[II]
Tessie had never crossed the threshold of Mr. Kingley's sacred office. She had never dreamed of crossing it, and she hung back when Mr. Bill threw open the door.
"Dad!" cried Mr. Bill, a trifle breathlessly. "Listen to this! You'll never believe it!"
There was an excitement in his voice which made his father, busy with Miss Norah Lee who was on the Evergreen publicity staff, look up from the sketches and copy they were studying. And when he saw his only son hand-in-hand with a pink-cheeked, big-eyed, bareheaded girl in a black sateen frock, he feared the worst.
"Bill!" he exclaimed harshly. He rose to his feet and glared at his only son. "How dare you?"
He changed his tone completely when he heard the story. His eyes fairly bulged as he stared at Queen Teresa who stood modestly beside Mr. Bill. For once in his life Mr. William Allison Kingley seemed at a complete loss for words. Nothing like this had ever happened before in the Evergreen, and so it was not surprising that Mr. Kingley, like Mr. Walker, was unprepared. It takes youth like Tessie's and Mr. Bill's to accept such stupendous events unquestioningly. Youth naturally believes in fairies, and if you really do believe in fairies, why—anything—everything—is possible.
"What a chance for some gorgeous publicity!" Norah Lee murmured. She had risen, too, and was staring at Tessie as if she had never seen a black-frocked salesgirl before, and as if she saw her now as so many columns of print on the front page of the Gazette.
An odd smile touched Mr. Kingley's mouth, and at once he was himself again. Like a well-known Queen of England, Mr. Kingley had a word engraved upon his heart—and that word was Evergreen. Mr. Kingley lived and breathed for the Evergreen. Every thought, word and deed was for the Evergreen, first and last. He went to bed at night that he might get up in the morning to work for the Evergreen. He passionately envied his son, because Mr. Bill was just beginning his career in the Evergreen, and so might naturally expect a long life of service to the big store. He admired his wife and daughter because they were clothed and nourished by the Evergreen. Just for a flash, perhaps for the only time in his life, when he saw his son and Tessie together, hand-in-hand, he had forgotten his idol; but Norah Lee's impulsive murmur pulled him down on his knees to it again.
"Of course. That's just what I was going to say!" He seemed irritated because Norah had already said it. "I heartily congratulate you, Miss Gilfooly—or should I say Queen Teresa?" He smiled benevolently at the queen as he took her hand and solemnly shook it. "You might send for the photographer, Miss Lee, and arrange to have some pictures taken of Miss Gilfooly at the aluminum—was it?—receiving the news of her—of her accession to the throne of the Sunshine Islands. It sounds quite like a romance, doesn't it? And you say you have heard nothing from your Uncle Pete—King Peter, I should say—for twenty-five years?" he asked, as Norah disappeared with a backward look of incredulous wonder at Tessie.