."

"I don't want one. I've had enough of stores. I am not afraid of
anything you can do, Mr. Rolls. Though they do call you 'Saint Peter'
behind your back--meaning just the opposite--you haven't the keys of
heaven."

"You're an impudent young hussy."

"Perhaps. But you deserve impudence. You deserve worse, sir. A moment
ago I hated you. I--think I could have killed you. But--but now I
can't help admiring something big in you, that makes you defend your
son in spite of yourself, when it was policy to let me loathe him."

"'Loathe' is no word to use for my boy," the old man caught her up
again. "I don't want you to marry him, no! But, whatever happens, I
can't have you or any one else doing him black injustice."

"Then, 'whatever happens,' I'll admit to you that never in the bottom
of my heart did I believe those things. I didn't believe them to-day,
but I--you were so horrible--I had to be horrible, too. There! The
same motive that made you defend him against your own interest has
made me confess that to you now. But you needn't be afraid. I don't
think in any case I could have married him knowing how his--his family
would feel. Still I might, if he'd tried to persuade me; I can't be
sure. I might have been weak. As it is, though--after you've insulted
me in this cruel way, I believe nothing would induce me to say yes if
he asked me. And he never _has_ asked me."

"Never has asked you?" echoed Peter senior, dumbfounded.

Some one had begun to knock at the door, but he did not hear. Neither
did Winifred. Each was absorbed in the other. Insensibly their tones
in addressing each other were changed. Some other ingredient had
mysteriously mingled with their rage; or, poured upon its stormy
surface, had calmed the waves. They were enemies still, but the girl
had found the man human; the man, because he was man, found himself
yielding to her woman's domination.

Petro said God had made her a princess. She was only a shop girl, and
the vain old man wanted her out of his way--intended to put her out of
his way, by hook or by crook; but all the same in look and manner she
was his ideal of a girl queen, and he could understand Petro being a
fool over her.

"He never has asked you? But I thought---"

(_Tap, tap,_ for the second and third time.)

"I know what you thought. You wouldn't listen when I tried to
explain."

(_Tap, tap, tap_! No answer. And so the door opened.)

"It isn't only that your son hasn't asked me