Shirley slipped through the hedge, and slowly crossed Gay Street in the moonlight. She was trying hard to be cool and do as Peter wanted her to do. If she rang, Mr. Bell would come to the door, and then how should she manage, what excuse should she give? She thought of a way.
"Mr. Bell," she said when he appeared, "Janey 's come home from her party--and she 's had just a little bit too much party. She feels like a small girl again, and wants her mother to come over for a few minutes."
"Why, of course," said Mr. Bell, heartily, from the shadow of the doorway. "Nothing much the matter with the little girl?"
"Oh, no--she 'll be all right in the morning."
So Mrs. Bell crossed the road with Shirley, and the girl, with her arm round the elder woman's shoulders, gently told her the news. Mrs. Bell took it as Peter had known she would, quietly, although, aside from his personal injury, there was much cause for anxious thought in the loss of the factory and the consequent putting of its workers out of employment.
When Peter's mother had gone home again, resting on Murray's promise that in the morning he would take her to the hospital, Shirley turned to her brother. He had taken Jane upstairs, and come down again, himself too restless to go to bed. He discovered his sister to be in a like mood, and they sat down once more in the moonlit porch to talk it over, regardless of the hour, which was past midnight.
"I wonder sometimes," said Murray, suddenly, when he had told Shirley in detail all he knew of the events of the evening, "whether anybody but me fully appreciates that chap, Peter Bell. Do you know what I' ve been thinking a long time? That he 's the man we need at the head of one of our departments. From all I can learn, he 's been growing as nearly invaluable to the Armstrongs as a man can be, yet they have n't raised his salary for two years. Now 's our chance to jump in and get him. If I can only convince father--and I think he 's pretty nearly convinced--I 'll make Peter an offer to-morrow. Pretty good medicine for a broken leg and burned hands--eh?"
"I should hope it would be."
"You 'd like to see him in the business, would n't you?"
"If you think him fit for it."