Yes, idiots!  That was the word.  And if they had enough humour to put on a thumb nail, could they wear the stick-out and stick-up ornaments on their hats they did wear, to prod each other’s eyes?  No, they couldn’t!  And what with feathers standing straight out behind, and long corsets down to their knees, they could never lean back against anything, no matter how tired they were.  So, what with tight dresses and high heels and thin silk stockings and low shoes and blouses on winter days, no wonder men wouldn’t let them have the vote!

Win turned from an incipient suffragette into a temporarily venomous woman hater when a customer made her show nine dozen dolls, and then minced away saying that Peter Rolls never did have anything worth buying.  Another patronizingly bestowed five cents upon Win for her “trouble” after making her change three toys bought yesterday and taking half an hour over it.  Altogether, when Winifred Child happened to think of Mrs. Belmont’s building with the great figure of a woman falling down the front of it, she would have liked the statue to drop to earth with a crash.

Once in a while, contriving to pass near, Ursus tried to whisper a word of encouragement: 

“You’re a Wonderchild, you are!  Say, it don’t spoil your looks bein’ tired.  You’re the picture postal, you are!  Never you mind these dames.  Say the word and we’ll make up with a large time to-night.  I’ll blow you through all the best movies and stake you to an ice-cream, soda.  Do you get yes?”

Despite his well-meant solicitude, however, Win’s vitality was at an exceedingly low ebb toward five o’clock in the afternoon of the third day.  There had been no time to go out for an alleged luncheon and a breath of fresh air.  She had eaten nothing since her breakfast of hot chocolate at a soda fountain, save a poached egg in the employees’ restaurant, and, as Sadie said, it wasn’t safe to accept an egg from the Hands unless you’d met the hen socially and knew her past.  Since four o’clock the exile had been thinking passionately of England, with its millions of women sitting down—­actually sitting down!—­to tea.  And then, suddenly, a man pushed aside a female thing who was being cross because she couldn’t find a doll that said “Papa” and “Mama” in German.

“As you can’t get what you want, madam, I’m sure you won’t mind my taking your place,” apologized a cheerful voice.  “Madam” was so dumfounded that she gave way.  And Win, thankful for a change of sex in her customer, had put on her polite saleslady air before she realized that she was face to face with Jim Logan, her motoring acquaintance of the park.

“Howdy do?” he inquired, and hastily added:  “I want a doll.  I don’t care whether she can talk German or not.  Though I do want a little conversation—­with somebody.”

Money could not be lost to the house of Rolls because one of its female servants wished to snub an admirer.  Mr. Logan was even better dressed than when Win had seen him before.  He looked rich enough to buy Peter Rolls’s star doll, price five hundred dollars, with trousseau.  Nevertheless Miss Child determined to outwit him.