“I am here in response to your summons, Mr. Armstrong,” she said, with much embarrassment.  “Your bell rang so imperatively that—­”

“I didn’t ring any bell, my dear,” he exclaimed, “but still I am uncommonly glad to see you.  Sit down and we’ll have a little chat.”

“There is a customer awaiting my return as soon as you—­”

“Oh, hang the customer,” cut in Kendale.  “Sit down, pretty one, and we’ll make each other’s acquaintance.”

Margery looked at him in helpless bewilderment.

Had handsome Lester Armstrong, the hero of her dream, gone suddenly mad, she wondered?

“Sit down, my dear,” he reiterated, “don’t look at me in such affright.  I’m not an ogre; I don’t intend to eat you, though, upon my honor, those peachy cheeks and pomegranate lips are most wonderfully tempting.”

Margery was so intensely surprised she was fairly speechless—­incapable of word or action.

From where she stood the fumes of strong brandy reached her, and she realized that the man before her was under its influence to an alarming extent.

No wonder her pretty face paled; even her lips grew white.

She stood before him as one mesmerized by the baleful gleam in his merciless concentrated gaze, as the fluttering, frightened bird does in the presence of the deadly serpent that means to destroy it.

“Won’t be sociable, eh?” muttered Kendale.  “You are not diplomatic; you don’t know your own interests.  Sit down here and tell me all about yourself—­how long you have been here, and all about it.  I ought to know, of course, but I forget.  Come, brush up my memory a bit, won’t you?”

“Your memory seems indeed very poor all at once,” said Margery, spiritedly, “considering the fact that you have known me since I was a little child”—­and, in spite of her efforts at self-control, big tears brimmed over the pretty eyes and rolled down the round cheeks.

In an instant Kendale was on his feet.

“There, there, Susie, don’t cry,” he said, reaching her side quickly and grasping both of the little clasped hands in one of his.

“You must have some one else in your mind—­that is quite evident.  Please to recollect that I am Margery Conway, not—­not Susie—­whoever she may be.”

He laughed a rollicking, maudlin laugh.  The brandy was beginning to diffuse itself through his brain.

“I’ll never call you anything but Margery again,” he cried, “beautiful, peerless Margery, the sweetest, jolliest, most bewitching and lovable shop girl in all New York.”

The young girl looked at him with dilated eyes.  Every impulse in her terrified heart warned her to turn and fly from the place, but it was all in vain.  She could not have moved hand or foot if her very life had been the forfeit.