Rolls senior and Henry Croft, the man he appointed as dictator, corresponded daily, by letter and telephone, but Peter Rolls himself was not supposed to enter the great commercial village he had brought together under one roof.  Ena was able to say to any one rude enough to ask, or to those she suspected of indiscreet curiosity:  “Father never goes near the place.  He’s tired of business, and, luckily, he doesn’t need to bother.”

She would not much have cared whether the statement were true or not if she were sure that the carefully careless sounding words were believed.  But it would have been distressing to have any one say:  “Ena Rolls pretends that her father doesn’t work in the shop any more, but I know for a fact that he goes every day.”  So it comforted her to feel sure that her arguments had really impressed father and that he never did go to the Hands unless, perhaps twice a year or so for important meetings.  It pleased her that he had joined a rich club in New York which had enough “swell” members to make it pleasant for her to remark casually, “Father belongs to the Gotham.”

When father went to New York in the evening, as he often did, not returning to Sea Gull Manor till late, and sometimes staying away all night, he used to say as an excuse to mother or Ena:  “I’m going to the club.”  After a while it was taken for granted, and he made no excuse at all.  But if Ena had known the mystery of those late evenings she would have been struck with fear—­the fear which comes of finding out that those we think we know best are strangers to us.

Of all the sad millionaires of New York who pin together the pages of certain mysterious life chapters not to be read by eyes at home, perhaps no other had a mystery like that of Peter Rolls.  It was now the one thing that he intensely enjoyed; but it was a guilty, furtive enjoyment which made a nervous wreck of him and ruined a stomach once capable of salvation.

Peter junior had never been entirely happy since he left Yale at twenty-three.  It was only then that he began to look life in the face and see the freckles on its complexion The minute he saw them on that countenance which should be so beautiful, he wanted to help in some way to rub them off.  To help—­to help!  That was the great thing.

He didn’t care much for business, but he felt that, being Peter Rolls’s only son, it was his duty to care.  He imagined father deeply hurt at the indifference of his two children to that which had been his life—­hurt, but hiding the wound with proud reserve.  So Peter junior determined to sacrifice himself.  He offered to go into the shop, to begin at the bottom if father wished, and in learning all there was to learn, gradually work up to a place where he could be a staff to lean upon.