Dear Hugh(he read)I am nonplussed at not hearing from you. A little more and I will have to institute a search; for as you know I left orders for your mail to be forwarded to me, and a letter has come from your sister. I am being heroic not to open it, and I don’t dare forward it until I know surely where you are. The earth seems to have opened and swallowed you up. Please send me a wire as soon as you get this. Yours sincerelyJohn Ogden
Dear Hugh(he read)
I am nonplussed at not hearing from you. A little more and I will have to institute a search; for as you know I left orders for your mail to be forwarded to me, and a letter has come from your sister. I am being heroic not to open it, and I don’t dare forward it until I know surely where you are. The earth seems to have opened and swallowed you up. Please send me a wire as soon as you get this. Yours sincerely
John Ogden
“Say, Miss Frink”—Hugh’s brow was troubled as he folded the letter. “I ought to send a wire to Ogden. He has been the best sort of a friend to me and—and sending me with that letter of—of introduction to you—he can’t understand not hearing from me—whetherI got the job or—or anything you—you understand.”
Long before the stammering speech was over, Miss Frink was beside Hugh’s chair. “Don’t you worry another minute,” she said. “I’ll send a wire at once explaining everything, and Mr. Ogden will know I am the only villain in the plot.”
“Plot,” thought Hugh, his heart beating with repugnance to the situation.
There was a knock on the door. It was a maid announcing the barber. “Oh, yes, Miss Frink,” said Miss Damon. “While you were gone Dr. Morton called up and said he was sending the barber.”
“Let him come up,” said Miss Frink, “and don’t let him cut your head off, boy, because I want you to hear the telegram I’ll be sending John Ogden.”
She proceeded downstairs to her study and dashed in with the novel excitability she had displayed ever since the runaway. The shell-rimmed spectacles glanced up and the secretary rose. His dignity of manner was exceptional to-day.
“Grim, I wish to send a wire. I don’t want to send it over the phone nor by a servant. I want you please to take it down for me.”
The secretary inclined his head in silence.
An hour later John Ogden in his office read the following:
Have been very remiss not to tell you that your friend Mr. Stanwood on day of arrival stopped my runaway, saved my life, broke his arm and head, very ill for a time at my house. Doing well now. If you wish to come to see him happy to entertain you long as you can stay. He called constantly in delirium for Aunt Sukey, but will not let me send for her. Advise me and forgive my carelessness.Susanna Frink
Have been very remiss not to tell you that your friend Mr. Stanwood on day of arrival stopped my runaway, saved my life, broke his arm and head, very ill for a time at my house. Doing well now. If you wish to come to see him happy to entertain you long as you can stay. He called constantly in delirium for Aunt Sukey, but will not let me send for her. Advise me and forgive my carelessness.
Susanna Frink
John Ogden stared at this communication for a full minute with an incredulous gaze before he emitted a peal of laughter that brought tears to his eyes, and an office boy from the next room.
He sent a prompt reply:
Thank you. Will be with you next Thursday.
Thank you. Will be with you next Thursday.
When Miss Frink returned to the White Room, she found the invalid transformed from the rôle of Faust, to that of some famous movie hero of the present day. He was in bed again too tired and worried to smile at her.
“I guess a nap will be the next thing, Miss Frink, and then perhaps Mrs. Lumbard will give us some more music,” said Miss Damon.
“Very well,” returned the lady briskly.“Here’s what I sent to Ogden.” She stood by the bedside and read the telegram. At the mention of Aunt Sukey, Hugh started to laugh. He was afraid to let himself go. He felt capable of a fit of schoolgirl hysterics.
“Yes, sir,” said Miss Frink stoutly; “it shall be just as Mr. Ogden says, not as you say, about sending for her. I know you, and your modesty about making trouble. Next time he gets up, Miss Damon, put this on your patient.” Miss Frink opened the waiting box and took out her gorgeous gift. She unfolded it before Hugh’s dazzled eyes, and Miss Damon exclaimed her admiration.
“You see Ross Graham isn’t such a country store, Mr. Stanwood,” declared Miss Frink.
Hugh whistled. “You called me modest,” he said. “Is it your idea that I shall ever wear that?”
“The clerk called it a dressing-gown for Prince Charming,” said Miss Frink triumphantly, “and here are the slippers, Mr. Stanwood. Of course, they’ll fit you because they haven’t any heels. I think the girl said they were called donkeys.”
“Queer,” remarked Hugh, “when donkey’s heels are their long suit.” But because his hostess was holding the satin near his hand andevidently wished it, he felt the rich fabric admiringly, again wishing himself back in that familiar basement, packing boxes, honestly.
“So music means a great deal to you, Mr. Stanwood,” said Miss Frink, regarding the patient thoughtfully.
“I don’t like that Mr. Stanwood from you,” he returned restlessly. “Hugh is my name, and I’d like you to use it.”
“Of course I shall, then, boy,” returned his hostess promptly. “You like music, Hugh?”
“Well,” put in the nurse with a little laugh, “if you had seen his eyes when Mrs. Lumbard was playing!”
“H’m,” grunted Miss Frink. “Well, that’s easy. Now go to sleep, Prince Charming, and later this afternoon you shall have another concert.”
Hugh stifled a groan and held out his pale right hand. “You know I thank you, Miss Frink, for all your kindness.”
“Ho,” returned that lady, taking the hand in her dry grasp, and quickly dropping it. “If I should begin thankingyou, when do you suppose I should stop talking?”
She swept out of the room and Hugh closed his eyes.
The Queen of Farrandale had long passed the time for waiting patiently for anything she wished for, so it was the very next day that Millicent Duane came to the big house for a trial reading.
She gave such perfect satisfaction that it was scarcely five minutes after she began that a delicate snore began to proceed from Miss Frink’s slender nose. Millicent regarded the recumbent figure in some embarrassment, and stopped reading.
Miss Frink’s eyes opened at once. “Well, well, child, what are you waiting for?” she asked testily. “Got a big word?”
Millicent, crimsoning to the tips of her ears, began again to read. She was afraid to stop, although the snoring began again almost immediately, and read on and on in the novel of the day. Although Miss Frink was a lady of the old school, she proposed to know what was going on in the world at the present time, and she always bought the book which received the best reviews, though Millicent came to wonderhow she made anything of it in the hashed condition in which it penetrated her consciousness.
At last, when the lady was positively fast asleep, Millicent closed the book, took her hat and wrap in her hand, and went noiselessly out into the hall and down the stairs.
Mrs. Lumbard met her at the foot, and the young girl accosted her.
“This is Mrs. Lumbard, isn’t it?” she said shyly. “I am Millicent Duane. Miss Frink didn’t tell me what to do if she went to sleep.”
“You guessed right,” returned the other. “There is nothing to do but leave her until she has her nap out. You have evidently qualified.” Mrs. Lumbard laughed; it was not a pleasant laugh Millicent thought. “I tried to read to her, but she wouldn’t have me. Won’t you sit down a minute, or are you too busy?”
Millicent hesitated, but seated herself near the other in the spacious hall with its broad fireplace. “I am not busy at all,” she said, “and it seems so strange after being a whole year in the store.”
“I suppose you mean the Ross-Graham establishment. That isthestore in Farrandale, is it not?”
“Yes, indeed, and I suppose it is the finest one anywhere,” returned Millicent seriously.
Adèle gazed upon her earnest face with its youthful color and nimbus of blonde hair.
“Have you known Miss Frink long?”
“Oh, we all know her by sight, but I never spoke to her until yesterday when she came in to buy a dressing-gown, and I happened that day to have been put on the dressing-gowns. Wasn’t I lucky?—for this came of it.”
Millicent’s happy smile revealed a dimple. Mrs. Lumbard’s eyes scrutinized her.
“I’ll warrant she bought a handsome one,” she said.
“Oh, gorgeous. The handsomest one we had. I told her it was fit for Prince Charming.” The young girl gave a little laugh.
“Well, one would do that for the man who had saved one’s life,” remarked Adèle.
The guest’s lips formed a round O. “Does he still live here?” she asked, “and is he getting well?”
Mrs. Lumbard shrugged her shoulders. “I hear so, but I’ve never seen him.”
Millicent looked about her in some awe. “I suppose in such a great place as this, people might not meet for days. Grandfather and I live in a little cubby-house”—the admiringeyes came back to Mrs. Lumbard’s brown, curious stare—“but it has a big yard and we love it.”
The older woman leaned back and shrugged her shoulders again. At this juncture Miss Frink appeared on the stairs.
Millicent saw her, and, springing up, met her where the brass jardinières filled with ferns grew at the foot of the wide descent.
“I didn’t know what to do about leaving, Miss Frink. I saw you were resting so well.”
The hostess, with a sharp glance at Adèle’s luxurious posture, laid a kind hand on the girl’s shoulder as she returned the sweet, eager look.
“You did quite right,” she replied. “Leave me when you see I am dead to the world, and then—you may go right home.”
“Right home,” repeated the girl, a little falteringly.
“Yes,” said Miss Frink pleasantly. “When you leave me, go right home. You read well.”
“Thank you,” said Millicent. “I hadn’t thought to ask you. Good-afternoon, Miss Frink. Good-afternoon, Mrs. Lumbard.”
Her cheeks were hot as she hurried into her hat and jacket and out the door. When she reached home, her heart was still quickening with a vague sense of having done wrong. Thepretty white-haired lady’s eyes and laugh were curious and cold. Miss Frink had been displeased that she had stayed and talked with her. Perhaps she ought not to have told about the dressing-gown.
Old Colonel Duane was bending his white head and smooth-shaven face over the little green sprouts in a garden plot when his granddaughter flung open the gate and rushed to him.
He raised himself slowly and looked around at her flushed cheeks. She pushed her hand through his arm and clutched it.
“Well, how did you get along, Milly? Does it beat fitting on gloves?”
“I’m so mortified, Grandpa,” was the rather breathless reply. “I had to be sent home.”
“Oh, come, now! You can stay home if that’s the case. Is Miss Frink an old pepper-pot as folks say?”
“No, no; she was kind to me, and I read her to sleep, which is what she wants; but I wasn’t sure what to do then, so when I met Mrs. Lumbard in the reception hall downstairs she asked me to sit down and I did. You remember my telling you about the white-haired lady who looks like a beauty of the French Court with big brown eyes? Well—there’s somethingqueer—I don’t like her—and you know the Prince Charming dressing-gown I told you Miss Frink bought of me? Well, I told Mrs. Lumbard about it and she hadn’t known it.” Big tears began to form and run down the girl’s cheeks. “You know how we tell each other everything and show each other everything? Well,theydon’t, for she didn’t know it, and she said it was for that man who stopped the runaway, and he’s still there and she has never seen him, and—and Miss Frink suddenly came downstairs, and said hereafter I was to go right home when I left her. Oh”—Millicent raised her handkerchief to her burning cheek—“very pleasantly she said it, but what will she think when she hears that I told about the dressing-gown? She’ll think I’m a common gossipy girl.” The tears flowed fast. “It’s worse than Damaris bobbing her hair. Perhaps I’ll get word to-morrow morning not to come, and I’ve given up Ross Graham’s—” The speaker’s voice encountered a large obstruction in her throat and stopped suddenly, while she mopped her eyes.
Her grandfather patted the hand clutching his arm and gave a comforting little laugh.
“Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill, child. I judge Miss Frink doesn’t care muchfor the French beauty. She didn’t like finding you together.”
“Do you think it might be that? Why, she is her niece.”
“Yes, but I’ve heard of such phenomena as lack of devotion between aunt and—grand-niece, isn’t it?”
“Yes—I believe so, but how funny that you know, Grandpa!” Millicent sniffed and mopped.
“What I don’t know about what goes on in Farrandale has never been known by anybody. I’m an easy mark for every one who has anything to tell. Always doddering around the house or the estate,” waving his hand about the fifty feet of yard, “if people can’t find anybody else to unburden themselves to, there is always old Silas Duane.”
“You’re so charming, Grandpa,” exclaimed the girl, clasping his arm tighter than before and trying to check her tears, “that’s why they come; and if you toldmeeverything you hear, I shouldn’t be such a greenie and lose my job.”
“You won’t lose your job. You succeeded, and that’s what Miss Frink wants. No failures need apply.”
“But, Grandpa”—Millicent swallowed asob—“did you know that the man, the hero, was still at Miss Frink’s?”
“Surely I did. Leonard Grimshaw was here day before yesterday. He has troubles of his own.” Colonel Duane laughed.
“Does Mr. Grimshaw confide in you?” Millicent asked it with some awe. “Now I know that you don’t tell meanything.”
“Yes, so long as I always have the rent ready, Grimshaw is quite talkative. This Mr. Stanwood is somewhat of a thorn in his flesh evidently. He says it is because a sick person in the house upsets everything, and it is a nervous strain on Miss Frink; but I imagine her personal interest in the young man is a little disturbing.”
“Is he a young man?”
“Yes; according to Grimshaw a young nobody from nowhere, who was on his way to look for a job at Ross Graham’s.”
Millicent’s pretty eyes, apparently none the worse for their salt bath, looked reflective. “He may havebeena nobody, but any one who Miss Frink believes saved her life becomes somebody right away.” The girl paused. “I see now why she seemed pleased to have me say it was fit for Prince Charming. Oh, that hateful old dressing-gown! If only Mrs. Lumbard didn’t sayanything to Miss Frink about it after I came away! Grandpa, I can’t bear to do that the first thing.”
The girl buried her eyes against the arm she was holding. “Miss Frink doesn’t know that I didn’t know she had a young man in her house, and I calling him Prince Charming. Mrs. Lumbard has never seen him. Miss Frink doesn’t know that I have a grandfather who never tells me anything when I tell him every thing.”
Colonel Duane smiled and patted her. “Just go on telling me everything, and don’t tell it to anybody else. You laugh at me when you catch me talking to myself; but I’m like that man who had the same habit, and said he did it because he liked to talk to a sensible man, and liked to hear a sensible man talk.”
Then, as Millicent did not lift her head, he went on. “I’ll give you another quotation: a comforting one. It was our own Mr. Emerson who said: ‘Don’t talk. What you are thunders so loud above what you say, that I can’t hear you.’ Now, Miss Frink is, I suppose, as shrewd a woman as ever lived; and something that youarehas thundered so loud above all that dressing-gown business that you needn’t lose any sleep to-night or quake in your little shoes to-morrow when you go back to her.”
Millicent breathed a long sigh and straightened up.
“Then I think I’ll go in and make a salad for supper,” she replied. “It’s such fun to have time—and it—it seems so ungrateful—”
“Tut-tut,” warned her grandfather; and just then Damaris came in at the gate.
“I heard you began reading to her to-day,” she said eagerly and without preface. “You look sort of pale. Did she scare you to death?”
“No. She went right to sleep. How could you hear about it, Damaris? I was coming to tell you.”
“Dr. Morton had to come to see Mother, and he told us. He told us all about that Mr. Stanwood, too. He’s nearly well. Dr. Morton says he’s so handsome all the girls in town will mob him; and there you will be right on the inside. Some people’s luck!”
“Oh, don’t—I don’t want to see him,” said Millicent, so genuinely aghast that the girl with the bobbed hair laughed.
“Why, perhaps you’ll see that dressing-gown. He must have been the one she was buying it for.”
“Damaris, did I tell you about that dressing-gown?” The girl’s tone was tragic.
“Why, of course—you were telling me only last night the way you met Miss Frink.”
Millicent caught her breath. “Never speak of it again, Damaris.”
“How exciting!” The flapper’s eyes sparkled. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Millicent’s usual serenity had entirely vanished. “It’s dangerous to have to do with powerful people, that’s all. I was so safe in the glove section and my customers liked me”—another sob caught in the speaker’s throat. “Everything is your fault, Grandpa, if your eyes hadn’t been injured in the Cuban War I shouldn’t have begun to read aloud when I was knee-high to a grasshopper and I shouldn’t read so well—and you never tell me anything, and—Damaris, I lay awake last night thinking that if I did leave the gloves, you ought to have my place. What could we do with your hair!”
Damaris shook it ruefully.
“Let’s go in the house and see what we can do with ribbons and an invisible net—and I’ll ask Miss Frink—if I ever see her again.”
As the heavy door closed behind Millicent, Mrs. Lumbard straightened up. How could Miss Frink reasonably criticize her for civility to the young girl, although the mandate just expressed revealed an objection? “Disagreeable old thing!” reflected Adèle, while her face expressed only deferential attention.
She expected to see her hostess disappear as usual in the direction of the study; but instead, Miss Frink, eyeing her steadily, came and took the chair Millicent had vacated, and began at once to speak: “The presence of a sick person in the house throws out the general routine,” she said. “I have really been very anxious until now about Mr. Stanwood; but he is coming out all right and now I can give my mind to your affairs. You said your idea in coming here was to get me to help you decide what to do. I presume you have been studying on your problem. Have you come to any conclusion?”
Mrs. Lumbard blinked under the unexpected attack, and for a minute could not find the right words to reply to the entirely impersonal and businesslike regard bent upon her.
“You are young,” went on Miss Frink.“You are an expert musician. My house is a very dull place for you to live.” Adèle wondered if Leonard had quoted her. “You must have been revolving some plans in your mind. I can give my full attention to you now. Speak on.”
Oh, how hard it was to speak under that cool gaze; since she could not say, “Yes, this house is a regular morgue, but my luxurious bed and your perfect cook reconcile me to staying here.” There was nothing in Miss Frink’s manner to suggest that she had any idea that this guest might make an indefinite stay.
Mrs. Lumbard’s face maintained its deferential look and her voice took the childlike tone she could use at will. “A spineless tone,” Miss Frink dubbed it mentally. She rebuked herself for not liking Adèle, but the latter’s love of idle luxury “thundered above” her inefficient meekness, and not all of Susanna’s still green memory of her Alice could antidote her distaste for the young woman’s lack of energy.
“To tell the truth,” said Adèle slowly, “it has been so wonderful to be in a safe, quiet harbor that I have given up to the refreshment of it for this little while, and just enjoyed your sweet hospitality. I think I have been unconsciously waiting for just such a moment as this,when your experience and wise thought could direct me—”
“No, no, child, don’t talk that way. A woman of your age shouldn’t need directing—”
Miss Frink paused, for a servant entered the hall, and went past them to the door.
As he opened it John Ogden entered, a suitcase in his hand. At sight of his hostess he paused in announcing himself.
“Well, Miss Frink,” he exclaimed, as the servant took the suitcase, “I counted on your not minding a surprise party, for I found it was possible to come at once.”
The two women rose, and Adèle saw that the mistress of the house could be cordial if she wished to.
Scarcely had Ogden dropped Miss Frink’s hand when he realized her companion. “Why, Mrs. Reece,” he said, in a changed tone, “what a surprise to find you here—away from your sunny South,” he added hastily, fearing his amazement betrayed more than he wished.
Adèle, coloring to the tips of her ears, shook hands with him and murmured something which Miss Frink’s brusque tone interrupted.
“Stebbins,” she said to the servant, “Mr. Ogden will have the green room. Show him to it, and when he is ready take him to Mr. Stanwoodat once. Mr. Ogden, you are more than welcome, and I know you will do Mr. Stanwood a world of good. I will see you a little later.”
When the guest had vanished up the stairs, Miss Frink resumed her seat and her companion sank into hers, as pale as she had been scarlet.
“I suppose you can explain,” said Miss Frink.
“Mr.—Mr. Ogden never met me after my second marriage,” said Adèle faintly.
“The first one died, I hope.”
“I suppose you know why you are so rough, Aunt Susanna.” Adèle was evidently controlling tears.
“Well, you know how I feel. I like the sod kind better than grass. Never mind my bluntness, child. That’s neither here nor there. Mr. Reece left you something?”
“His life insurance, yes.”
“Then it was all gone, I suppose, when you decided to try again, and drew a blank in the matrimonial market.”
“Yes—almost,” faltered Adèle.
“Then, did the unpleasant ceremony you were forced to go through afterward result in your getting any alimony?”
“A—a very little.”
Miss Frink’s lips twitched in her peculiar smile. “And you still had some life insurance from number one. You’re a fast worker, Adèle.”
At this the tears came.
“Now, don’t cry,” said Miss Frink impatiently. “You can do that later. I was wondering if you would care for a position in Ross Graham’s. I took Miss Duane away from the gloves, and I told them not to fill the place at once.”
The young widow’s angry breath caught in her throat, but she stammered meekly:
“And go on—living here?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t be willing to do that, would you?” said Miss Frink reasonably.
“Would you want Miss Frink’s niece to be selling gloves in her store?”
“Ho!” exclaimed the other with a short laugh. “Miss Frink herself sold candy and cake and waited on table and was glad when she got a tip, and everybody in town knows it.”
Adèle’s cheeks burned again. “It would be foolish not to utilize my music,” she said. “Since you have no pride in the matter, no doubt there are movie theaters in Farrandale, and I can perhaps play in one.”
The young woman got the reaction she was trying for.
“No, you can’t,” returned Miss Frink promptly. “That’s where I draw the line. Let the men do that.”
Mrs. Lumbard rose. “Please excuse me,” she said faintly. It was the psychological moment. She had put Miss Frink in the wrong. Let her reflect a little. She knew the conscientious fairness under that rough husk. “I feel ill, Aunt Susanna,” she faltered. “I should like to lie down for a while.”
Her handkerchief to her eyes she passed up the broad staircase, Miss Frink looking after her, and feeling baffled.
“Yes, you’d like to lie down the rest of your life,” she declared mentally. It was too bad that Alice Ray could not have given the legacy of her splendid backbone to her descendants. “It’s tiresome, too,” added Miss Frink to herself. “I meant her to play to the boy about now; but I suppose she’s got to snivel just so long.”
There being no tears behind Mrs. Lumbard’s handkerchief, she was herself when in the dim large hall above she met Mr. Ogden and the butler coming out of the green room.
“You can go,” she said hurriedly to the latter. “Mr. Ogden and I are old friends, Stebbins. I will show him Mr. Stanwood’s room.”
The man bowed and departed.
“Mr. Ogden, I’m not Mrs. Reece—that is, you know, not any more.” She gave a nervous little laugh. “I’m—I’m Mrs. Lumbard now.”
Ogden bowed. “I’ll remember. Such matters are very quickly arranged, these days. I’m sorry not to have been up-to-date.”
She forced another little laugh at this.
“You know Aunt Susanna is a lady of the old school and she detests—er—second marriages, and things like that—divorces and everything. You understand.”
“Your aunt!” exclaimed Ogden in amazement. “Well, I am indeed ’way, ’way behind the times. I had no idea Miss Frink had a niece and, and—”
“Least of all, me, I suppose,” put in Adèle, laughing again.
“Your little girl, is she here?”
“Oh, never mind about the baby either, Mr. Ogden, please. You see, Aunt Susanna is so peculiar, and we’ve always been strangers. I haven’t even told her about the baby. I didn’t want to annoy her by bringing a child here. Just don’t know anything, please, except that I’m Mrs. Lumbard now, and you met me in Atlanta, and never say a word about what I was doing, because she would faint away at amention of the stage, and I don’t want to offend her.”
“I understand perfectly.” Ogden bowed gravely. He thought he did.
At this moment Leonard Grimshaw, always silent-footed as a cat, appeared in the dimness of the hall, coming from his room. Adèle had no means of knowing whether he had heard any of their talk, but was alertly conscious that he must notice the intimacy of their position as they stood conversing in hushed tones like a pair of conspirators.
“Oh, it’s Mr. Grimshaw,” she said lightly. “Perhaps you know—”
“Indeed, I do,” said Ogden, and the two men approached and shook hands.
“We expected you Thursday,” said the secretary, with a formal bow.
“And I hope Miss Frink will forgive my impatience. She says she will.”
“Mr. Ogden and I were so surprised to see each other,” said Adèle. “We met in Atlanta through our interest in music. You came in the nick of time, Leonard. Stebbins was just going to take Mr. Ogden to Mr. Stanwood’s room and I intercepted him. Now you will do it.”
The secretary bowed again. “If that is Miss Frink’s wish.”
“Both Miss Frink’s and mine,” said Ogden pleasantly. “I understand the boy has provided a good deal of excitement in this corner of the world.”
“One can’t help being ill,” said Grimshaw stiffly, “but it is astonishing how that sort of thing permeates a house and changes its routine.”
Ogden’s fist doubled as he followed his guide, but he made no reply. The secretary as usual forgot to knock at the door of the White Room, and throwing open the door ushered in the guest.
Miss Damon had gone downstairs, and there sat the convalescent in the big chair by the window. Ogden gasped. The secretary stared.
Freshly shaved, the rich folds of the dressing-gown about him, his feet in the glinting mules on the footrest, his handsome head leaning against the white upholstery of the armchair, he formed a picture which filled one of his guests with enthusiasm, and the other with fury.
“Is this the Rajah of Nankagorah!” cried Ogden.
Hugh’s heart leaped with a combination of joy and rage. It was ages since he had seen a soul who knew him, and here was the reason. Hewanted to hug him. He wanted to choke him.
He kicked away the stool, pulled himself to his feet and showed his teeth in a snarling sort of smile. “Damn you, Ogden!” he said.
John Ogden laughed and, striding forward, threw an arm around the satin-clad shoulders.
“Which is the safe hand? Which arm was it?” he asked.
“They’re both safe to do for you one of these days,” returned Hugh, clutching his friend.
The secretary waited for no more. The apparition of Miss Frink’s extravagance and its stunning effect roused a fever of resentment in him. He went out and closed the door. He continued to stand outside it for a minute, but the old house was well built and the voices within were low. He moved away and downstairs, and was just in time to see Miss Frink going out the front door, attired in wrap and hat.
“Dear lady, aren’t you coming into the study?”
“Some time,” she replied lightly. “I made a purchase by ’phone this morning and I want to look at it before it is sent up. Have you seen Mr. Ogden?”
“Yes, I’ve just taken him to Mr. Stanwood’s room.”
“I suppose the boy was delighted to see him.”
“I don’t know. He swore like a trooper,” replied the secretary with a righteous, long-suffering lift of his crest.
The lady of the old school looked pensive, and smiled.
“Can the boy swear? What a naughty boy!” she said. “I imagine he looks handsomer than ever when he is excited.”
Grimshaw’s full lips tightened as he escorted her out to the carriage.
“Breaking. Breaking fast,” he thought, and he made up his mind to be on the lookout for the bill for that dressing-gown. As a matter of fact, he never did see it. In some way Miss Frink managed to extract that from the usual routine.
“What is she up to now?” he muttered, watching the spirited bays jingling up the street at the pace they took when their owner was in a hurry. An awful certainty possessed him that the occupant of the White Room—the resplendent young Rajah who looked handsome when he swore—had something to do with their celerity.
John Ogden waited long enough to shake his fist toward the closed door before he turned back to regard Hugh, who, with features refined by illness, perfectly groomed, and grandly arrayed, seemed to him a new person. The gloomy expression in the eyes, however, warned him.
“Sit down again, Hugh,” he forced the tall fellow back into the white easy-chair, “and let me speak first.”
Hugh sat down perforce, but with a belligerent expression. “No, sir. I’m going to do all the speaking,” he said. “You got me into this and you’ve got to get me out.”
“Now, now, boy”—Ogden drew the nearest chair forward and dropped into it. “I expected I might find you a bit morbid—”
“Morbid!” explosively. “Me with a nurse! Me being stuffed four times a day with the delicacies of the season! Me dressed up like a Christmas doll! I don’t need anything but a wrap of tissue paper and a sprig of holly to be ready for delivery; and me a liar all the time—”
“Look here, Hugh”—John Ogden facedthe indignation in the dark eyes. “Did you notice my escort as I came in? And is he on such intimate terms with you that he bolts into your room without ceremony?”
“We’re on no terms at all. I despise the little cockatoo and he hates me—”
“He has reason,” put in Ogden with a nod.
“I’d like to know why. I haven’t done anything to him.”
“Oh, yes, you have.” John Ogden spoke slowly.
“What, I’d like to know?”
“You’ve delayed the settling of the estate—unwarrantably, and—indefinitely.”
Hugh stared, and then broke forth hotly. “Oh, look here, that’s a darned mean thing to say!”
“I think he’s a darned mean little man,” returned Ogden calmly. “Now we’ve got to look this ground all over, if I’m to get you out of here. How comes on Sukey the Freak?”
Hugh’s face flushed. “She’s a wonder, and a sport,” he answered. “If she wasn’t so infernally grateful to me for breaking my arm, she’d be all right.”
“Well, I think the Queen of Farrandale likes her job pretty well. You probably did help her to keep it, you know.”
“Oh, well, I’m sick of hearing about it,” said Hugh restlessly, “and if she knew who I am I could stand all this pampering better; but it’s degrading to be waited on, and stuffed, and having to accept presents when—when I’m deceiving her; and I warn you”—he began speaking faster—“I’m not going to stand it, and I just waited to see you. Miss Damon, the nurse, is a good scout, but I hate the sight of her. I want to be let alone. My arm is all right”—he moved it about—“a little weak, but here’s my right all the time.”
“But you went off your head, my dear boy, and shouted for Aunt Sukey till you brought tears from a bronze image.” Ogden didn’t dare to laugh. “It rests with me to bring her here right now.”
“Yes, and you think that’s very funny, I suppose.”
“I think that such a début as you made in the rôle I planned for you was little short of miraculous; and to give it up and leave it would be flying in the face of Providence.”
“I don’t care whose face I fly in. I’m strong enough to move out of here, and I’m going.”
Ogden regarded him thoughtfully from the thatch of auburn waves down to his jeweled satin feet.
“If a film-producer should come in here now, you would never be allowed to learn the department-store business,” he said. “I’ll wager that Miss Frink is having a romance—rather late in life, I admit, but it goes all the deeper.”
Hugh shook his head gravely. “Don’t make any fun of her. Whatever she did to my father, she has been wonderful to me. I’ll be ashamed to face her when the truth comes out.”
“By that time you won’t, boy. Grimshaw is so jealous of you that it shows your work is well begun.”
“Ugh! The meanness of it,” said Hugh repugnantly. “She is so frank and honest that it’s disgusting to be plotting against her. Grimshaw has got it all over me. He’s in his own cockatoo colors when all’s said and done; but I”—the speaker lifted a fold of his rich robe and dropped it with a groan.
“I’m pleased that you like Miss Frink so much,” said Ogden, ignoring this. “Everything will come out all right. Everybody confined to a sick-room gets morbid.” The speaker looked about the spacious apartment, and through a door ajar had a glimpse of the silver and tile of the bathroom. “Isn’t the house charming?”
“I don’t know,” replied Hugh curtly. “Iknow when I once get out of it I’ll never see it again.”
Ogden smiled. “My actor is more temperamental than an opera star,” he mused aloud. “Promise me one thing, boy; I think you owe me that much. Promise me you won’t take any step without forewarning me.”
“Of course I owe it to you,” said Hugh bitterly. “I owe everybody. I’ve been the most appalling expense both to you and Miss Frink, it makes me sick to think of it when I don’t know how I can ever get even.”
“You’ll get even with me by just doing what I say,” returned the other forcefully. “Of course, I haven’t seen you and Miss Frink together yet, but I’m certain you have been and are being a wonderful event in her life. She has been the loneliest woman I ever knew except on her business side. Look at this perfectly appointed house. I never heard of any entertaining here, nor even a passing guest. It took somebody with the nerve to come in and go right to bed and stay.”
Hugh drew a long breath, and felt that he should never like John Ogden again. He might be a ne’er-do-well himself, but at least he had a sense of honor.
“But, by the way, I found the record brokento-day,” went on Ogden. “I was much surprised to find Miss Frink had a niece, and that she is staying here: a Mrs. Reece—or I think she said it was Lumbard or some such name, now.”
“Yes, I shall have to divide the fortune with one person.”
John Ogden laughed cheerfully. The statement came so tragically from between clenched teeth. “Have you met her?” he continued.
“No; but I heard her play yesterday. She’s a wizard, even if she has got white hair as the nurse told me.”
Ogden gave his head a quick shake. “Don’t be misled by that white hair. I’ve met her several times in the South; and she is just about the last person on earth that I should expect to turn out to be Miss Frink’s niece. In fact”—the speaker paused reflectively—“I must say I can’t help doubting the fact.”
“Oh, yes. I suppose you think she’s an impostor like me.”
“Not like you, at any rate.”
“Any one as strictly honorable as Miss Frink makes an easy prey,” declared Hugh severely, “but it would be a little hard to get away with the false declaration by a woman that she is her niece.”
“A niece more incredible than a nephew, you think?” said Ogden cheerfully.
This persistent light-heartedness was met with a scowl.
“You and I can’t hope to look at this matter alike, Mr. Ogden. You see something amusing in hoodwinking one of the finest, most straightforward women who ever lived in the world—”
“Bully! Bully! Bully!” ejaculated the other. “Better than I could have hoped. Now, hold your horses, boy, you’ve proved you know how, and you’re going to be smiling at me instead of scowling a little later.”
“She’s killing me with kindness,” burst forth the convalescent obstreperously. “She means well; but, thunder, how bored I am!”
“This is the end of it,” replied Ogden. “We’ll get rid of the nurse. I can stay a few days and give you what assistance you need, and in a very short time you will be an independent citizen and have the run of the house.”
“The run of the house”—scornfully. “Like a tame cat. I suppose you think I’ll be shut in, nights.”
A knock on the door was followed by the entrance of the nurse with a tray whose contents made John Ogden hungry. Hugh regardedit gloomily. The ignominious fact was that his appetite waxed daily.
“Miss Damon, this is my friend, Mr. Ogden, come on from New York to get me out of here.”
The nurse smiled and went on deftly arranging the tray. “He will do that very easily now, Mr. Stanwood. In fact, I don’t think I’m needed any longer, and I’ve had a summons to-day to a very sick woman, and I am hoping Miss Frink will let me go at once. She seemed so unwilling for me to leave.”
“Yes, indeed. Yes, yes,” exclaimed her patient eagerly. “There’s nothing for you to stay for. It’s utter nonsense. Of course, you shall leave. I’ll insist upon it.”
“And I can stay a little while,” said Ogden, “and give Mr. Si—Stanwood any assistance he needs.”
“Miss Frink is out just now, but I think I’ll be packing up my things and be all ready when she comes.”
“By all means,” said Hugh, and Miss Damon vanished into a dressing-room.
“You said you had a letter from Carol.”
“Yes.” Ogden took it from his pocket. “Don’t let your broth get cold. The letter has waited this long. A few minutes more won’t mean anything.”
“Oh, hers are always short. Let me have it.”
Hugh opened the letter and glanced over it frowningly. “Poor little Carol!” he exclaimed; then he read aloud to an absorbed listener: