So Tessie smiled and handed out parcel after parcel until one o'clock, when Mr. Bill appeared, as the hour struck, to take her home. He grinned at the crowd and diffidently suggested that Tessie would lunch with him. Tessie drew a deep breath and tried to keep the rapid beating of her heart out of her voice.
"Oh!" she exclaimed softly. "Could we have it here?" For never, in the many months she had been at the Evergreen, had she been able to eat as much as a bowl of chicken soup in the blue-and-gold tea-room on the fifth floor. Prices were too high and Tessie's finances were too low. She could obtain more for her fifteen or twenty cents at the cafeteria in the next block, but that fact only made her more eager to lunch at the Evergreen. Her little face turned quite pink as she spoke of it.
"Sure we can!" declared Mr. Bill, proud to have the Evergreen chosen, and proud of Tessie for choosing it. "I wish," he added frankly, "that we could dispense with the bodyguard!" He looked scornfully at Ka-kee-ta, although Ka-kee-ta had attracted almost as much attention as his royal mistress. "Isn't the store detective enough?" he grinned.
"I should hope so," sighed Tessie, and she frowned and turned her back to her bodyguard. "It does seem as if I didn't need to be protected when I'm with friends. I hate it!"
"Of course you do. But wait a minute! I have an idea!" He scowled as he developed his idea, and then began to issue orders. "Miss Lee," he said crisply, "you take Ka-kee-ta home. I'll bring Miss Gilfooly later." He turned to Ka-kee-ta and spoke as a general in command of an army. "Go with Miss Lee. Your queen orders it. I will guard her. Come on," he told Tessie. "Let's get a move on before he realizes he is going to be left behind."
She snatched her gloves and bag from the arrogant cashgirl, who had stood beside her to hold them, and ran away with him, the proudest, happiest queen in the world, while Norah Lee, sympathetic and resourceful, diverted Ka-kee-ta's attention by leading him to a rack where there was a splendid array of axes of all kinds. Ka-kee-ta had never seen so many. His eyes glistened, and he never noticed that his queen had slipped away.
Tessie's eyes glistened, too. To think that she was to lunch with Mr. Bill in the Evergreen tea-room. She could scarcely believe it, even when she was seated at a round table in a corner of the room with Mr. Bill smiling triumphantly at her.
"Well!" he exclaimed proudly. "I managed that all right!"