"Some of the best lookers in our Gloves have married Fifth Avenue swells. It's pretty busy there just now.
The young fellows buy gloves by the dozen for their best girls at Christmas time when they want to ring a change on flowers. Maybe I'll put you into Gloves, if you'll agree to make yourself useful."
"I'll try to do my best wherever you put me, Mr. Meggison" said Win, sounding to herself like a heroine of a Sunday serial, and feeling not unlike one in a difficult situation at the end of an instalment. At home, in her father's house, she had occasionally been driven to read Sunday serials on Sunday. They were the only fiction permitted on that day.
"That's all right. But now I mean something in particular" explained Meggison. "I told you what they were saying about you in your department to see how you'd take it. Well, you didn't seem desperately shocked at the idea of being engaged by a so-called charitable society to watch out for any breaks we might make. Not that we do make any, so your trouble would have been wasted. We give our girls seats and every living thing the law asks for, and our men make no complaints that we hear. But, of course, we ain't omnipotent. Things are said, things happen we don't get onto, little tricks that cost us money. Folks shirking, and even stealing; we have to keep a sharp lookout. We can't turn the spotlights on to everybody at once. So when we come across a pair of lamps that are bright, a long way above the average we sometimes make it worth their while––"
"Oh, Mr. Meggison, please don't go on!" Win cut the great man short. "I'd rather you didn't say it, because—I don't wish to hear. I—I don't want to know what you mean."
It was his turn to flush. But the change of colour was only just perceptible. He had himself under almost perfect control. His eyes sent out a flash, then became dull and expressionless as blue-gray marbles. He was silent and watchful. Win, after her outburst, was breathlessly speechless.
"Good!" said he at last. "Very good. That's the second test. And it's all right, like the first. Now do you understand?"
"I—I'm not sure. I––"
"You just said you didn't want to know what I meant. But I want you to know. I was testing your character again. I'm sure now you're straight. You're a good girl, as well as a smart one, Miss Child."
Suddenly, just as she had begun to feel so relieved that tears were on the way to her eyes, Meggison bent forward with an abrupt movement and laid his hot, plump hand heavily on hers. Up jumped the girl and down fell the hand. She seemed to hear herself excusing herself and explaining her rashness to Sadie: "I couldn't stand it. I wouldn't! I didn't care what happened."