Cupid “spotted” the trick at once and saw its cleverness.  The boy “made big eyes” at Win as he stumped past, and wondered whether she “was fly enough to catch on” to what he wanted them to say.

She was not.  At that moment, when she found herself outwitted by Logan, Cupid’s big hazel eyes and yellow head seemed irrelevant.

“The price is twenty dollars,” she announced mechanically.  These were the first words she had uttered to Logan since passing him on to Miss Leavitt the day of his first appearance in Toyland.

“That’s all right,” said her smiling customer.  “Rather cheap for such a handsome doll, isn’t it?  I think the young person I intend to give it to will be pleased, don’t you?”

“I can’t say, I’m sure,” returned Miss Child with aggravating primness, her eyes cast down.

“Why, you might give me your advice!”

The glare of Mr. Tobias was turned upon her again, like a two-dollar electric torch.

“It’s quite one of our prettiest dolls,” she admitted under the searchlight.

“Good!  I’m glad you think so.  Well, here’s the money, all in small bills, I’m afraid.  Would you mind just counting it over?  I’ve got on my gloves.”

She had to take the money from him, which gave him a chance to touch her hand, and he made the most of it.  If Mr. Tobias saw what was going on, he ignored it tactfully, for the great thing was to keep a good customer at any price.  If the price were a flirtation, why all the better for the girl, provided the man were chump enough to give her a good restaurant dinner now and then.  Peter Rolls had to think of his dividends, since he and his manager were not in business for their health, and to make them satisfactory salesfolk had to be got cheap.  It was “up to” the girls to take care of themselves.  What they did out of business hours, Peter Rolls and Mr. Tobias did not care and didn’t want to know.

No. 2884 required the address, which Mr. Logan seemed eager to give.

“Write clearly, please,” he gayly commanded.  “Miss—­Winifred—­Child.  And now the number of the house.  I know it as well as my own.”

“I can’t accept this,” she said, not taken by surprise, because she had been sure all along of what he meant.  Only it came as a slight shock that he should have found out her whole name and the street and house where she lived.

“But see here,” argued Logan, still in the low tone to which both voices had fallen, “I bought the doll for you when I heard you liked it.  Why not?  No harm in taking a doll from a friend.”

“You’re not a friend,” she broke in.

“I want to be.  What will that floorwalker chap say if Little Sister is thrown back on Peter Rolls’s hands?  It might get you into trouble.”

“I can’t help that,” Win was beginning desperately, when Earl Usher came hurrying up from the other end of the department, where he had been selling automatic toy pistols.