Win had often glanced into these windows before, hurrying nervously
past, but now she lingered, trying to fill her heart with the waxen
peace of that luxurious land of leisure. She walked very slowly all
around the great square, three sides of which were crystal, the fourth
being given up to huge open doors, through which streamed men and
parcels and hurled themselves into motor vans. The idea flashed into
the girl's head that here was the cemetery of window land. In those
big boxes and packages that men furiously yet indifferently carried
out, were the dolls or animals that had smiled or romped behind the
plate glass, or the dresses and hats, the tennis rackets and toboggans
they had fondly thought their own.
This promenade of inspection and introspection put off the evil minute
for a while; but the time came when Win must hook herself on to the
tail of a procession constantly entering at an inconspicuous side
door, or else go home with the project abandoned.
"_Of course_ I shall never see Peter Rolls or his sister here," she
told herself for the twentieth time, and passed through the door
almost on the back of an enormous young man, while a girl closed in
behind her with the intimacy of a sardine.
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