Nothing really worth having--nothing really worth father's years of
hard work--could come to them as a family until Peter Rolls ceased to
identify himself personally with the Hands, Ena had pleaded, and at
last the head of the establishment engaged an official "understudy" to
represent him every day in the gorgeously furnished office which had
seemed to old Peter what the body is to the soul.
Rolls senior and Henry Croft, the man he appointed as dictator,
corresponded daily, by letter and telephone, but Peter Rolls himself
was not supposed to enter the great commercial village he had brought
together under one roof. Ena was able to say to any one rude enough to
ask, or to those she suspected of indiscreet curiosity: "Father never
goes _near_ the place. He's tired of business, and, luckily, he
doesn't need to bother."
She would not much have cared whether the statement were true or not
if she were sure that the carefully careless sounding words were
believed. But it would have been distressing to have any one say: "Ena
Rolls pretends that her father doesn't work in the shop any more, but
I know for a fact that he goes every day." So it comforted her to feel
sure that her arguments had really impressed father and that he never
did go to the Hands unless, perhaps twice a year or so for important
meetings.
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