Winnie Childs by C. N. Williamson

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The subject was broached to mother, and mother did not object. She had
learned long ago, when she was first married to Peter, never to object
to anything that he proposed. When she smiled and agreed with every
suggestion she was a dear little woman, and so she had spent her
existence in being a dear little woman until her hair turned white.
With her sunny nature, it had not needed a very great effort; but
sometimes, since Peter had begun to grow up, he had dimly fancied a
look of wistfulness in her ever-young blue eyes--eyes of a girl gazing
out from the round, rosy-apple face of a middle-aged woman.

She was always the same in her ways and manner, if it could be called
manner: comfortable and comforting, contented with life as it was,
happy in her children, and putting up gently with her husband;
but--when you had said good-bye to her you remembered the look which
always changed instantly into a smile when it met yours. You
remembered, and seemed to see another woman hovering wraithlike behind
mother's plump figure, as she sat contentedly crocheting those endless
strips of trimming for towels and things--mother as she might have
been if no dominating nature had ringed hers in with an iron fence.

When Peter was up the White Nile, in elephant and lion land, he used
suddenly, mysteriously, to see an irrelevant vision of his mother
just stretching out plump arms to say good-bye to him in his own room
which he had furnished with the mahogany odds and ends that had
started her bridal housekeeping. She had smiled and had not seemed to
mind very much his going--not half as much as a hen mother minds its
duckling's first dash into water. And yet her eyes--There are some
things it hurts and at the same time warms your heart to think of at
the other end of the world.

Peter had gone up the White Nile to shoot big game; but when he met it
face to face, on a social equality, so to speak, he wondered how he
could ever have harboured so monstrously caddish a design. He found
the animals he had thought he wanted to kill so much handsomer and
more important than himself that he felt like begging the alleged
"game's" pardon for calling on it without invitation in its country
home (as if he'd been a book agent), and bowed himself away with only
a few photographs to remember it by. While Ena was working up
conversations to the point of mentioning "my brother, who is such a
great shot, you know, and is shooting big game in Africa," Peter's
only shots were snapshots, and he was too stupidly conscientious to
atone for his weakness by obtaining elephant tusks and lion skins with
coins instead of bullets.

He wished he had saved Egypt and its temples for his honeymoon, in
case he should ever find exactly the right girl, for the mystery and
wonder made him sad because he had nobody to feel it with him. It was
the same in India and all the East, and there were thousands of
thoughts imprisoned in his breast (which he hardly understood and
dared not let escape) by the time he arrived in England to meet Ena.

They were still struggling in prison when he went on board the
_Monarchic_, but there a light shone fitfully through the keyhole of
the cell. It was a beautiful light, almost beautiful enough to be a
light Peter had read and dreamed of which was said never to shine on
land or sea. Then, suddenly and surprisingly, it went out. The prison,
full of thoughts, was left a place of dark confusion.

This was the inner state of Peter Rolls, Jr., when he arrived at home
after his long absence. But outwardly he appeared to be much as usual,
and was so nice to the Irish guests that Ena was grateful, though
never remorseful. Indeed, she had so much to think about that she
almost forgot her little act of diplomacy in eliminating an
undesirable sister-in-law.

She was on tenterhooks lest Lord Raygan and his mother and sister
should be finding the _menage_ at Sea Gull Manor "all wrong," and
laughing secretly at father and mother. If there had been that fear
about the dressmaker's model on top of the rest of her anxieties she
would have broken down with nervous prostration. But, thanks to her
for saving him (without his knowledge), Peter seemed to have got over
his silliness and was able to stand by her like a brick.

Lady Raygan, a singularly young-looking, red-faced woman of boyish
figure, and with stick-out teeth, was a leading militant suffragette.
When she embarked hastily for Queenstown she had just been rescued by
her son from the London police. At first she had been too seasick to
care that she was being carried past her home and that a series of
lectures she had intended giving would be delayed. Now, in America,
she had determined to make the best of a bad bargain by sending the
fiery cross through the States.

She stayed in her room and jotted down notes. Also, she
conscientiously tried to make Mrs. Rolls a suffragette. About most
other things she was absent-minded; therefore Ena did not waste gray
matter in worrying over the impression that Sea Gull Manor was making
on Lady Raygan.

It was Rags and Eileen whose observing eyes and sense of humour had to
be feared. Eileen, for instance, had a little way of saying that
anything she considered odd was "too _endlessly_ quaint." Things she
admired were "melting." If only Ena had known enough about earls and
their families to be sure whether Lord Raygan and Eileen would, in
their secret hearts, think the ways of the Rollses endlessly quaint or
melting, she might have been spared sleepless nights. Because the
difference between those two adjectives would mean the difference
between ecstasy and despair for her. Rags might be poor for an earl,
even an Irish earl, but he was hardly the sort to propose to a girl
his sister could speak of as "endlessly quaint."

Twelve days after they had arrived at Sea Gull Manor, Eileen wrote a
somewhat ungrammatical letter to a rich cousin in Dublin who had once
refused Rags, and in which she said:

DEAR POBBLES:

I wish you were here to pinch me. Then I would be sure whether I'm
asleep or awake. You'll know by the papers (s'pose poor old Rags _is_
worth a paragraph; anyhow Mubs is, now she's turned into a suff) how
we got carried on in the _Monarchic_ to New York. It won't be the
fault of American reporters if you've missed our news! They got at us
on the dock. Mubs loved it. Rags didn't.

Well, if you know a thing about us, since we were swept past
Queenstown by a giant wave that carried us on its back all the way to
America, you know we're staying with a family named Rolls. Rags met
Miss Rolls and her brother in London. And afterward they happened to
be on board our ship, so we chummed up, and Miss Rolls _would_ give up
her melting suite to poor half-dead Mubs and me. What a beast the sea
is! I don't know if I shall ever have the courage to go on the
disgusting old wet thing again. We came here to stay a fortnight, but
it's almost that now, and we couldn't be driven away with a stick.

We're having the time of our lives (I'm learning lots of _creamy_
American slang), and the Rollses are awfully kind. Ena is very nice,
when she doesn't try to talk as if she were English, and quite
handsome, with fine eyes, though not so good as her brother's. And
he--the brother, I mean--is the dearest thing in the shape of a man
you ever saw. Not that he's wonderfully handsome or anything, but, as
they say over here, he's just IT. I don't know what there is about
him, but--well, if I go on, I suppose you'll think I'm being _silly_.

I don't care; you were only a year older than I am now when you told
Rags kindly to go to the dickens. You said he cared only for your
money, poor Rags! That wasn't true. But now (I know you won't tell)
Ena R. is going for him for all she's worth. Mubs doesn't notice
anything about women except their being suffs or not; and I'm supposed
to be too young to twig what's going on. I need hardly mention,
however, that very little gets past yours truly. I shouldn't wonder if
Ena'd _bring it off_. Rags asks me sometimes in a sheep-faced sort of
way what I think of things here, and I would have a joyous laugh with
him if it weren't for the brother.

Goodness gracious, but they're rich, these Rollses! I could make a pun
about their name and their money, but I won't, because it would be
cheap, and nothing is cheap at Sea Gull Manor. You can get a faint
idea what the house and the view are like from the hand-painted sketch
at the top of this paper on the left of the fat gold crest. This
stationery is in all the guests' private sitting-rooms in case any one
wants to make distant friends envious of their surroundings. Mr.
Rolls, Sr., told me he kept a tame artist painting these things at a
salary of ten thousand dollars a year, dinner and luncheon _menus_
thrown in. Ena's idea. She wanted something original, and what she
wants goes! So says Mr. R.

He's a poor little, yellow shrimp of a man, with dead-black hair,
where it isn't gray or coming off, and the same kind of beard goats
have. His eyes may have been nice when he was young, but nothing like
his son Peter's. Young Peter is altogether different from old Peter,
and he has blue eyes like the quaintest and most melting mother you
ever saw.

She does nothing but crochet trimming for sheets and things, world
without end, and if you admire it she gives you some. But she was just
_born_ to be a mother, and even having her sit crocheting in a room
where you are makes you feel good. She has eyes as blue as bluebells,
and as young, an apple face with a smile that longs for something it's
never known, and any amount of smooth white hair, which she does in
just the wrong way, pinched into tight braids. The one thing she won't
do for her daughter is to have a maid of her own, and Ena keeps
apologizing for it.

Mr. Rolls is a terrible dyspeptic, and the only things he can digest
(he has told me and Rags several times) are soft-shelled crabs,
devilled, and plum pudding or cake. When he has a pain he paces floors
like a tiger, but does not roar.

I haven't met many Americans here yet because the Rollses somehow
don't seem to know the right ones, and Ena makes excuses for that,
too. I wish she wouldn't. It gets on my nerves, and Rag's nerves as
well, I fancy, though he doesn't say so, and he's thinking a lot about
whether she'll _do_. Because I haven't met many others, I don't know
whether or not the Rollses are just like all American millionaires who
don't come abroad, or unique. But I have an idea they're _unique_.

This is the most enormous house, built and named to please Ena,
though it's no more a manor than the Albert Hall is. I don't believe
she knows what "manor" means. Every bedroom I've seen (and I _think_
I've been shown all, if I haven't lost count) has its own bathroom
adjoining, and a sitting-room as well. In each bathroom there are
several different kinds of baths, and a marble one you step down into,
but it's bitterly cold on your spine--the only cold thing in the
house, which is so hot with a furnace that even the walls and floors
feel warm, although I keep my windows wide open day and night.

The pillow-cases and sheets are made of such rich, thick linen, and
are so smooth and polished that you slip down off your pillows with a
crick in your neck, and the sheets slide off you, just as if they were
made of heavy silver, like lids of dishes. Perhaps the monograms and
crests drag them down. It's awful, but it's grand. And I should think
there are at least twenty footmen with--if you'll believe me--powdered
hair!

Of course, poor Ena took a fancy to it in England. I don't think she
stayed at any houses, but she was at some hotel where they have it, so
she didn't see why not. If you ring a bell, dozens of these
helpless-looking, white-headed creatures in black and yellow simply
swarm from every direction, like great insects when you've poured hot
water into their hive--or hole.

If any really nice people happen to stop in their motor for any reason
at the house in the morning, say about eleven o'clock, they are
offered magnums of champagne, as if out of gratitude for their coming.
They hardly ever seem to do more than sip, so perhaps the black and
yellow insects get the rest. There's an English butler, and it would
make your heart bleed, or else you'd want to howl, if you saw his
agonized, apologetic look whenever you, as a British person, knowing
about other ways of running a house, happened to catch his elderly
eye.

Mr. and Mrs. Rolls get up at goodness knows what hour and have
breakfast together, so does Petro--that's the nickname for the son.
But Ena and Mubs and Rags and I can wallow as long as we like and have
gorgeous breakfasts in our rooms. Mubs thinks Mrs. R. is a fool,
because she can hardly understand what a woman wants with a vote, but
I think she's a dear. She sends cartloads of flowers to hospitals,
and if you speak of a charity she hauls handfuls of dollar bills out
of an immense gold chain bag she always carries on her arm because
Petro gave it to her for a birthday present, and it, and Ena's one, a
size smaller, has the fat air of containing all her luggage ready to
start off from Saturday to Monday at a moment's notice. I suppose it's
money that looks so plump.

Now _do_ you think Rags ought to resist the daughter of such a house
when church mice have long ago cut our acquaintance? Of course, Rags
is lucky at bridge (he gave me a lovely dress on board ship), but he
can't live on it regularly. So far it's a toss up. I'll let you know
how things go.

Mubs is writing an article for an American newspaper which has offered
her fifty pounds. This is the first fun she's ever got out of being a
countess--and now I shouldn't wonder if she'd be a dowager soon! As
for me, I'm trying to flirt with Petro. No, to be honest, that isn't
_quite_ true. I'm not exactly flirting. He's too good for that. Ena
says he's "glue," because he has no interest in life, and that it'll
cheer him up if I encourage him to talk to me about some
philanthropical schemes he has.

One is a "Start in Life Fund" for deserving and clever young people
who need only a hand up to get on. I wish I could go in for it
myself--but perhaps I'm not deserving or clever. Anyhow Ena says her
brother likes me _awfully_, better than any girl he ever saw before,
and that he thinks me pretty. Did you _ever?_ No wonder I like him! I
shouldn't mind his knowing that I do, as Ena says he thinks no girl
could care for him. That sounds pathetic. I let her know that, as he's
so despairingly modest, she might break it to him that I enjoy his
society. Since then he's been much nicer, though, perhaps still a
little absent-minded, which may come from being "blue." I should like
to know what Ena said to him! But I suppose it's all right!

Your chum and cousin,
EILY.

P.S. They've got a shop in New York. I forgot to tell you that--a huge
shop. It's never mentioned here, but Petro told me. He's not ashamed,
but rather proud of the way the money came. Rags wants him and Ena to
take us to the place.

What Ena did say to Peter was, "Poor little Eileen is falling in love
with you." Peter didn't believe it. But it put a strange idea into his
head.

CHAPTER XIII

ONE MAN AND ANOTHER

"No. 2884 Child, W. Pay Envelope. Details under flap," Winifred read
on the neat, pale-brown packet put into her hand the night when she
had served Peter Rolls for a week--or was it five hundred weeks? "READ
THE OTHER SIDE" was printed in capital letters of white upon a black
background on the flap which must be torn open to get at the contents
and "details." The latter consisted of "Deductions, Absent, Late
Fines, Keys, Mdse., Stamps, Beneficial Ass., and Sub. Slips."

But Win had been neither absent nor late. Being an extra hand only,
and liable to be "dispensed with" at the end of the holidays, she had
not needed to subscribe her hard-earned pennies to Beneficial
Assurance, that huge fund made up of weekly coppers, whose interest
was to Peter Rolls almost what "Peter's Pence" are to the Pope. Thanks
to her good health and good behaviour, "Cash Enclosed" (as secretly
mentioned under the flap) was practically intact. But it had been a
nightmare week which seemed longer than all the past weeks of her life
added together and if she had earned a hundred dollars instead of six
she would not have felt too highly paid.

She moved wearily away from the office window, obeying the directions
to "read other side," and as she walked down the long corridor (her
sore feet causing her to limp slightly) the words "_if sick or
disabled, notify employment bureau at once_" sang through her head,
keeping time with her uneven steps.

She _was_ "reading the other side," the other side of life which
appeared to her as separate from the side she had known as the bright
was separate from the dark side of the moon; the side about which
people seldom troubled and never saw. A few weeks ago, before that
"wild spirit" of hers lured her half across the world to find
independence, she would have thought, feeling as she felt to-night,
that she was both sick and disabled. But now she knew that hundreds of
other girls under this very roof felt just as she felt, and that they
took it for granted as a normal condition of life. They hardly pitied
themselves, and she must be as stoical. If once she lost courage, she
might do the thing she had boasted to Peter Rolls, Jr., that she would
never do--cry.

She thought to find a tonic effect from the sight of money earned, and
in taking out her six dollars, she let fall a slip of white paper from
the pay envelope. It fluttered away, to alight on the floor, and Win's
heart beat as she picked it up.

Her discharge already? What could she have done to be sent off at the
end of a week--she who had tried so hard? And how strange that, tired
and disheartened as she was, she should actually _fear_ discharge! A
minute ago she had been asking herself, "How many weeks like this can
I live through?" and wishing that an end, almost any end, might come.
Yet here she was dreading to turn the slip over (she had retrieved it
blank side up) and read her doom.

"You are requested to call at the superintendent's private office
Monday, twelve forty-five," was neatly typewritten precisely in the
middle of the paper.

Win did not know whether to be relieved or alarmed.

"I'll ask Sadie what she thinks," was her quick decision. But Sadie
was not available this evening. An "old chum" had asked Miss Kirk out
to supper, and Miss Child having snubbed her faithful lion man for
reasons which had appeared good at the time, had no one to give her
the key to those dozen mystic words which might as well have been
written in cipher.

"And even Sadie can't tell for certain," she reflected. "I can't
possibly _know_ till Monday noon."

All the fatigue and nerve strain of six dreadful days and six
appalling nights seemed suddenly to culminate in a fit of overpowering
restlessness. Worn out though she was (or all the more because of
that, perhaps) she could not go "home" to Columbus Avenue, where the
"L" that Sadie said should be spelled with an "H" ran past her window.

She was sure if she sat down or went to bed she should think more
about her aching back and burning feet than if she walked. She longed
for the sweet, kind air of heaven to ripple past her hot cheeks like
cool water. She longed for stars to look up to, and for the purple
peace and silence of night after the clamour of the store and before
the babel of Columbus Avenue, into which presently she must plunge.

"I'll walk in the park," she proposed to herself. "It will do me good.
When I'm too tired, I can rest for a few minutes on one of the seats
and hear myself think."

That was one of the many disadvantages of "home." There you could
hear at the same time almost every other sound which could be produced
in the world, but you could not hear yourself think.

Earl Usher was not to be seen as she came out into the street, and Win
was glad. Once or twice to-day she had half repented the snub which,
perhaps, he had not meant to deserve, but now she thanked it for his
absence. Swiftly she walked away, though still with the just
perceptible limp that most shop girls have in their first few weeks of
"business."

She did not look up at the giant Hands with their blazing rings, as
she had looked at first, half admiring, half awed. Their gesture now
seemed greedy. They were trying to "grab the whole sky," as the lion
tamer said. Rather would one hurry to escape from under them, and go
where the Hands of Peter Rolls could not reach.

It was exquisite in the park, and she was thinking how a delicate,
floating blue curtain appeared to shut her away for a little while
from all the harshness of life, when a small and singularly silent
automobile glided by. A lamp showed her the forms of two men in the
open car, one in front, who drove, and one behind, who sat with arms
folded.

"How heavenly to have the air and lean back restfully without needing
to walk," thought tired Win.

She was envying the comfortable figure with its arms folded when the
little car turned and, to her astonishment, drew up close beside her.
Involuntarily she stopped; then, as one of the men jumped out, she
regained her presence of mind and walked on at top speed.

The man strode along after her, however, and spoke.

"Don't you remember me? That's very unkind. You might wait a minute,
anyhow, and let me remind you where we met. I recognized _you_ as I
went by, that's why I came back."

Wondering if it could be possible that they _had_ met, Win ventured a
glance at the face on a level with her own. She knew instantly that
never had she seen it before.

"You're mistaken," she said. "I don't know you. Please go."

"Logan is my name," he persisted. "Jim Logan. Now don't you remember?
But you didn't tell me your name that other time."

Win took longer steps. This active hint did not, however trouble Mr.
Logan. He was an inch or so taller than she, perhaps, and kept step
with the utmost ease.

"You and I might have been at the same dancing school," said he. "I'm
doing the newest stunt--the wango. Is that what you're doing, too? Or
is it the y-lang-y-lango? I could go on like this all night! I hope
you're not engaged to anybody else for the next dance?"

"As a matter of fact, I am," said Win sharply, though it was all she
could do not to laugh. "My partner will very much object to you."

"That's all right. It's not likely he knows jiu-jitsu as well as I
do," cheerfully replied the man, still hurrying on at the same pace.
He kept half a step in advance of the girl, as if to be prepared in
case she should begin to run; and thus, without seeming to look, Win
could see him in profile.

He was so smartly dressed that, in England, he would have been called
a "nut." What was the American equivalent for a nut, she did not know.
He had a hawk-nosed profile which might have been effective had not
his undercut jaw stuck out aggressively, suggesting extreme, hectoring
obstinacy, even cruelty.

She had time to see that his hair was an uninteresting brown, and his
skin the ordinary sallow skin of the man about town. But suddenly he
took her unawares, turning to face her with disquieting abruptness.
She caught an impression of eyes sparkling in the lamplight; small and
set close on either side of a high-bridged, narrow nose, yet bright
and boldly smiling. His voice was that of an educated person and not
disagreeable in tone, but Win was anxious to escape hearing it again.

He seemed to wait for an answer, and when it did not come, he went on:

"You ought to go in for an Olympic race. You're all for them in
England. I'm out of training, but I can stand this as long as you can,
I bet. The only thing is, I wanted to take you for a run in my auto,
it's such a nice, crisp night. I'll drive you home, if you say the
word."

"The thing wished for comes when your hands are tied," says the
Turkish proverb. Win had been yearning for a spin. She kept silence
and sped on, wondering whether she could surprise the enemy by
executing a sudden right-about-face.

"Have you been in this country long?" he inquired.

No answer.

"Oh, indeed, is that so? I _thought_ you hadn't! Are you living in New
York at present? Don't be afraid to tell me. Even if you are, that
won't drive me out of the little old burg. See here, you're mighty
restless. And you do hate to part with much of your conversation at
one time, don't you? You're a peach, all right, but a spiced peach
preserved in vinegar."

Winifred wheeled and began walking east even faster than she had been
walking west. In the distance a tall--a very tall--figure was
approaching, like a ship under full sail. Could it be--- Yes, it was!
Bless the light of the lamp that showed him! Now indeed she dared to
laugh.

"Here comes that partner of mine at last!" she exclaimed and almost
ran to met the lion tamer.

"Good Lord! Very well, I can't hope to compete against cigar signs,"
replied Mr. Logan. "I was unprepared for Goliath. Little David will
fade away till he gets his sling. You make me forget my name and
telephone number, but this is where I get off at. Please remember _me_
next time."

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