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.