This in itself was a solution of the Meggison mystery.  The girl’s “cheek” had frightened the would-be “dog” and reminded him that a model superintendent must never lose a born saleswoman.  But he had not sent for Win again, and Gloves were not for such as she.

Sadie, having “sauced” her landlady, found it wise to change her quarters.  She had taken a room in an apartment house two blocks removed from her former home, and Win, not being able to afford a “flit,” remained at the old address.  At first, when her pay was increased by two dollars a week, she had intended to save and follow Sadie.  One had, however, to live mostly on ice-cream soda in the hot weather, which cost money.  Besides, even had she possessed the dollars, she lacked energy of late.  It was easier to keep on doing what one had done than do anything new.  And, in any case, nothing that one did seemed to matter.

As for the lion tamer, Peter Rolls’s shop saw him no more.  He had “got his nerve back” and had returned to lion taming, not because the old life drew him irresistibly, but because there was far more money in dominating real lions than in selling Teddy ones.

In the birth of Earl Usher’s adoring love for Win the demise of the animal who had “died on him” was forgotten.  “Nerve” and courage and love and the desire to conquer were one in his heart.  When a “good summer job at Coney” came his way, through an old friend in the “show business,” he took it.

Reluctant as he was to leave Peter Rolls, which meant leaving “his girl,” a change of position offered the only hope of obtaining her in the end.  And despite every discouragement from his Lygia, Ursus did secretly cherish this hope.  As she no longer lived in Toyland when he went, the wrench of parting was not what it would have been to leave her at the mercy of any man who could afford to buy a doll.  There was no excuse for men to “butt into” Mantles, unless accompanied by female belongings, and thus accompanied, their sting was gone.

At Coney Island Ursus was earning thirty dollars a week instead of ten, and was encouraged by crowds of admiring girls (who watched his performance and bought his photographs) to consider himself exceedingly eligible on that income.  Many indeed made it plain to him that he would have been worth taking for his face, his muscles, and his spangled tights alone.

Sometimes on Sundays Sadie Kirk persuaded Win to “go to Coney for a blow.”  The crowd on the boats was alarming and on the beach when you got there, but the air was splendid, and poor Ursus beamed over his lions’ heads with pride and pleasure.  These few excursions, however, had been Winifred’s only outings, except a play or two seen from a gallery, since she came to make her fortune in America; and as each day the heat pressed more heavily upon her with its leaden weight, she felt that she would collapse and “do something stupid” if she could not have a change.  Anything—­anything at all that was different and would break the monotony!