Winnie Childs by C. N. Williamson

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

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

Peter senior gathered himself together and feebly bluffed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another sentence which she did not need to finish!

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XXVII

THE BATTLE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You are Mr. Rolls."

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

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

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

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

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

"I took it for granted."

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

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

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

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

"Sure nothing could make you remember?"

"I'm sure nothing could."

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

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

"No connections with titles?"

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

"What sort of title is it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"One may be about a lost illusion."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"There was nothing to tell."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was the last drop in the cup.

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

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

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

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