“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.