a rival to Nadine, I'll back you," Peter had retorted, and they had both laughed.
Now, with the immense but impersonal "backing" of Peter Rolls, Sr.'s, great shop, she had the Bakst inspiration and the tingling ambition to set up (in a very small way) as a rival to Nadine.
"I beg your pardon," she stammered to Miss Stein, and hastened on as a fierce, astonished look was fastened upon her from under a black cloud of stormy brow. "I—I hope you'll excuse my interrupting, but I've been a model of Nadine's, and—and I have an idea, if you'll allow me—I mean, you don't seem to like these things we have to sell. I believe we could make something of them if we hurried."
All through she had the feeling that if she could not hold Miss Stein's eyes until she had compelled interest, hope was lost. She put her whole self into the effort to hold the eyes, and she held them, talking fast, pouring the magnetic force of her enthusiasm into the angry, unhappy soul of the other.
"What do you mean?" asked Miss Stein, abruptly taking the sharp, judicial air of the business woman. Half resentful, half contemptuous, she could not afford to let slip the shadow of a chance.
"I'll show you, if I may," said Win.
She, the outsider, the intruder, suddenly dominated the situation. The others, even Miss Stein herself, gave way before the Effect in black as it came close to one of the counters and with quick, decided touches began manipulating those blouses, sashes, and ladies' fancy neckwear which the Queen of England could not sell at a charity bazaar.
A box of steel pins of assorted sizes lay on a cleared corner of the counter which Win had approached. It had been brought, perhaps, for the pinning of labels onto the newly repriced stock. Win took a purple sash and draped it round the waistline of a dull-looking, sky-blue blouse. Quickly the draping was coaxed into shape and firmly held with pins. Then under the collar was fastened a crimson bow ("ladies' fancy neckwear!") which had been hideous in itself, but suddenly became beautiful as a butterfly alighting on a flower.
"My!" exclaimed the anemic girl, and glanced cautiously from under her eyelids to see whether approval or disgust were the popular line to take.
But Miss Stein—still resentful, and now beginning to be jealous of a green hand's originality and daring taste—was not an Oriental for nothing. She didn't possess the initiative ability of a designer, but she could appreciate the crashing music of gorgeous colours met together on the right notes. Love of colour was in her Jewish blood, and she was a shrewd business woman also, animated with too vital a selfishness to let any opportunity of advancement go. She seized the new girl's idea at a glance, realized its value and its possible meaning for herself.
"That's queer, but it's smart," she pronounced, and five anxious faces brightened. "I'd 'a' thought o' that if I hadn't been so awful worried; my head feels stuffed full o' wadding. I don't seem to have room for two ideas. Me and you can tell the guyls what to do, and they'll do it. See here, as fast as we get those things fixed we'll hang 'em up on the line and make a show. Gee! they'll draw the dames a mile off, just out of curiosity and nothing else."
"And when we get them we'll get their money, too," Win prophesied cheerfully. "We'll christen these things Pavlova Russian Sash-Blouses, and say it's the latest dodge only to pin them together so purchasers can change the drapery to fit their figures. When we've sold all we can finish before ten-thirty we'll make a point of pinning on drapery and neckties in the customers' presence to suit their taste. I can undertake that part, if you like."
"You do think you're some girl, don't you?" was Miss Stein's only comment. But Win saw that she meant to accept the scheme and "work it for all it was worth."
A light of hope and the excitement of battle shone down the dull flame of anger in her eyes. There was no gleam of gratitude there, and if Win had wanted it she would have been disappointed; but just at this moment she wanted nothing on earth save to push that beautiful Jewess to a triumph over "him and her" and to make the two-hour sale of Pavlova Russian Sash-Blouses a frantic, furious success.
PETER ROLLS'S LITTLE WAYS
Something strange had happened in the ground-floor bargain square. The wasps' nest had suddenly turned into a beehive. The buzz of rage had lulled to the hum of industry. Fred Thorpe, the "aisle manager," was blessed with the tact which only some secret sympathy or great natural kindness can put into a man; and it had kept him at a distance from Miss Stein that morning. He knew the inner history of that particular bargain sale, and there were reasons why he should understand with peculiar acuteness the humiliation she had been doomed to endure. His presence on the scene would make matters worse, and he had obliterated himself as much as possible.
Nevertheless he saw all that went on in that direction, and the sudden and remarkable change which took place immediately after the tall English girl's arrival amazed him. He did not know what to make of it, but it was so evidently a change for the better, and the time before the sale was so short, that he decided to sink conventions and let the saleswomen alone.
The floorwalker had plenty of other things to keep him busy, but his subself eyed the strenuous, mysterious preparations for the coming two-hour sale of blouses, sashes, and ladies' fancy neckwear. Five minutes ago the unfortunate stock (which finished the latest chapter of Stein-Horrocks-Westlake-Thorpe inner history) had laid in neglected heaps on the four counters which walled in the hollow square. Miss Stein and her five companions had confined their energies to examining labels, and that in a perfunctory manner, a mere cloak for feverish whisperings. The sale was doomed to failure—had been doomed from the moment that Mr. Horrocks, the manager of the department (who was also a sub-buyer), had "dumped" a disastrous purchase from a bankrupt sale onto the girl whom every one knew he had jilted for Miss Westlake. There was far more in it than that; an intricate intrigue of shop life. But so much at least was common property in the department; and the elevation of Miss Westlake, the humiliation of Miss Stein, could be seen by all, for Miss Westlake close by was selling the most entrancing new fichus which had begun the day with a succès fou.
No use advising Miss Stein to buck up and do her best. Anything Fred Thorpe could say on the subject would be bitterly misconstrued. He realized that her conception of the part to play was to make the worst of things instead of the best and snatch what satisfaction she could from a flare-up. That was what Horrocks wanted, of course, but she was past caring, or so it seemed until the sudden change took place after the appearance of the new girl.
Soon Thorpe began to understand the scheme. With an eye for colour and a swiftness of touch that was almost incredible, unsympathetic blouses were changed into daring yet dainty "confections." As fast as the girls finished draping the sashes and pinning on fantastically knotted ties of contrasted colours, they hung up the most attractive of their creations on lines above the counters which had been meagrely furnished forth with a few stringy, fringed sashes. While some girls worked like demons in transforming "stock," others arranged it on the lines and counters. Complete "Pavlovas" only were displayed in prominent places. Such things as could not be ready in time for the sale opening were grouped as prettily as possible, according to colour schemes, on the two less conspicuous of the four counters—those which faced away from the more frequently occupied avenues of approach.
This was doubtless Miss Stein's experienced contribution to the plan of battle; but, clever saleswoman as she was, when brain and heart were cool, Thorpe realized that all credit for originating the scheme should be given to the new girl. "She's a live wire," he said to himself, though his deepest sympathies were for Miss Stein. And he saw the "smartness" of Mr. Meggison in "spotting" No. 2884 for this place.
Meggison was, of course, "onto" the situation, for the whole secret of the man's sudden rise lay in his capacity for knowing and keeping track of every current and undercurrent of life in each department. With Miss Stein at their head, her five assistants would not put the energy of one into disposing of the hated stock, therefore Meggison had sent an "extra." He had chosen a new girl because she would not "take sides," and a girl who looked as if she might hold her own against odds, because she would need all her "ginger" if she were to "make good." Besides Thorpe said to himself, Meggison might have his eye upon her, perhaps, as something out of the common run of extras merely hired for the holidays and intend to test her.
Somehow all the department managers and floorwalkers and head salesmen smiled dryly when they thought of Meggison (who had lately been promoted) in connection with any girl. They seldom put into words what lay behind the smile, for you never knew who might be a spy—a "sneak" or a "quiz." But all the men knew his one laughable weakness, and would rather get hold of a "sample" of it than be treated to a champagne dinner at the Waldorf.
Long before half-past ten women who wanted blouses and had seen the newspaper advertisements of the two-hour bargain sale began to inquire where it would be held. Thorpe was constantly obliged to direct them, and watching them group where they could see the decorations of the square, his ears were sharpened for comments.
The quick minds of American women soon caught the idea which the colour arrangement conveyed. "Why, it's like the things the Russian dancers wear!" said one.
"It's the newest trick I've seen yet," said another.
Thorpe could not help thinking of the difference between these exclamations and those he had expected to hear when the advertised blouses first burst on the beholders eyes.
At ten-thirty to the second the waiting women pounced. Win's nerve failed her for an instant in the hot forefront of her first battle, but she caught at Miss Kirk's remembered words: "You've got the look of those who win," and the floorwalker's advice: "Keep your head and you'll be all right." She mustn't be a coward. She mustn't fall at her first shot.
Soon she realized that she need expect no help from Miss Stein or the five satellites who took their cue from her. The Russian inspiration had happened to be acceptable but she was to be shown that she mustn't take advantage of her start. The question or two she began to ask had for an answer: "Good Lord, don't bother me!" "If you can't see for yourself, what are your eyes for?" or "This ain't the schoolroom, I don't think!"
Maybe, she told herself, the girls were not always like this. To-day they were desperate, and no wonder. She mustn't mind a few snubs. They hardly knew what they were saying. The check book was more formidable than it had seemed on the blackboard, and she envied the others their quick, almost mechanical way of adding and subtracting. Would she ever be like that? Meanwhile the thing was to keep the entries in her check book correct.
She was saved, perhaps, by the need which soon arose for one girl to put in shape for customers the blouses, sashes, and ties which had not been pinned together. Just as her brain began to reel over a difficult calculation which must be made in a clamouring hurry, Miss Stein commanded a change of work.
"As soon as you're through with this customer," was the order.
Win took time to draw breath and finished the sum correctly "I should have gone flump over the next!" she thought, with a thankful sigh, for she was in her element, choosing colours and draping sashes to suit customers' "styles." Miss Stein grudged her the distinction, but granted it for the sake of business. If the girl showed signs of "uppishness" when the sale was over she should soon be made to see that it wouldn't pay.
Even as it was, Win used up one whole check book, containing fifty order forms, and also her own vitality. She had no time to realize how tired she was until half-past twelve brought the sale to an end. Even then a thing that happened pushed away thought of self for a few more moments.
Walking beside Mr. Thorpe, the aisle manager, came a big, auburn-haired, red-moustached man of thirty three or four, with a particularly pleasant, smiling face of florid colour and excitable blue eyes. He looked boyishly obstinate, and yet, Win thought, as if he might be easy to "get round," unless some prejudice kept him firm. She would not have thought of him at all had not the flush which suddenly swept over Miss Stein's face suggested that this was "he."
Win was instantly sure that here was the man in the case; now, cherchez la femme! And she had not to search far.
The two men did not come to the bargain square, but he of the red moustache slowed down to throw a glance of intense interest at the denuded counters and the customers who lingered, though the sale was ended, to buy "Pavlovas" at their suddenly augmented price. He spoke to the floorwalker, and got some answer which Miss Stein would evidently have given at least a week out of her life to hear. Then the pair passed on, but only to pause again plainly—too plainly—in sight of all eyes in the hollow square.
The red-moustached man parted company with his companion and went straight to a counter where lace scarfs and fichus and wonderful boudoir caps were achieving a brilliant success. Instantly a fairy-like brunette with cherry lips and a bewitching, turned-up nose came forward with a sweet meekness that was the subtlest kind of coquetry. Whatever he had to say was said in a second or two, and the girl answered as quickly. But she went back to work with a conscious look which would to any watching woman announce that she considered the man her property.
"Little pig!" Win said to herself. "She's purring with joy because Miss Stein saw. (Do pigs purr?) Anyhow I am glad we've made a success. That must be some comfort! Why, at the Hands it's like a big theatre with a lot of different stages, where the curtains go up unexpectedly and give you a glimpse of an act."
But exciting as the plays were, the one in which she herself had a part began to seem very long drawn out when the first wild rush of the two-hour act was over. Miss Stein, without a word of appreciation to the new recruit who had saved the day, went off with the anemic girl to lunch. Two others left at the same time, and only a couple of the old guard remained to hold the fort with Win. Three were quite enough, however, to cope with the diminished trade. Customers, as well as saleswomen, were thinking of food; and as the crowd in the shopping centres of the great store thinned perceptibly, no doubt it thickened to the darkening of the air in the famous Pompeian restaurant on the top floor.
Most of the best "confections" in the hollow square were sold, and Win was aware, as interest slackened, that she felt "rather like a hollow square" herself.
There was a little "flap" chair turned up against each of the four counters, and at ebb-tide of custom Win looked at them wistfully.
"I suppose we're allowed to sit down for a minute when there's nothing to do?" she inquired of a plump, dull-eyed girl who was furtively polishing the nails of one hand with the ball of her other palm.
"We're legally allowed to, if that's what you mean," replied the other. "But we're not encouraged to. I wouldn't, my first day, anyways, if I was you."
"Thank you very much," said Winifred. "It's good of you to tell me things. I won't sit down, since you advise me not. But it is hard, standing up so long, especially after such a rush as we've had, isn't it?"
"Oh, if you think this is hard!" echoed the plump girl, Miss Jones. (Win noticed that the saleswomen called each other by name, though officially they were numbers.) "You ain't bin three hours yet. Wait and see how you feel to-night when ten o'clock comes."
"Ten o'clock!" gasped Win. "I thought we closed at six."
"We're supposed to shut up then, but folks won't go these busy weeks. They can't be chased out. And we have to stay hours after they have gone, putting away stock and—oh, shucks of things. Little do the swell dames care what happens to us once they're outside the doors. I guess they think we cease to exist the minute they don't need us to wait on them."
"I've always heard that rich American women took such an interest in the working—I mean, in us, who work," Win hastily amended.
"Oh, when they're old or sick of their diamonds and their automobiles they think it'll be some spree to come and stir us guyls up to strike against our wrongs. But when we've struck it's just about their time for getting sick of us. I got caught that way once when I worked in a candy-box factory. I bet I don't again! See here, I'm kind of sorry for you if you thought the Hands was a party where they asked you to sit down and have afternoon tea. Fred Thorpe, the floorwalker in this depart, is a real good feller, and he'd be glad to give us a rest—a big difference between him and some I've knowed! But he dasn't treat us as white as he'd like. In this show every Jack and Jill is watched from above. There ain't nobody except Father himself das' call his soul his own. If a chap thinks he's safe to do some tiny thing his own way, gee! a brick falls smack on his head. That's one of Peter Rolls's little ways."
Win shivered slightly to hear that name thus used, but Miss Jones was absorbed in her subject.
"Us guyls ain't even supposed to talk to each other, except about business," she went on. "But that's just the one thing they can't stop, and they know they can't, so they have to wink at it. You see, though, the way I keep folding the goods or pretending to look for something every instant, so you'd most think I'd got the St. Vitus's dance? Well, that's because if we just stood with our heads together poor Thorpe would have to come careering over here and inquire what was the subject of our earnest conversation. He'd hate it like poison, but he'd do it all the same, or the feller above would know the reason why."
"I thought he seemed kind and nice—I mean Mr. Thorpe," said Win.
"No use trying to mash him! He's gone on Dora Stein. Say, did you get on to the sale job? I somehow thought you did."
"I saw there was some trouble," Win hesitated.
"Trouble? There's nothing but trouble. Anybody'd think we was asking for it! This blessed depart is upset from way back since the promotions began. Our last superintendent got the sack through his drunken wife coming around the place makin' scenes. And Mr. Meggison was put over another man's head. That made t'other feller so mad he blowed out his brains. 'Twas in the papers, but it got hushed up mighty quick. The news, not the brains, I mean! Old Saint Peter knows some tricks of hushin' up.
"Well, anyways, that set the ball rolling, and our head salesman was jumped up to be department manager and buyer right over Thorpe's head. 'Twas too much for him, and he gave Dora Stein the toss. Now he wants her out of his shine, and he dumped some jay stuff he bought in a bankrupt sale on her to get rid of. The head buyer give him beans for bein' fooled over a snide lot of trash like that, so what he does is to visit it on us. He hoped Dora'd get mad and clear out so he wouldn't see her eyes on him every time he walked past to give Miss Westlake, his new guyl, the glad eye. But I guess now Miss Stein's made such a big success where he hoped she'd fail, she'll stay pat."
As Miss Jones finished her story she watched Win's face to see if it changed, but there was no sign that the newcomer grudged Miss Stein the credit. She was actually smiling.
"There's something queer about that girl," Miss Jones presently murmured to Miss McGrath at the other end of the square, as Win was called upon to serve a lady who had been told at luncheon about the Pavlovas. "She ain't natural. What'll you bet she's a spy? I'm goin' to ask Miss Stein what she thinks."
DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST
Miss Kirk was almost ready to go from the restaurant to work again when Win appeared, a three-cent entrance ticket in her hand, to face an atmosphere crowded with sundry uncongenial members of the vegetable kingdom.
"Hello, 2884 England!" Sadie feigned facetiously to call her up by telephone. "Got yer number, all right, you see! I begun to think they'd rung me off, so I wouldn't get onto you again this side heaven. And say, that reminds me: heaven looks a long way from here, don't it?"
Win smiled.
"Good thing! You ain't got yer smile rubbed off yet. Stick to it if y'can. It's a fine prop. I otta go in a minute, but you're such a chicken if I don't watch out for you y'might get lost in the wash. Any one put you wise on that three-cent billy doo?"
"The girl at the door told me I was to buy it of her," said Win, "and then I could divide it up for three different things to eat. But can one get three different things to eat for three cents? It seems wonderful!"
"You won't be so much surprised when you've got 'em et. I'd try a soup, a mutton sandwich, and a cuppa cawfee for eight cents, if I was you. But see here, I ain't goin' to feed my face in this ranch after to-day. I knowed pretty near how punk 'twould be from things guyls told me about the Hands, and I only took a meal so as to see you and ask how the Giant Child was gettin' along. No more o' this grub for mine! And if I was in your place I'd go out to eat. You get a breath o' fresh air; and a cuppa hot chocolate for a nickel at a drug store, with a free lunch o' crackers thrown in, 'll do you a sight more good than the best there is in this dope shop."
Long before Miss Kirk had finished pouring out advice, the eight-cent lunch of soup, sandwich, and coffee had been slapped down on a dirty tablecloth by a frantic rabbit of a waitress. The big restaurant was dim, even at midday, because its only windows gave upon a narrow court which separated that part of the building from another part of equal height. It was so dark that perhaps the hard-worked females who cleaned it might be excused for passing blemishes sunlight would have thrown into their faces.
One did not exactly see the dirt (except on the cheap, unbleached "damask" flung crookedly over the black oilcloth nailed onto table tops); but, like a cowardly ghost that dares not show itself, in some secret, shuddering way the squalor was able to make its presence felt. Now and then a black beetle pottered across the oilcloth-covered floor; and though a black beetle may happen anywhere, it potters only where it feels at home, otherwise it scurries about in desperate apology for living. The soup was cold and greasy and tasted of an unscoured pot. The mutton sandwich, as Sadie remarked, would have been better suited to the antique department; and the coffee, though hot, might as easily have been tea or cocoa, or a blend of all three.
"What a shame to feed their people like this!" exclaimed Win, who had thought she was hungry, but now found herself mistaken. And again the eyes of Peter Rolls, Jr., seemed to be looking straight into hers. No wonder he was what his sister hinted at if he knew all about this and had not the heart to care! And if he didn't trouble to know, it was just as bad.
"They don't want to feed us, you see," said Sadie, slowly finishing a baked apple which looked like a head-hunter's withered trophy. "On the low prices they're obliged to charge they can't make a cent offen us. Besides if all the guyls et in the house they'd have to give up more of their valuable room. They'd rather we'd go out, so long as we're back in time. Only the poorest ones, who have to look twice at every cent, feed in the restaurant as a reg'lar thing; or the weak ones, who're so dead tired they can't bear to take a nextra step. And oh, by the way, talkin' o' that, you'll need foot powder. Your first week your feet'll hurt that bad you'll be ready to bawl. But if you can stand it and your back bein' broke in two at the waist it'll be better the week after, and so on, till you won't notice so much. Now I must go or I'll be docked, and I ain't the betrothed of a millionaire yet. But tell me where you live. Me and you might see something of e' juther, if you feel the way I do."
"I liked you the minute I looked round the corner of my shoulder and saw you plastered onto my back!" laughed Win, already revived, not by the food, but by some subtle emanation of strength and sympathy from the more experienced girl. "I wish I could live near you. The boarding-house where I am is too expensive, and I've given notice to leave on Saturday."
"My! You'd turn up your nose at Columbus Avenue, I guess," said Miss Kirk. "That's where I hang out. It ain't a boardin'-house. What's the use shellin' out for meals and not bein' home to them? I'd like awful well to have you in the same movie with me. There ain't a guyl I care to speak to on the film! But the 'L' runs past the place, and some folks say it otta be spelled with 'H.' The noise pretty near drove me bughouse at fyst, but I'm settlin' down to it now. And oh, say, that big feller whose best lion died on him (good thing 'twasn't his best guyl!) he told me he's come to Columbus to room with the chum w'at put him onto wuykin for the Hands. He's in the toy department with me and feels real at home with the Teddy bears. I could get you a room in my house for two dollars per."
"Per what?" Win was obliged to ask.
"Per week. Per everything. And if you take my tips about grub, and do your own waists and hank'chiffs Sundays—laundry 'em, I mean, instead of wallerin' in bed like a sassiety bud, you'll have money to burn or put in the mishrunny box."
"I'll come!" exclaimed Win. "Please engage the room. If it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me, and I'll put up with the noise for the sake of your society."
"My! Thanks for the bookays and choclits! Ta, ta! I'll wait for you to-night at the stage entrance with the other Johnnies."
She was off with the promptness of a soubrette after an "exit speech," and Win was left to sip her stale coffee or spend what remained of her "off time" in the rest room next door.
Legally, Peter Rolls was supposed to give his hands an hour for the midday meal, but in the rush of the holiday season a way had been found for whipping the inconvenient little law devil round the post. Employees were asked to "lend" the management half of the legally allotted hour, the time to be repaid them later, so that after Christmas they might take once a week an hour and a half in the middle of the day instead of an hour. Those in the know had learned that, as on Christmas Eve most of the extra hands received with their pay envelope a week's notice to quit, they, at least, never got back the half-hours lent. As for the permanent hands, it would amount to a black mark secretly put against their names if they dared lay claim to the time owing. Win, however, was blissfully ignorant of this, and though she was tired, the arrangement seemed fair to her. As she got up from the table to spend fifteen minutes in the rest room she was almost happy in the thought of having the sardine for a neighbour.
Two of the girls who had come up from the bargain square with her, on the return of Miss Stein and their other seniors, looked after Win as she passed out of the restaurant.
"There goes Miss Thank-you-I-beg-your-pardon," said the young lady who had wondered if 2884 were a spy. "She's got a smile as if she was invited to tea with the Vanderbilts."
"By this time next week I bet she smiles the wrong side of her mouth if she puts on any airs with Dora Stein."
"Hum-m, yeh. Unless what you think's so, and she's on the right side o' Father."
It was true, as the girls had warned the new hand, when six o'clock—closing time—came, you "couldn't chase the dames out." The salespeople began to put things away, and some even ventured to remind customers that the shop shut at six; but ladies who believed themselves possessed of the kindest hearts on earth pleaded that they must have one more thing, only just one, to complete their list for that day. Those who were too cross and tired to think about hearts or anything else except their own nerves, made no excuses at all, but demanded what they wanted or threatened a report to the floorwalker if a saleswoman were "disagreeable."
"Look at them!" snapped Miss Stein, maddened by a consignment of more blouses from the bankrupt sale (which had brought upon Horrocks the gibes of the head buyer), blouses without sashes, which not even Poiret could have turned into "Pavlovas." "Look at them, the fat, old, self-satisfied lemons, with their hats and their dresses and their squeezed-in corsets and shoes, and even their back hair, bought in sweat shops like ours! Pills, going to their homes to say their prayers, and then, full o' dinner, to the meeting of the Anti-Sweats. I know em! Maybe they'll do some o' the sweatin' in kingdom come!"
Already Win had learned that a "lemon" or a "pill" was a customer who made as much trouble as possible for as small as possible a return; but it gave her a stab to hear Peter Rolls's great department store called a "sweat shop." Again she saw the eyes. Was she never to get rid of the memory of those hypocritical blue eyes?
Nobody thought of being ready for home until nearly ten o'clock; and long before that Miss Stein's nerves felt as if they had been run, like threads, through the eyes of hot needles. Again Win had helped her in the afternoon by placing blouses of congenial colours together on the counters instead of letting them lie anyhow, as Miss Stein, in her recklessness, would have done. But less than ever had the elder girl seen reason for thanking Miss Child when the second instalment of "punk" goods was brought out of "reserve."
If the first lot had not gone off so soon they would not have been saddled with this, and so 2884 had, in Miss Stein's estimation, done nothing at the end of the day except "show herself off" and make everybody work twice as hard as necessary. She would not tell Win how to put things away, or let anybody else help her out.
"You gotta learn for yourself or you never will," she said sharply, all the more sharply because Fred Thorpe, the floorwalker, happened to be within earshot.
"I don't care what he thinks of me!" she said fiercely to herself, knowing that Thorpe would understand and disapprove her injustice to the new girl. But it was only half true that she did not care.
She was longing desperately for somebody to love her; and though she could not in decency have accepted, after the way she had treated him, she wished that Thorpe would ask her to have supper with him that night. The Westlake pig, she knew, was going to Dorlon's for a pan roast with Horrocks, for the creature had told all the girls who were sure to run with it to her, Dora Stein. Thorpe would have been a faded flag to flaunt in the face of the enemy—a floorwalker, to one who had mashed a department manager! Still it would have been comforting to know that she still had attractions for some one, and at least she would have liked the chance to refuse an invitation.
Thorpe, on his part, would joyfully have asked her, for he could not quite "unlove" the beautiful face he had once adored, though he knew now exactly what a fierce spirit lived behind it. He was well aware of his own weakness and was humble enough to confuse with it the kindness of heart which permitted such treatment as he had received.
No girl, not even Dora Stein herself, would dare risk offending any other of the floorwalkers, men able to break a saleswoman if they "got a down" on her. But Dora knew only too well that he would not demean himself to take revenge on her or any one. And probably she believed that he would not punish or even "call her down" for injustice to a newcomer.
Thorpe was miserable that night, for he had missed few incidents of the day in Dora's neighbourhood. He recognized a "live wire" when he saw one, and he did see that 2884 had "stuff" in her. She deserved to be praised, and encouragement was all that she needed to turn her into a valuable saleswoman, one who might become a "real winner" some day. He could help her by speaking a few kind words, but Miss Stein would think them spoken on purpose to spite her, and that wouldn't do 2884 much good if she stayed in the blouse department. Also he could help her by mentioning in the right quarter her generalship in the matter of the "Pavlovas" instead of letting Dora take the credit. But if he did the girl any sort of justice he would be harming Miss Stein.
"I don't know what to do! I guess I shall have to leave the thing to Providence—and the devil take the hindmost!" he thought gloomily.
It seemed to Win, as she went out at last, a week since she had come in by the same door. It was like a play she had seen, where, in the second act, the people who had been young in the first were middle-aged when the curtain next rose; and in the third they were old, all in the course of a few hours. But a year or two seemed to drop from her shoulders when she caught sight of Miss Kirk waiting for her in the street. Beside Miss Kirk, to the surprise of 2884, towered the lion tamer.
"Well, I thought you'd never come!" was the greeting of Sadie. "But all's well that ends well. And Mr. Teddy Lion here wants to take us some place for a little supper."
"That ain't no way to interdooce me to the lady, kid," said the big fellow. "She won't look my way if you treat me light like that. My name's Earl Usher. Honest truth, 'tis, off the bills! Y'will come along, won't you?"
"You're very kind," Win began in the conventional way that he had laughed at in the morning. Then, afraid of being teased again, she said that she must go home.
"I don't know what my landlady will think," she excused herself. "I walked out early this morning, never dreaming I should be gone until late at night."
"Well, she can't kill you," suggested Miss Kirk, "and, anyhow, you're leavin' the end of the week. I think you'll be real mean if you won't come. I know what your reason is, and so does he. He ain't nobody's fool. Do you s'pose I'm the sort would do anything myself, or ask you to do anything, that wasn't all right? We ain't in the Four Hundred, nor yet in court circles, I don't think. And this ain't London nor it ain't Boston. Thank Gawd it's little old N'York."
"But––" Win persisted, and stopped.
"I know what's got her goat," said Earl Usher. "It's that slush o' mine this morning about not bein' a millionaire and my face needin' to be fed. I thought afterward 'that's no talk for a gen'leman to use before a lady.' Well, I may not be a millionaire at present, but I can see my way to feedin' our t'ree faces and not feel the pinch."
"Ain't you the fresh guy?" exclaimed Miss Kirk. "Our faces are our own, thank you just the same, and this is a Dutch treat. You might 'a' knowed we'd stick that close to ettiket. I can run to fifteen cents, as far as I'm concerned How is it with you, Miss Child?"
"I can run to that, too," said Win.
"Same here," announced the big young man; "though I'd set my heart on t'other kind o' treat. Where shall it be? I suppose we mustn't think o' the Waldorf—what?"
"Huh!" snorted Miss Kirk, "not for mine, if I owned the mint! I bin to the Waldorf wunst, of course. I went just out of curiosity to see how the swells et. Wunst is enough, like goin' to the menagerie. Y'owe it to yer intelligence to see all the different forms of animal life the good Lord has created, behavin' accordin' to their kind, and then come back to your own, thankin' Gawd you're not as they are. We'll eat at Ginger Jim's, where we can lean our elbows on the tables and get perfectly good oyster soup for ten cents a head!"
They walked for a while, Earl Usher insisting on the two girls taking his arms, one on either side. By and by they got into a crosstown car, and it was when Win was being helped out by the lion tamer that a motor dashed past. The existence of people who went about in splendid gray motor cars seemed to Win so far away from her own just then that, standing in the street, her hand in Earl Usher's, she gazed into the large, lighted window of the automobile as she might have gazed through a powerful telescope at a scene of family life on Mars.
There were two girls in evening dress and two young men in the illuminated chariot. It flashed by like a Leonid, but left a gay impression of flower-tinted velvet cloaks and ermine and waved hair with a glitter of diamonds and oval white shirtfronts and black coats. Also a pair of eyes seemed to look for the twentieth part of a second into Winifred's.
"I don't believe it was he!" she said to herself when the motor had gone by.
BLUE PETER
Peter Rolls, Sr., and Peter junior were both unhappy in vastly different ways. One difference was that Peter junior knew he was unhappy and suspected why. Peter senior had no idea that what he suffered from was unhappiness. He thought that it was indigestion, and he supposed that feeling as he felt was the normal state of men passing beyond middle age. When you were growing old you could not expect to keep much zest or personal interest in life or to enjoy things, so he had always been told; and dully, resignedly, he believed what "they" said.
If any one had told him that he was a miserable man he would have been angry, and also surprised. Why the dickens should he be miserable? He considered himself one of the most successful men in New York, and his greatest pleasure was in recalling his successes, step by step, from the time before he got his foot on the first rung of the ladder all the way up to the top.
Often he lay awake at night pondering on those first days and first ambitions. If he began to think of them when he went to bed it was fatal. He became so pleasantly excited, and the past built itself up so realistically all about him, that he could not go to sleep for hours. What a sensational "bed book" is to some tired brains, that was his past to the head of the Hands. Besides, he had everything in the world that he or anybody else (it seemed to him) could possibly want. Perhaps it was a little irritating when you could have all you wanted not to know what to want. But, he consoled himself, that must be so with all rich people. The best thing was not to think about it.
He was convinced that he loved mother as dearly as ever a husband had loved a wife. They were uncomfortable together, but wretched apart. That was marriage. There was nothing more in it.
They hadn't much to say to each other. But you never saw husbands and wives chatting together like love birds after the honeymoon. You wanted a bright-cheeked, laughing girl, and you got her. If you were faithful to each other, and didn't have rows, it was an ideal match, especially if there were children.
Peter Rolls was very fond of his children. When they were little they had been the joy of his life; the thought of them had been the only one that warmed his heart and gave him almost superhuman energy to take the future by the horns like a bull and force a ring through its bleeding nose that it might be ready for them to ride when they grew up.
Now they were grown up, and they were riding; and it was natural that the fire of the heart should have calmed. He was proud of the pair, very proud. Pete (no, he mustn't call him by that name. Ena didn't like it, said it sounded common) Peter—or Petro, if he preferred—was a gentleman and made a good show for every dollar that had been spent on him. Put him with an Astor or a Livingston and you couldn't tell the difference!
Once, a long time ago, old Peter had dreamed of a young Peter succeeding him in the business; but Ena had made him see what a foolish dream that was—foolish and inconsistent, too—because, what was the good of slaving to satisfy your ambition, and then, when you reached the goal, instead of profiting by what you'd got, ordering your heir down to the level you'd worked to leave behind?
Peter senior had entirely come round to Ena's view, and instead of regretting that Peter junior hadn't in him the making of a hard-boiled man of business who'll do anything to succeed, father stopped Peter abruptly whenever he showed an inconvenient sign of interest in the Hands and what went on under the glitter of their rings. Nor was Peter's interest of the right kind. It was not what Peter senior called practical.
Ena, now! There was a girl to be proud of. Father was so proud that pride of his splendid daughter had frozen out or covered with ashes the glow which used to fill his heart at the thought of her. But pride was the right thing! That was what he had worked for: to make of his children a man and woman to be proud of when the top stone was on his pile.
Ena was more than a lady. She was an orchid, a princess. She ruled father with her little finger—a beautifully manicured, rose-and-white finger, such as he had hardly seen when he was young. There was so much of himself in Ena that Peter yielded to her mandates as to the inarticulate cry of his own soul translated into words. The princess in whose veins his blood ran must understand what he ought to want better than he himself could understand.
She said: What was the fun of having money if you couldn't know all the best people everywhere, and be of them as well as merely among them? She began saying this even before she came home "for good" from school. It was a school for millionaires' daughters, and the daughters of other millionaires had showed her the difference between her father and theirs, oil magnates and steel and railway magnates, and magnates who magnated on their ancestors' fortunes made in land or skins of animals.
Nothing really worth having—nothing really worth father's years of hard work—could come to them as a family until Peter Rolls ceased to identify himself personally with the Hands, Ena had pleaded, and at last the head of the establishment engaged an official "understudy" to represent him every day in the gorgeously furnished office which had seemed to old Peter what the body is to the soul.
Rolls senior and Henry Croft, the man he appointed as dictator, corresponded daily, by letter and telephone, but Peter Rolls himself was not supposed to enter the great commercial village he had brought together under one roof. Ena was able to say to any one rude enough to ask, or to those she suspected of indiscreet curiosity: "Father never goes near the place. He's tired of business, and, luckily, he doesn't need to bother."
She would not much have cared whether the statement were true or not if she were sure that the carefully careless sounding words were believed. But it would have been distressing to have any one say: "Ena Rolls pretends that her father doesn't work in the shop any more, but I know for a fact that he goes every day." So it comforted her to feel sure that her arguments had really impressed father and that he never did go to the Hands unless, perhaps twice a year or so for important meetings. It pleased her that he had joined a rich club in New York which had enough "swell" members to make it pleasant for her to remark casually, "Father belongs to the Gotham."
When father went to New York in the evening, as he often did, not returning to Sea Gull Manor till late, and sometimes staying away all night, he used to say as an excuse to mother or Ena: "I'm going to the club." After a while it was taken for granted, and he made no excuse at all. But if Ena had known the mystery of those late evenings she would have been struck with fear—the fear which comes of finding out that those we think we know best are strangers to us.
Of all the sad millionaires of New York who pin together the pages of certain mysterious life chapters not to be read by eyes at home, perhaps no other had a mystery like that of Peter Rolls. It was now the one thing that he intensely enjoyed; but it was a guilty, furtive enjoyment which made a nervous wreck of him and ruined a stomach once capable of salvation.
Peter junior had never been entirely happy since he left Yale at twenty-three. It was only then that he began to look life in the face and see the freckles on its complexion The minute he saw them on that countenance which should be so beautiful, he wanted to help in some way to rub them off. To help—to help! That was the great thing.
He didn't care much for business, but he felt that, being Peter Rolls's only son, it was his duty to care. He imagined father deeply hurt at the indifference of his two children to that which had been his life—hurt, but hiding the wound with proud reserve. So Peter junior determined to sacrifice himself. He offered to go into the shop, to begin at the bottom if father wished, and in learning all there was to learn, gradually work up to a place where he could be a staff to lean upon.
It was in the "library" that they had this talk—an immense and appalling room, all very new oak panelling and very new, uniform sets of volumes bound in red leather and gold, with crests and bookplates, bleakly glittering behind glass doors. Peter senior tried to kill time there, because a library seemed to his daughter the right background for a father, and Peter junior, who had saved mother's poor old furniture for his own rooms, found it singularly difficult to open his heart between walls that smelled of money and newness. However, he did his best to blunder out the offer of himself; while the chill gleam in his father's eyes (so remarkably like that of the bookcase glass doors) made him feel, as he went on, that he must have begun all wrong.
"So you don't trust your own father?" was the answer he got when he stopped, as one might be stopped short by the sharp edge of a marble mantelpiece when trying to find the way across a dark room.
"Don't—trust you?" stammered Peter, sure now that he was a fool not to understand, not to have made his father understand.
"You think the old man's got past running his own business, and if you don't want your money to go to the dogs you must look after it yourself."
"Good heavens, no!" Peter broke out. "You can't dream that any such thought entered my mind! I—why, Father, I'd rather die than have you believe that of me."