"All right. Are you lunching in or out?"
"Oh, in, I suppose."
"So will I, then, though I hear it's filthy and the grub vile. We'll try and make a date."
Win dared not answer. With difficulty she caught the last part of the lecture. Then her fifteen minutes of schooling were over and the real battle of life as one of Peter Rolls's hands was to begin.
No time for the luxury of luncheon appointments. The two girls must meet or not, as luck ordained. The toy department was on the sixth floor, so the parting came almost at once, and Win went down to meet her fate alone.
A floorwalker, or "aisle manager," showed her the place where the "great two-hour bargain sale of coloured blouses, sashes, and ladies' fancy neckwear" was advertised to begin at ten-thirty. As he steered the girl through the crowd he looked at her with interest, and she would have looked with interest at him could she have done so without his knowing it. She had vaguely heard that shopwalkers in England could make or break the salespeople. Probably floorwalkers in America were the same, or more powerful, because everybody in this free country who had any power at all seemed to have more than he could possibly have anywhere else.
This man was extremely handsome she saw in the one quick, veiled glance which can tell a girl as much as a boy is able to take in with a long stare. He was tall and dark and clean shaven, with polished black hair like a jet helmet, and brown eyes. Few princes could hope to be as well dressed, and if he had been an actor, only to see his shoulders would have made a matinée girl long to lay her head upon one. Why wasn't he an actor, then, at many dollars a week, instead of a floorwalker at a few? It must be that his fairy godmother had forgotten to endow him with some essential talent.
Seeing that he looked at her sympathetically with his rather sad, dark eyes, Win ventured with all respect to beg a little enlightenment as to a two-hour bargain sale.
"It means that certain things are marked down for two hours," he explained, "and after that anything left of the lot goes up to the old price again. It's a pretty hard test for one who's new to the whole business. The superintendent, Mr. Meggison, has put you on to a pretty
stiff thing," he added. And then again, after an instant's pause: "You're going to land in a wasps' nest over there. There's some electricity in the atmosphere this morning. But keep your head and you'll be all right."