"Then you mustn't lay your plot in this house," retorted the officer. "There ain't any pictures a full-sized cat could crawl through, and as for Mr. Logan's panels, they look real nice, but I guess they're the kind you buy by the yard. And there ain't a room with a wall that could open to hide anything thicker than a paper doll."
He earned a laugh again on that climax. Peter said that he would have to go to some old country on the other side to write the kind of story he meant. The men finished their champagne and had more. Then they finished that with a gay health (proposed by their host) to Freddy Fortescue. And at last there was no doubt that the time had come to go.
Logan shook hands with both and pressed gifts of cigars and cigarettes upon them. If Peter intended to give Logan away, now was the latest, the very latest moment. But he said not a word. Satisfied that the girl could not possibly be concealed in the house, her name must not be risked. While Logan accompanied the guardians of the law to the front door, opened by Sims for their benefit, Peter annexed the blue smoke wreath. A splinter of wood (the furniture was only imitation Jacobean) had impaled the rag of chiffon, and almost tenderly releasing it, Rolls folded the trophy away in a breast pocket.
His imagination had not tricked him. The stuff did smell of fresias—which he proved by holding it to his lips for an instant—the very scent that had come out to him whenever the dryad door opened, in reality and memory, the scent he had grown intimate with while the Moon dress hung in his wardrobe during those days when he had awaited a chance to present his offering to Ena!
When Logan came back he turned to tell Sims at the door that he would not be needed again, at any rate, for the present. Then he shut himself and Peter into the rosy glow of the dining-room.
"At last!" he exclaimed, sinking contentedly into the chair opposite Rolls. "I feel as if I'd earned a whole bottle of drink. But all's well that ends well."
"It hasn't quite ended yet, has it?" remarked Peter. "No, thank you, no champagne!"
"Not ended?" repeated Logan, bottle in hand. "Oh, I see what you're at!" and he began filling his own glass, already emptied half a dozen times during the visit of the detectives. "You mean you want an explanation of this hanky panky. Well, I promised it to you, didn't I? I said you must give me the benefit of the doubt till those chaps were out of the house. I hope you have. But I thought once or twice you looked a bit thick, as if you weren't sure what I'd let you in for. But I'm not the kind of chap to get a pal in a fix to save my own face. I'm going to explain, all right. Only first I want to thank you again for––"
"You needn't," said Peter.
"Sure you won't change your mind and take a little fizz? We've been through some hot work for this weather."
"You have. No—not any!"
"One go at mine, then, and I'm yours. A-ah! that was pretty good. Well—there was a girl, of course. But she came because she wanted to come. Then the trouble began. There was a little misunderstanding about a pearl dog collar she admired in a jeweller's window. She seemed disappointed to find that this wasn't to be the occasion of a presentation. Said I'd promised. I hadn't! I never do promise beforehand to give girls things. Girls would love to have the same effect on your money the sun has on ice. Not that this one's like all the others. She's worth a little expenditure. A real stunner! Any fellow'd be wild over her. An English girl, tall and slim, but gorgeous figure: long legs and throat, and dark eyes as big as saucers. You'd turn and look after her anywhere! A lady, and thinks herself the queen, though she works in a New York department store. I've been running after her since one night we made acquaintance in the park—great chums—called each other Jim and Winnie and held hands from the first.
"But to-night, just because I said I'd never promised a dog collar or anything like one, she went mad as a tiger cat and took revenge by ringing up the police with a beast of a story that I'd kidnapped her. She got it out before I could make her stop, and for just a minute I was in a blue funk. New York's rampagin' so just now on the subject of kidnappers. But I had wit enough to chuck her into the street and run to the club for help. I thought of Freddy Fortescue (by the way, I must get him to stand by me with a story in case he's questioned. I can count on him every time!), but he wasn't in. I tried another man or two, same result, and just then I saw you coming downstairs—ram caught in the bushes."
"For the sacrifice," Peter finished.
"Well, not too much of a sacrifice, I hope," Logan temporized "You don't regret standing by?"
"No, I don't regret it."
"Yet your tone sounds sort of odd, as if you were keeping something back. I don't see why, either. I've kept my promise. I've explained—put the whole story in a nutshell, not to bore you too much with my love affairs gone bad. And what I've told you is the Gospel's own truth, old man, whether you believe it or not."
"I don't believe it," said Peter. "I know it to be the devil's own lie."
As he spoke he rose, and Logan jumped up, hot and red in the face.
"By Jove!" he sputtered. "I don't know what you mean."
"You know very well," Rolls insisted. "I mean—that you're a liar. A damn liar! The girl didn't come here because she wanted to come. And she wouldn't take a pearl collar or a paper collar from you if you went on your knees."
"You must be crazy!" Logan stared at him, paler now. "If you weren't my guest, in my house, I—I'd knock you down."
"Try it," Peter invited him. "This is your father's house, I believe, not yours. And I don't call myself your guest. Neither need you. I'm a sort of out-of-season April Fool. At least, I was. I'm not now."
"I tell you—you're bughouse!" stammered Logan.
"You stand up for a girl you don't know a damn thing about––"
"I'd stand up for any girl against you," he was cut short again. "But I do know this girl. I won't say how. I know you're the dirt under her feet, and if I hadn't made sure every way that she was out of the house, I'd have set the police onto you as—as I wouldn't set terriers onto a rat."
"You—you can't tell me her name—or anything about her—I'll bet!"
"You won't bet with me. And neither of us is going to speak her name here. Shut your mouth on it if you don't want it stuffed down your throat and your teeth after it. You've been a villain. That's the one thing that stands out in this business. God! do you think you could make me believe anything wrong about that girl—you? Why, if an angel looped the loop down from heaven to do it I wouldn't. Tell me what store she's working in. That's what I want to hear about her from you, and nothing else."
Logan was not red in the face now. He had grown very pale. In truth, he was frightened. But he was angry enough to hide his fear for the present. He determined that Rolls should not get a word out of him.
"That's all you want to hear, is it?" he mimicked. "If you know so much about her, you can jolly well find out the rest for yourself or keep off the grass. I don't intend—"
The sentence ended in an absurd gurgle, for the hand of Peter Rolls was twisting his high collar. It was horribly uncomfortable and made him feel ridiculous, because he was taller and bigger and older than Rolls. He tried to hit Peter in the face with his fist, but suddenly all strength went out of him. The hated face vanished behind a shower of sparks.
"You're murdering—me!" he gasped. "I've—got—a weak heart."
Peter let go and flung him across the room. He tottered toward the door. And his servant, who had been breathlessly listening outside, opened it opportunely on the instant. Logan saw his chance, as Sims meant him to do, half fell, half staggered out, and the door slammed in Peter's face.
It took the latter no more than thirty seconds to wrench it open again and drag Sims, who was holding desperately to the knob, into the dining-room. "Don't hurt me, sir!" the man pleaded. "I only did my duty."
"Hurt you!" repeated Rolls with a laugh. "Don't be afraid. Where's the other coward?"
"If you are referring to Mr. Logan, sir," Sims replied politely, "he is gone. If you look for him, I think you will find he has quite gone. I had the front door open, all ready, in case it should be needed."
Peter reflected for an instant, and then shrugged his shoulders.
"Let him go!" he said. "I'd as soon step twice on a toad that was hopping away as touch him again. Br-r! This place is sickening. I'll go, too—but not after him."
"Yes, sir, certainly," returned Sims with alacrity, slinking along the hall to the vestibule. "I'll open the front door for you. This," he added with a certain emphasis "will be the fourth time I've done so to-night. Once to let Mr. Logan in, once when the young ladies came, and––"
"Ah, there were two of them!" Rolls caught him up.
"Yes, sir. And though I did my duty just now helping Mr. Logan—if I may say it, sir, without offence—helping him out of danger, I am ready to assist you, sir, by answering any questions you may wish to ask. I do not consider my doing so disloyal to my employer. My statements won't hurt him, I assure you. And if you would—er––"
"Would 'make it worth your while,' I suppose you're trying to get out," Peter disgustedly prompted him.
"I have a wife to support, sir, and a child. I keep them in the country, and it comes expensive."
"Give me ten dollars' worth of talk," ordered Peter, "and I'll believe as much as I choose."
He was half ashamed of himself for stooping to bribe the fellow who perhaps, after all, was only trying to delay him. Yet he might have something worth hearing. He could not afford to lose a chance.
"Two young ladies came as far as the door, sir," said Sims, pocketing the greenback, "but only one came into the house—a tall, handsome young lady, different looking from most, with a thin yellowish silk cloak over a blue dress. She walked right in, but when she found her friend was gone she seemed surprised, and the next thing she was in the boudoir telephoning. Mr. Logan went in and she came out. They had a little dispute, I think, and though he'd been expecting her to supper, he told me to get her out of the house as quick as I could. I showed her through the basement, and she walked, rather briskly I should say, sir, down the street, while Mr. Logan went in the other direction—toward the corner, where the club is. As for the young ladies themselves, I can give you no information, except that the one who didn't come in to-night has been here before on several occasions. The one who came in and—er—used the telephone, I have never previously seen. That's all I know which you don't know yourself. But I hope I've been of some assistance to make up for doing my disagreeable duty, sir?"
"I've had ten dollars' worth, thank you," said Peter. "And now for the fourth time of opening that door."
He went out, satisfied that he was carrying with him the only trace of Winifred Child from the shut-up house. To-morrow he would begin with the opening of the shops and look through every department store until he found her.
MOTHER
Peter Rolls, as it oddly happened, had run up to New York that hot night in order to see a girl do a "turn" at a vaudeville theatre—an English girl about whom he had read a newspaper paragraph, and who might, he thought, be Winifred Child. The girl's stage name was Winifred Cheylesmore. The newspaper described her as "tall, dark, and taking, with a voice like Devonshire cream."
She was a new girl, of whom nobody had heard, and Peter had been thrilled and impatient. Her "singing stunt" was to be heard at ten o'clock, and Peter had dined at his club, meaning to be early in his seat at the theatre. But a man he knew, sitting at a table near, was a budding journalist, an earnest amateur photographer. He began passing samples of his skill to Peter Rolls, calling out rather loudly the names of ladies snapshotted. Among them was Winifred Cheylesmore, whom he had interviewed. She was no more like Winifred Child than Marie Tempest is like Ethel Barrymore. Consequently Peter gave his ticket away and sat longer over his dinner than he had meant.
If he had started out even five minutes earlier he would have missed Jim Logan and the adventure in the shut-up house. He would not have known that there was hope—indeed, almost a certainty—of finding the lost dryad in one of New York's great department stores.
He was excited, and would have liked to spend half the night walking off his superfluous energy in the streets or the park where that lying beast said he had made Miss Child's acquaintance. Peter would have felt that he was marching to meet the dawn and that the day he longed for would come to him sooner if he walked toward the horizon. But father was in town that night—presumedly at his club, and Peter did not like to leave mother alone. She had exacted no promise—she never did exact promises, for that was not her way. Peter had said, however, that he would motor home after the theatre, and though mother mustn't sit up, she would know that he was in the house.
He determined to keep to this plan, which, of course, would not prevent his returning to New York early enough next day for the first opening of the first shop. He wished there were not so many shops. Unless luck were with him on his search, he might not reach the dryad for days.
In spite of all that had happened, midnight was not long past when Peter tiptoed softly through the quiet house at home and opened the door of his own den. He had expected to find the room in darkness, but to his surprise the green-shaded reading lamp on the book-scattered mahogany table was alight, and there in the horsehair-covered rocking-chair sat mother with her inevitable work. Close by the window was wide open, and the night breeze from over the Sound was rhythmically waving the white dimity curtains.
The sweetness of home-coming swept over Peter with the perfume of wallflowers which blew in on the wind—a sweetness almost as poignant as that of fresias. Half unconsciously he had been wishing to see his mother—perhaps not even to speak, but just to see her placid face in its kind womanliness. It was almost as if his wish had been whispered to her telepathically and she had answered it. She made a charming picture, too, he thought, in the shadowy room where the pale, moving curtains in the dimness were like spirits bringing peace, and all the light focussed upon the white-haired, white-gowned woman in the high, black chair seemed to radiate from her whiteness.
Mother looked up, pleased but not surprised, as the opening door framed her son.
"Howdy do, deary!" She smiled at him. "I thought you'd be coming along about this time."
Peter threw his hat and coat at the whale, whose large, shining surface hospitably received them. Mrs. Rolls's small, plump feet in cheap Japanese slippers rested upon a "hassock" on whose covering reposed (in worsted) a black spaniel with blue high lights. This animal she had herself created before the birth of Peter or Ena, but it was as bright a beast as if it had been finished yesterday. No one at Sea Gull Manor except Peter would have given Fido house room. But he liked the dog, and now sat down on it, lifting his mother's little feet to place them on his knee.
"You oughtn't to have waited up," he remarked, having kissed her snow-white hair and both apple-pink cheeks and settled himself more or less comfortably on Fido.
"I thought I would," she returned placidly. "I like being here. And I had just this to finish." She held up a wide strip of crocheted lace. "It's 'most done now. It's go'n' to be a bedspread for Ena. But I don't know if she––"
Mrs. Rolls did not finish the sentence, but it was a long, long ago established custom of hers not to finish sentences. Except when alone with Petro, she seldom made any attempt to bring one to an end. It was life at Peter senior's side which had got her out of the habit of trying to complete what she began to say. As he generally interrupted her when she spoke, even in their early years together, she had almost unconsciously taken it for granted that he would do so, and stopped like a rundown mechanical doll at about the place where her quick-minded husband was due to break in.
Peter junior, who never interrupted (though he, too, had a quick mind), knew as well as if she had gone on that his mother meant: "I don't know if Ena will think a homemade coverlet of crocheted lace smart enough for a real, live marchesa, but I feel I should like to make my daughter some bridal present with my own hands."
"Oh, yes, she's certain to. It'll be beautiful, if it's anything like the one you did for me," Petro assured her when the long pause had told him that mother had no more to add. "Just think of Ena getting married!"
"Yes, indeed," sighed Mrs. Rolls. "And it seems only a little while since you were both––"
Peter knew that the missing word was "children." "Anyhow, she's happy, I think," he reflected aloud, a far-away look in his eyes.
"I guess so," mother agreed. "She'll like real well being a–– I wish––"
"Marchesa" was easy for Peter to supply mentally, and would have been much easier for him to pronounce than it was for Mrs. Rolls, who had had small education in the management even of her native tongue.
She made dear little, cozy, common mistakes in grammar and other things. Peter adored her mistakes, and Ena was ashamed of them. But in those good manners which are taught by the heart and not by the head, no queen could have given Mrs. Rolls lessons.
As for the next sentence, beginning with "I wish—" and ending in the air, that was more difficult. Even mother, so placid, seemingly so contented, must have many wishes. And so Petro ventured on a "What?"
"I wisht I could be just as sure you––"
"As sure that I'm happy?"
"Yes, dear."
Peter had been looking at his mother's feet in those blue Japanese slippers, whose cheapness was rather pathetic. (With all their money, she never enjoyed wearing expensive things herself. It was as if she felt lost and un-at-home in them.) But suddenly he glanced up. The pink-and-white face was as calm as usual, yet her tone had meant something in particular. A chord seemed to vibrate in his soul, as if she had softly, yet purposely, touched it with her finger.
"Don't you believe I am happy?" he asked.
"Not—just like you used to be," she said. Their eyes met as she lifted hers from her work and began rolling it up, finished. She blushed beautifully, like a girl.
Peter pressed both the little feet between his hands, pressed them almost convulsively. He did not stop to think how strong his fingers were, though Logan had had cause to realize their strength two hours ago. The pressure hurt the small toes so lightly covered. And the mother of this strong, though slight, young man gloried in the hurt. She was proud of it, proud of Peter, the one thing in the world she felt was really hers.
"Mother!" he said in a low, tense voice. "What told you?"
"Why—just bein' your mother, I guess. I was wonderin'––"
"Wondering what?"
"Whether some day you'd say something."
"I wanted to. I wanted to talk to you about—about it all. But I was afraid it might make you sad. I like to think of you always happy, dearest. And I couldn't bear to be the one to chase away your smile I love so much."
"It's thinking of you helps me to smile, Petie," said his mother, reverting to the pet name of his childhood as she stroked his smooth, black hair. "If 'twasn't for knowing I've got you—and your loving me—I do believe I could never smile."
"You're not unhappy?" Peter cried out, startled. It would be a dreadful pain to know that the placid reserve of this sweet, loved woman meant unhappiness.
"Not while I have you. But—"
"You must go on, dear. Tell me what you feel. We're here together, all alone in the night, talking out our hearts. It seems as if it was meant to be—my finding you waiting here."
"I guess maybe it was, Petie. Something kind of said to me, 'You wait up for him. He wants you.' And I—why, I always want you, boy."
"Darling! We've got each other fast."
"Thanks be, dear! My! You don't know the times I've sneaked in and set in this room when you was away. And even now, if you're go'n' to be out pretty late, I bring in my work 'most always when your pa's out. I generally slip back to my room before you come in, because I know you think I oughtn't to be sittin' up. You mightn't just understand that 'twas because this is my only real home."
"Your only real home? Why, Mother!"
"The rest of the house is so big—and so awful new-fashioned and grand. Not like me a bit," she apologized meekly—but not with the flurried meekness of her apologies to Peter senior. "Here you've saved all my dear old things I had in the days before everything was big. I never can get used to it, and I never will now. It's the bigness, I guess, that's seemed—somehow—to take your pa and Ena away from me—long ago. But I've got you. And you let me come here. So I am happy. I'm a real happy woman, Petie. And I want you to be happy the way you used to be—or some better way, not all restless like you are now. I guess if there was some one you loved different from me you wouldn't make a new life for yourself without a little place in it for mother, would you—just a weenty little place I could come and live in sometimes for a while?"
"I'd want you in it always," said Peter. He leaned up and wound his arms around the plump, formless waist in the neat dressing-gown. "So would she—if there were a she. I hate the 'bigness,' too—the kind of false, smart bigness that you mean. We'll have a little house—she and you and I. For your room will be there, and you'll be in it whenever father'll spare you. But I'm running away in what I used to call my 'dreamobile!' I haven't found her yet. That is, I found her once and lost her again. I'm looking for her now. Mother, do you know what a 'leitmotif' is?"
"No, dear, indeed I don't. I'm afraid I don't know many of the things I––"
"There's no reason why you should know this. In Wagner's operas, which I don't understand, perhaps, but which I love with thrills in my spine—and that's a kind of understanding—whenever a character comes on the stage he or she always is followed by a certain strain of music—music that expresses character, and seems even to describe a person. Well, wallflower perfume might be your leitmotif. Can't you hear perfume? I can. Just as you can seem to see music—wonderful, changing colours. The wallflower scent's all around us now. It's you. But through it I imagine another perfume. It's here, too. It's been with me for months. Because I've got to feel it's her spirit, her leitmotif. The perfume of fresias. Do you know it?"
"I thought maybe she liked it," mother said calmly.
"What put that idea in your darling head?"
"Why, because you've been havin' fresias planted in the garden—and in your room—as long as they lasted through the spring. You'd never thought of 'em before as I know of."
"You witch! You notice everything. Who'd believe it, you're so quiet?"
"Of course I notice things about you. I wouldn't be fit to be your mother if I didn't. Now, do you feel like tellin' me things about her?"
"I'm longing to," said Peter.
They forgot it was late at night. He told her everything, beginning at the moment when he had plunged through the dryad door and going on to the moment when he had lost, not only the girl, but her friendship, though he said nothing of the Moon dress or the shut-up house. Even then he did not stop.
"I must have done something inadvertently," he went on, "to make her stop liking me all of a sudden. For she did like me at first. There was no flirting or anything silly about it. I felt there was a reason for her changing, and ever since, every day and every night, I've been trying to make out what it could have been. I've thought the idea might come to me. But it never has. That's partly why I'm so anxious to find her—to make her explain. I was too taken aback, too—sort of stunned—to go about it the right way when she changed to me at the last minute there on the dock. Once I could understand, why, I might start with her again at the beginning and work up. It would give me a chance—the chance I once thought I had, you know—to try to make her care. Maybe it would be no use. Maybe I'm not the kind she could ever like that way, even if things hadn't gone wrong. But—but, Mother, it's been just agony to think that all this time she's hated me through some beastly misunderstanding which might easily have been cleared up."
"My poor boy!" the kind voice soothed him. "I guess that's the worst pain of all. I knew there was something hurting you, but I didn't know 'twas as hard a hurt as this. But 'twill come right. I feel it will—if she's really the right girl."
"She's the only girl!" exclaimed Peter. "You'd love her, and she'd adore you."
"Tell me just what she looks like," commanded mother, shutting her eyes to see the picture better.
Peter excelled himself in his description of Winifred Child. "Nobody ever even dreamed of another girl who looked or talked or acted a bit like her," he raved. "She's so original!"
"Why, but that's just what somebody did!" mother cried, throwing off the cloak of her placidity. "Lady Eileen."
"Lady Eileen did what?"
"Dreamed about such a girl. It must have been a real interesting dream, because she couldn't get it out of her head and told me all about it. She saw a tall, dark girl, with wonderful eyes and a fascinating mouth and graceful sort of ways like you've been telling me about. Hearing Lady Eileen talk was almost like seeing a photograph. In the dream you were in love with the girl—English she was, too, like the real one—and ransacking New York for her, while all the time she—"
"Yes—yes, dear! All the time she––"
"Lady Eileen said particularly I was to tell you about her dream and let you know she wanted you to hear it, because it seemed kind of dramatic and made her almost superstitious, it was so real every way. But she made me promise I wouldn't say a word unless you spoke first about such a girl as she dreamed of—and told me you loved her and wanted to find her again. If I began, it would spoil the romance, and there wouldn't be anything in it. That was how Lady Eileen felt."
Peter listened, but his spirit had rushed on past these explanations. Lady Eileen had chosen this method of leaving a message for him. It was a strange method, and he did not understand why she had not herself told him of the dream. But she was a kind and clever girl, a true friend. There must have been a good motive for the delay. Loyal himself, he believed in her loyalty and was grateful. But he could not stop to think of her now.
"Where did Lady Eileen see my dryad girl—in the dream?" he asked.
"At father's place," said mother simply. "At the Hands."
THINGS EXPLODING
Lily Leavitt did not come back to Mantles next morning. She sent no word, asked no leave for illness—and the rule at the Hands was discharge for such an omission. If she appeared again her place would be filled—unless she had a strong enough "pull" to keep it open.
Win, who arrived promptly, as usual (just as if last night's adventure had been a black dream) heard the other girls talking about Lily. She listened and said nothing; had no opinion when asked what she thought. But not a soul pitied Miss Leavitt. The general idea seemed to be that she was one "who knew which side her bread was buttered." She would not be stopping away without notice unless she had done better for herself. Probably she had secretly married one of those swell beaus she was always boasting about!
Win, pale and absent-minded (but that might be the heat), was giving the finishing touches to a cloaked group of figurines when a letter was brought to her by a messenger boy. It was not yet time for Peter Rolls's doors to open to the world, but the girl had to finish her task before reading the note. A glance at the envelope showed Sadie's handwriting, and as Sadie ought at that moment to have been making the toilets of dolls upstairs, Win realized that something unexpected must have happened.
Perhaps Sadie was ill and wanted her to explain to the management. She must make short shrift with the figurines and be ready to help Sadie before strenuous life began.
Five minutes later five headless ladies in perfectly draped wraps were showing off their finery to the best advantage, and their tiring maid was standing as still as they, an open letter in her hand.
"What's the matter?" asked a pretty, snub-nosed girl who laughed oftener than Win in these days. "You look as if you'd lost your last friend."
"I'm afraid—I have," Winifred replied in a strange, withdrawn voice which made Daisy Thompson's eyes widen.
"Say! I'm real sorry! I hope it ain't your beau."
Win did not answer, because she did not hear. Sadie! Sadie! The dear little old sardine!
"Good-bye, deerie," she read again. "I coodn't of said this to yure fase. I only noo for shure yesterdy. Its cunsumsion and they won't have me back for fere of my giving it to others. I gess thats right tho its hard luck on me. It aint that I care much about living. I dont, becawse theres sum one I love who loves another girl. Shes a lot better than me and werthy of him so thats all right too but it herts and Id be kind of glad to go out. Dont you be afrade of me doing anything silly in the tabloyde line tho. I wont. Im no coward. But I got to leeve this house for the same reeson as the Hands. I mite give my truble to sum one else. Its a good thing we found out in time. Ive hurd of a noo plase where they take consumps for nuthing, and Ive got to steer for it. Its in the country but I wont tell you where deerie or you mite try to see me and I dont think I cood stand it the way I feel now. But I love you just as much. Good-by. Yure affecshunate Sadie."
Win was overwhelmed. Lately she had seen little of her friend. Neither girl had much time, and the weather had drunk all their energy. She ought to have guessed from Sadie's thinness that she was ill. She ought—oh, she ought to have done a dozen things that she had not done! Now it was too late.
But no, it mustn't be too late! She would find out where Sadie was. It ought to be easy, for the verdict which had sent the girl away from the Hands must have been that of a young doctor who attended the employees. There were certain hours when he came to the hospital room which Win had seen on her first day at Peter Rolls's. One of these hours was just before the opening of the shop. Perhaps he hadn't yet got away.
The floorwalker who controlled Mantles was one of the smartest men in any department, somewhat of a martinet, but inclined to be reasonable with those who had any "gumption." Miss Child had gumption, and though it was nearly time for the public to rush in (there was a bargain sale that day) he gave her a permit of absence.
"Nothing worse than a headache, I hope, takes you to the H.R.?" he questioned, scrawling his powerful name. "We need everybody to get busy to-day."
"I'm going to beg for some sal volatile," answered Win, and determined to do so, as even white fibs were horrid little things, almost as horrid as cowardly, scuttling black beetles.
Poor Sadie had giggled the other night: "You stick even to the truth this hot weather!"
The doctor had not gone, but he did not know of the new place Sadie referred to, and, not knowing, didn't believe in its existence. He had told Sadie Kirk yesterday that her lungs were infected and that she had become "contagious." Of course she had had to be discharged. These things were sad, but they were a part of the day's work. It was a pity that Miss Kirk hadn't been longer with the Hands. Her insurance money wouldn't amount to much.
"Do you mean to say that they've sent her away to die and haven't given her anything?" Win gasped.
"Not to die, I hope," said young Dr. Marlow. "She's curable. But she wouldn't get more than a week's salary with her discharge, I'm afraid. Old Saint Peter isn't in this business for his health."
"Or for any one else's," the girl retorted.
Marlow shrugged his shoulders, bowed slightly to the pretty but unreasonable young woman, and went away.
Winifred also should have gone. She had got her sal volatile and her information. But life was lying in ruins around her—Sadie's life, if not her own—and she did not know how to set about reconstructing it.
"What man does she love who loves another girl?" she asked herself.
Then, suddenly, she knew. It was Earl Usher, and he loved her, Winifred, who could never be more to him than a friend.
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.
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.
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.