“Why, Damaris! How imaginative you are. Why doesn’t Mrs. Lumbard read to her, then?”
“Yes, why doesn’t she? Just because Adèle’s reading is one of the 157 varieties of things Miss Frink doesn’t like.”
“And she liked yours,” said Millicent, her gentle voice sympathetic again.
“Yes; Leonard got her to try me, and though she didn’t throw me any bouquets she engaged me; but she informed me yesterday when we went to the mat, that my skirts had always distressed her by being so short, and now my hair settled it.” The speaker shook her fluffy mane. “I met Leonard when I went into the house, and he looked me over with his owl-eyes, andsaid: ‘You little fool, you’ve done for yourself now.’ And I had, you see.”
“Is he always so affectionate?”
“Yes, as affectionate as a snapping turtle; but Mother looks up to him as a great man because he’s closest to Miss Frink of anybody, and everybody believes he’ll be her heir.”
“Will he help you again?”
Damaris shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose not. Why don’t you and I open a Beauty Parlor?”
“One reason is that we haven’t any money.”
“Would you if we had?”
Millicent shook her head. “I can’t take any chances, Damaris, you know that. My best plan is not to bob my hair and stick close to Ross-Graham. Grandfather’s pension is so small, and our house is old and we have to keep it in repair, and that costs. Mr. Grimshaw says our rent is so small he can’t do anything; but not a day passes that we don’t remember to be thankful for the ground being big enough for Grandpa’s garden. We’re very happy.”
Damaris looked curiously into the hazel eyes regarding her, so full of the warmth of sincerity.
“You’d be a wonderful partner, Millicent. Even at school I used to feel there was a sort of—well,a sort of perfume around where you were.”
Millicent laughed. “Damaris, is that a compliment?”
“Well, sweetness, anyway. You’d get around the customers every time. You’d really like them. I would, too, if I could make ’em look pretty. I’d like to have Miss Frink come in! Wouldn’t I do her up! Gosh, what she’d look like when she got out of the chair. Leonard, too. Wouldn’t I like to give Leonard scalp massage!” The speaker made a threatening gesture.
“Damaris!”
“Don’t swear, dear. Say, you haven’t told me how snappy I look. ‘Chick’s’ the word, isn’t it?”
Millicent looked at the dark, sparkling face. “Yes, but I wish you hadn’t done it, dear.”
“Well,” Damaris sighed. “I can’t put it back. Mother wept, but I bet I’ll get something just as good. Mother felt it was so refined to go to that grand house every day and get Miss Frink to sleep.”
“To sleep?”
“Yes, I read to her after lunch every day, and I always left her asleep. That was my job.”
Applause for the speech sounded, and Miss Frink rose.
“There she goes,” said Millicent as they watched the tall black satin figure rise and take the arm of the Mayor. “Wonderful! She’s wonderful!”
“Yes,” said Damaris. “They say the man that stopped the runaway was awfully hurt. He may be dead by this time, but what cares she? She’s back on her job, Queen of Farrandale.”
“But she took him to her own home,” said Millicent.
“Yes,” Damaris smiled. “In Leonard’s car, they say. I’ll bet he writhed. Good enough for him. I hope—”
“No, you don’t. Now, stop, Damaris. Let us get your mother, and both of you come home with me to supper.”
“Well, that would be awfully nice, Millicent,” returned the girl more gently. “You smell sweeter than usual.” The bobbed head was somewhat lowered. “You can comfort Mother if anybody can.”
Susanna Frink’s life had included little of the softer emotions. Of course, acquaintances and strangers had been voluble behind her back with suggestions as to what she ought to do. A woman, especially a rich woman, should have ties. Even the dignified, handsome, old-fashioned house she lived in had not been her family homestead, and it was declared an absurd purchase for a single woman when she moved into it nearly twenty years ago. The grounds, with their fine old trees, pleased her. The high iron fence, with the elaborate gates opening upon the driveway, pleased her. In the days of her restaurant—tea-house they would call it now—and candy-making, she had looked upon this house as fulfilling every idea she had ever had of elegance, and, when it fell to the possession of a globe-trotting bachelor who had no use for it, she bought it at a bargain as was her successful habit.
Those early business days had been shared by another girl, gay Alice Ray, and to this partner of her joys and sorrows Susanna gave her heart. It almost broke when Allen Morehouse marriedAlice and carried her off to the Far West. The two corresponded for years, but gradually the epistolary bond dissolved. Miss Frink grew more and more absorbed in business, and the courageous, cheery chum of her girlhood came seldom to her mind until one day she received a letter signed “Adèle Lumbard.” It enclosed a picture of Alice Ray similar to one in Miss Frink’s possession, and the writer claimed to be Alice’s granddaughter. She stated that she was alone in the world having been divorced after an unhappy marriage, and, not knowing which way to turn, had thought of the friend her grandmother had loved so devotedly, and wondered if for the sake of auld lang syne Miss Frink would be willing to see her and give her advice as to what to do.
Divorced! Susanna Frink’s eyebrows drew together. The lady of the old school had no patience with divorce. But here was Alice Ray’s granddaughter. Susanna looked at the picture, a smiling picture that through all the ups and downs of her life had stood on her dresser: an enlargement of it hung on her wall. There was no other picture in the room. Memories stirred. She had no sense of outgoing warmth toward the writer of the letter; but a divorce was a scandalous thing. What had thegirl done? Worse still, what was she likely to do if left to herself?
Miss Frink had no private charities. She gave through her secretary to the worthy organizations whose business it was to look after such matters, and troubled herself no further about them. Her secretary took care that the frequent letters of appeal should never reach her, but when he read Mrs. Lumbard’s, and saw the photograph, he knew that this did not come under the usual head; and so Miss Frink was now looking into Alice Ray’s sweet eyes, and the smile which seemed to express confidence that her good pal Susanna would not fail her.
Miss Frink sent for Adèle Lumbard, and that young woman’s heart bounded with relief and hope. She knew all about Miss Frink—indeed, so closely had she kept apprised of her reputation for cold shrewdness that she had grave doubts as to the reception of her letter, and the curt lines of invitation rejoiced her. The old photograph was returned to her without comment.
When she reached the big house, it was no surprise to have a maid show her to her room and tell her that Miss Frink would see her in the drawing-room in an hour.
A sensitive soul would have been chilled by such a reception. Adèle Lumbard’s soul was not sensitive, but her body was, and she wholly approved of the linen in her bathroom and on her bed, fine in texture and all monogrammed. She liked thechaise longueand the luxurious chairs. Her windows looked out on heavy-leafed maples and graceful birches rising from a perfectly kept lawn. A pergola and a fountain were charmingly placed.
“If she’ll only take a fancy to me!” thought Adèle.
Those piercing eyes of Miss Frink’s studied the pretty woman who entered the room at the appointed time. Perhaps there had been stirrings of hope that the newcomer might bring reminders of the one being she had loved with all her heart. If so, the hope died. Adèle’s dark eyes and ivory skin surmounted by the fluffy, snowy hair were striking, but as unlike the cheery brown and rose of sweet Alice Ray as it was possible to imagine.
Miss Frink’s cold dry hand gave the plump smooth one a brief shake.
“Be seated, Mrs. Lumbard!”
“Oh, must you say that!” was the impulsive response. “Do call me Adèle for Grandmother’s sake.”
“I am sorry you got a divorce. I am a woman of the old school,” was the uncompromising reply.
“You wouldn’t wish me to live with a bad man?” The dark eyes opened with childlike appeal.
“No; but you needn’t have divorced him.”
“If I didn’t, he would always be pestering me.”
“You talk like a Southerner.”
“Yes. Didn’t Grandmother tell you her son went South and married there?”
“Perhaps. I don’t remember. How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight. You’re looking at my hair. In a single night, Aunt Susanna—Oh, excuse me,” with apparently sudden shyness, “Grandmother always spoke of you to us all as our Aunt Susanna. We were taught to love your picture.”
Miss Frink felt slightly pitiful toward that “single night” statement and she kept the thought of her Alice in mind.
“I don’t like harrowing details,” she said curtly, “so I won’t ask for them.”
“Thank you so much”—with a pretty gesture of outgoing hands—“I do so loathe going over it.”
“No wonder. I’m glad to see you don’t paint your face or dye your hair.”
The dark eyebrows lifted in surprise. “That’s the way I was raised, Aunt Susanna,” was the meek reply.
“Well, you’d better stay on here a while,” said Miss Frink at last, “and we’ll think what it will be best for you to do. Let us see. How long ago did Alice—did your grandmother die?”
The dark eyes looked off in thought. “I was a little girl. It must be about fifteen years now.”
Miss Frink nodded.
“What an old Tartar!” thought Adèle that night as she went to bed; but she had landed, as she expressed it to herself, and possession was nine points of the law. She hugged herself for her cleverness in eschewing rosy cheeks and having nothing on her hands but the slender wedding ring.
In the careful study she had made of Miss Frink and her surroundings before coming here, she had learned about Leonard Grimshaw. The rumor was that, although Miss Frink had not really adopted him, he was the closest factor in her life; and when Adèle met him at dinner that first evening, and found that he was not aguest, but living in the house, she realized still further his importance. Realized also that he might resent her claims, and so she set herself to win his regard; while he, hearing her call Miss Frink “Aunt Susanna” unrebuked, understood that she was to be accepted.
They quickly formed a tacit alliance. Adèle’s efforts to get on intimate terms with the Queen of Farrandale were steadily repulsed, but her pride was not hurt as she observed that Miss Frink treated everybody with the same brusqueness. She discerned that the one sentiment of her hostess’s life was still a living memory. The two pictures Miss Susanna kept near her proved it, and one day, a week after Adèle’s arrival, when the lawyer came and was closeted alone with Miss Frink for an hour, Mrs. Lumbard felt jubilantly certain that the visit was for the purpose of inserting her own name in the old lady’s will.
Adèle longed to become necessary in some way to her hostess. It was absurd for Leonard’s young cousin to be coming every day to read to her. She made an excuse to read something aloud one day, but Miss Frink interrupted her.
“I am blunt, Adèle. I don’t have time for beating about the bush, and your reading makes me nervous. It’s all vowels.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Susanna,” returned the young woman meekly. “I do so wish I could do something for you—the little while I’m here.” The guest was always referring to the brevity of her visit, but weeks were slipping by. “Do you care for music?”
“Yes, moderately,” said Miss Frink carelessly. “There’s a Steinway grand down in the drawing-room. I don’t know when it has been touched.”
“I noticed that and was so tempted, but I didn’t want to play without your permission.”
“Oh, go ahead any evening. I don’t want a racket in the daytime.”
So that very evening Adèle, in the simple black georgette gown which made her white throat and arms dazzling, sat down at the piano in the empty drawing-room and had the triumph of seeing Miss Frink come through the portières in evident surprise, and sit down with folded hands to listen to the finished runs that were purling across the neglected keys.
It was two weeks after Adèle’s arrival that Rex and Regina ran away; and, in the excitement of Hugh’s illness, Mrs. Lumbard had sufficient adroitness not to risk irritating Miss Frink’s rasped nerves. The piano was closed and she effaced herself as much as possible.
The secretary’s exasperation at the intrusion of the young hero beneath their roof amused her. He confided to her the paralyzing proof of Miss Frink’s indulgence in the matter of the cigarettes.
“Oh, if she would only go around the family!” sighed Adèle.
Grimshaw gave her one look of surprise, then shrugged his shoulders.
“That would certainly be the shortest way out of the house for you,” he said dryly.
Adèle colored. “You know very well you’d like it, too.”
“If I did, that would be a very different matter. I’m disgusted with the women of to-day.”
The secretary was sitting at his desk, and Mrs. Lumbard was in the usual pose of hunting for a book which she always adopted in her visits to the study lest the lady of the old school should come in upon their interview. Grimshaw had a sort of fascination for her inasmuch as his position was certainly the one nearest the throne, and he had a large and undisputed authority in Miss Frink’s affairs. Adèle’s closest watch had never been able to discern any evidence of personal attachment in Miss Frink for her secretary, and he certainly had nocause of jealousy for Adèle on that score. This fact, more than her physical attractiveness, caused him to accept her friendly overtures and even to relieve himself occasionally in an exasperated burst of confidence.
For the first five years of his employment by Miss Frink he had been youthfully docile, attentive, and devoted to learning her business affairs. At the end of that period she invited him for convenience to reside in her house, and from that time on he had been playing for the large stake which everybody believed he would win.
He learned her likes and dislikes, never allowed his devotion to lapse into servility, and, with apparent unconsciousness of catering to her, kept early hours, read a great deal, and played with her endless games of double solitaire.
She sometimes suggested that he seek a wider social life, but to such hints he always replied, with a demure dignity in amusing contrast to her brusque strength, that his manner of life suited him excellently, but that if she wished to entertain he was at her service. Miss Frink at times thought remotely that she should like to entertain. She had taken much interest in perfecting the details of her home, inside andout; but, when she came up against the question of setting a definite date and issuing invitations, she was stirred with the same apprehensions a fish might be supposed to undergo if asked to take a stroll around the garden. She spoke of the matter sometimes, and her secretary bowed gravely and assured her that he was quite ready to take her orders; but the fish always turned away from such considerations and dived a little deeper into the congenial discussion of her business matters.
Leonard Grimshaw thought very highly of himself in the present, and had many secret plans for an important and powerful future.
He looked now scornfully at Adèle standing by the bookcase with her self-convicted blush.
“I am disgusted with the women of to-day,” he said.
“Why shouldn’t we smoke as well as you?” asked Adèle.
“I don’t,” he returned finally, his eyes fixed on the papers on his desk. “You try it once here, and you’ll find it will be a few degrees worse than Damaris bobbing her hair.”
“Poor youngster,” said Adèle. “I must say, Aunt Susanna—”
“Well, what?” said Miss Frink, suddenly coming into the room, “Aunt Susanna what?”—shewent to the desk and threw down some papers. “File those, Grim. Speak, and let the worst be known, Adèle.”
The secretary certainly admired his colleague as he rose to his feet. Without altering her pose, Adèle’s voice melted into the meek and childlike tone of her habit.
“I was speaking of what a marvel it is that you have had no reaction from the excitement of that dreadful day. That is what it is to be a thoroughbred, Aunt Susanna.”
“Thorough-nothing,” snorted the lady. “What was the use of my lying down and rolling over because I wasn’t hurt?”
“And Rex is all right again, isn’t he?” said Adèle.
“Yes, he’s got over his scratch, and the new coachman does you credit, Grim. He has decent ideas about a check rein. Order the horses for me at three. Dr. Morton says it will not hurt Mr. Stanwood to go for a short drive.”
Miss Frink hurried out of the room, and the two she left in it stared at each other. Adèle smothered a laugh behind a pretty hand, but the secretary had forgotten her smooth diplomacy in his annoyance.
“I wonder if she is going with him. Thenurse is quite enough,” he said, as if to himself.
“I wish she’d ask me to go,” said Adèle. “I haven’t had a glimpse of him since I saw him lifted out of the road.”
“Nor she, much,” said Grimshaw. “She has had the nurse make frequent reports, but she hasn’t been in the sick-room at all. Why should she be bothered?”
“No reason, of course. She is not exactly a mush of love and sympathy. What I was really going to say, Leonard, was that I don’t see how a young attractive man like you entombs himself away from his kind the way you do, and must have done for years.”
Grimshaw raised his eyebrows as one accepting his due, and brushed back his thin crest of hair, with a careless hand.
“I work pretty hard,” he said.
Adèle looked apprehensively toward the door, then back at him.
“Is it always like this?” she breathed in a hushed voice.
“Like what?”
“Days all alike. Evenings all alike.” Adèle clenched her hands. “Nobody coming, nobody going. Why haven’t you dried up and blown away!”
Grimshaw regarded her. She had undoubtedlybecome somewhat of a safety-valve for his feelings, since the day when Miss Frink brought a foreign body into the ordered régime of the big silent house, but he could do without her. He would rather do without everybody. His eyes behind the owl spectacles had a slight inimical gleam.
“Why do you stay if you don’t like it?” he returned.
The young woman straightened up resentfully.
“For the same reason you do,” she retorted.
“That is a very silly remark,” he said coldly. “A business man stays by his business interests.”
She regarded him in silence, and her stiff posture relaxed. He was powerful and she was powerless. She had put herself in his power many times. He could undo her with Miss Frink any hour.
“I’m alone in the world, Leonard,” she said, suddenly becoming self-pitying. “I’m so glad to have found a friend in you. Don’t desert me. I’d love Aunt Susanna if she would let me.”
“Better not try it on,” returned the secretary dryly, and again seated himself at his desk.
“But I’m human!” she exclaimed, suddenly appealing, “and I’m young. Can’t we everhave any fun? Aren’t there any trusties in this prison?”
“Adèle!” He looked up suddenly and his voice cracked. “Keep these ideas to yourself, if you please. This is no prison. You can go free any day.”
She caught her breath. She longed to tell him he was a cautious prig; but for the first time she felt afraid of him. He had confided in her somewhat in his irritation at the stranger upstairs, but that idea was no longer a novelty, and now she felt that he was safely withdrawing into his shell.
As her secretary had said, it was Miss Frink’s policy to keep away from the White Room. Experts, the doctor and the nurse, had charge of it. Why should she hover about like a fussy old hen, getting in the way and causing confusion? She had her business to attend to, and there was no reason why her life should not go on as systematically as before.
So she argued. Nevertheless, this was more easily said than done. She had been shocked out of her rut, and so long as that stalwart figure in bed in the White Room remained recumbent, she knew she could not really settle into her usual state of mind.
Miss Damon, the nurse, came to her three times a day with reports, and they were the interesting moments of the day to her. This noon she awaited the visit with unusual eagerness; and she hailed the young woman with a cheerful greeting.
“Dr. Morton says Mr. Stanwood may go for a drive this afternoon,” she said.
“Yes; he is sitting up by the window now,Miss Frink. I thought perhaps you would like to come in and visit him. He is rather low-spirited, you see.”
“Is he? Is he?” responded Miss Frink tensely. “What do you think he wants?”
“Oh, just to get well, I suppose. Convalescence is the hardest part after such a fever as he has had.”
“Well, I’ll come,” said Miss Frink, straightening herself valiantly, and she followed to the White Room, where in an armchair by the window sat a young man with long, pensive eyes. He was wearing, besides a gloomy expression, a small mustache and short beard carefully trimmed. A soft blanket was folded about his shoulders and another spread over the feet that rested on a cushioned stool.
Miss Frink’s startled eyes drew from the nurse the explanation that Dr. Morton had not wished the patient to be shaved as yet, and there was no change of expression in the pale, handsome face as Hugh looked up at her approach.
“Are you willing to shake hands with the old thing that got you into this mess?” inquired the visitor, and Hugh took her offered hand.
“I see they let you look out of both eyes now.” She seated herself near him.
“Yes, that scratch is all right,” he responded.
“Miss Damon thought I would be a cheerful visitor; but I suppose I’ll never look cheerful to you. Now I just want to know if there is anything more we can do for you than is being done.” Miss Frink’s emphatic tone had its usual businesslike ring. “Don’t you want to smoke?”
At this Hugh’s mustache did curve upward a little, showing a line of gleaming teeth.
“You don’t like it,” he returned.
“Who said so? Anyway, you’ll teach me.”
Hugh’s smile widened. “She is a good old sport,” he reflected.
“I don’t want that now,” he said, grave again.
“Well, is there anything on your mind?” pursued Miss Frink. The nurse had left the room. Her taciturn patient had never said an unnecessary word to her. Perhaps his hostess would have more success.
“Now, your Aunt Sukey,” went on Miss Frink in a gentler tone than could have been expected from her. “Don’t be surprised that we know about your Aunt Sukey; for you called for her incessantly in your delirium, and I assure you if you would like to see herit will give me all the pleasure in the world to send for her and have her stay as long as you like.”
The effect of this offer astonished the speaker. Color slowly flowed up all over the pale face, and Hugh grinned.
“Did I really call for her? Priceless! No, no, Miss Frink. You’re a trump, but I don’t want her sent for.”
“Not on good terms, then, I judge from the way you take it.”
“No, we’re not. You’ve hit the nail on the head. I imagine that’s your way.” Still coloring, he met the solicitous eyes bent upon him as Miss Frink grimaced her glasses off.
“Perhaps she is opposing a love affair. Don’t mind an old woman’s plain speaking; but, of course, we saw the sweet face in your photograph, and it doesn’t seem as if there could be anything wrong with that girl. I like the quaint way she does her hair. I’m a lady of the old school, and it’s refreshing to see a coiffure like that in this day of bobbed idiots. Did Aunt Sukey oppose her?”
“With tooth and nail,” replied Hugh. “You are a mind reader.”
“Well—dear boy”—Miss Frink hesitated—“I want to do anything in this world I canfor you. Are you sure I can’t do anything in this matter?”
“It’s a little late,” said Hugh.
“Never too late to mend,” returned Miss Frink stoutly and hopefully. She regarded the beauty of her companion, considering him in the rôle of a lover. “You look just as if you were ready to sing ‘Faust,’” she said. “I shall call her Marguerite until you tell me all about it.”
Miss Frink little suspected that she had set fire to a train of thought which hardened her companion against her, and accented the repugnance to the part he was playing; a repugnance which had dominated him ever since the breaking of his fever.
Many times he had definitely made up his mind that, the minute sufficient strength returned, he would disappear from Farrandale and repay John Ogden every cent of his investment if it took years to accomplish it. Two things deterred him: one, his last interview with Ogden in which the latter reminded him of his lack of initiative and self-control—in other words, his spinelessness. That stung his pride. “Remember,” said John Ogden, “of the unspoken word you are master. The spoken word is master of you.” The other incentive to continuingthe rôle in which he had made such a triumphant début was Miss Frink’s secretary. Hugh was a youth of intense likes and dislikes very quickly formed. In spite of himself he liked his brusque, angular hostess. To be sure, saving any one’s life creates an interest in the rescued, but it was not only that. Hugh liked the sporting quality of his great-aunt. He liked the way she had done her duty by him and not fussed around the sick-room. She was a good fellow, and he didn’t like her to be under the influence, perhaps domination, of the spectacled cockatoo who was also, in his own estimation, cock of the walk. If Miss Frink had kept away from the White Room, Leonard Grimshaw had not done so. He came in frequently with a masterful air and the seriousness with which he took himself, and his patronizing manner to patient and nurse grated on the convalescent.
“I’ll be darned if I’ll leave Aunt Sukey to him,” was the conclusion Hugh invariably reached after one of his visits.
“There is something on my mind, Miss Frink,” said Hugh, now, “and that is Mr. Ogden. I’m sure he is wondering why he doesn’t hear from me.”
“I’ll write him at once,” said Miss Frink.“It shall go out this afternoon. We’ll mail it together.”
The patient’s long eyes rolled toward her listlessly.
“Yes. You’re going for a drive with me. Dr. Morton says you may.”
“H’m,” returned Hugh. “Not until I get a little more starch in my legs, I guess. I can barely get to this chair from the bed.”
“Oh, of course the butler and the coachman will carry you over the stairs.”
“Thanks, no. I prefer not to be handled like a rag doll.”
“What have you got that blanket on for?” demanded Miss Frink, suddenly becoming conscious of the patient’s garb.
“Why—” John Ogden in his preparations for his protégé had not had the foresight to prepare for inaction on his part. “I—I haven’t any bathrobe with me.”
Here the door opened and Leonard Grimshaw walked in. It entertained Hugh to note the abasement of the uplifted crest as the secretary saw his employer.
“I beg pardon. I didn’t know you were here, Miss Frink.”
“Whether you knew it or not, you might have knocked,” she retorted. “Look here,Grim, Mr. Stanwood doesn’t wish to drive to-day, so I am going now instead of later.”
“Now, Miss Frink?” deferentially. “Luncheon will be served in fifteen minutes.”
“Now,” repeated Miss Frink. “There is an errand I wish to do. Order the horses at once, please.”
The secretary bowed in silence and withdrew.
“Bully for you, old girl. You know your own mind,” thought Hugh, and at that moment the nurse appeared with a tempting tray. The patient regarded it with a little less apathy than usual. The last few minutes had been an appetizer.
Miss Frink rose. “Eat all you can, my boy. I shall let you see my letter to Mr. Ogden before I mail it.”
“Do you know his address?”
“Certainly; Ross Graham buys of him. To tell the truth, I should have written him long before this if it hadn’t been I was ashamed to have him know the reception I gave his friend.”
Hugh smiled faintly. Age must have ripened Aunt Sukey. She was certainly a good sort. Grimshaw couldn’t put it over her whatever Mr. Ogden might think. Hugh still smiled as he thought of the depressed crest, and the deference of that voice so full of unction.
The secretary shook his head as he departed on his errand. To postpone luncheon—why, it was nearly as unheard of as to connive at cigarettes!
“She’s breaking—breaking,” he reflected. “It’s the beginning of the end.”
The horses were at the door, likewise the secretary. He had encountered Mrs. Lumbard in the hall, and informed her that the luncheon gong would not sound at present.
She lifted her shoulders. “Curfew shall not ring to-night! Why thebouleversement?”
“Miss Frink wishes to do an errand.”
“It must be a marvelous one that won’t wait.”
The crest was lifted high. “She behaves very strangely,” was the dignified reply. “She is”—Grimshaw tapped his temple—“somewhat changed since her shock. It betrays itself in many ways. My deeply beloved and respected Miss Frink!” He shook his head.
Adèle gazed at him curiously, with little whimsical twitches at the corners of her lips. “We can’t expect anything else at her age,” she replied, in the low tone that he had used.
The subject of their remarks now appeared at the head of the stairs, dressed for her drive. She looked a little annoyed to see the couple waiting below together.
“Well, well,” she said testily. “I am not going on a journey. You look as if you were waiting to bid me a long farewell.”
“Would you like me to go with you?” asked Mrs. Lumbard. “I can get my hat very quickly.”
As Miss Frink reached the foot of the stairs, she returned the young woman’s eager gaze coolly. “I am not in the least shy of asking your company when I want you, Adèle,” she returned, pulling on her gloves. “Any last wishes, Grim?”
“I am simply waiting to put you in your carriage, dear lady,” he returned, injured dignity again to the fore.
“All right,” brusquely. “Order lunch to be served in three quarters of an hour; and, Adèle, Mr. Stanwood doesn’t feel ready to come downstairs yet, but he’s sitting up, and you might open the piano again. There is no objection to your playing if you feel like it. He might like it—in the distance.”
Mrs. Lumbard lingered until the secretary had his employer safely ensconced and the glistening horses had driven away. She watched him come up the path, and then went out on the wide veranda behind the white columns to meet him.
“Grim by name and grim by nature,” she said, laughing. “You look funereal.”
“Don’t make silly jokes,” he snapped. “I should think you had had a snub to last you for one while.”
“Wasn’t it right between the eyes?” she returned cheerfully.
“Everything that dear Miss Frink says is straight from the shoulder always,” said her secretary.
“I thought you were going to say straight from the heart. No wonder you call her ‘dear.’ So ingratiating, so affectionate.”
“That is enough of that,” said Leonard curtly. “I am here to protect Miss Frink—even from her poor relations.”
Mrs. Lumbard crimsoned to the roots of her white hair. “That is a nasty, insulting thing to say.” The brown eyes scintillated. “The sacred lunch hour is postponed. I may play in the daytime. If you are here to protect Miss Frink, you would better let her relatives take care of themselves, and turn your attention to the crippled Greek god she has been visiting the last hour. Don’t you know, as well as I do, that she has gone on some errand for him? Perhaps not cigarettes this time, but for something he wants, and wouldn’t you be glad if I could have gonewith her and found out what it was? You won’t get anywhere by insulting me, Leonard Grimshaw.”
“There, there, Adèle.” The secretary was coloring, too. He disliked hearing put into words the thoughts that had been grumbling in the back of his head; but Mrs. Lumbard flashed past him and into the house, and, hurrying to open the piano, in a minute the crashing chords of a Rachmaninoff Prelude were sounding through the house. Every time those strong white hands came down, it was with a force which might have been shaking the cockatoo crest.
In the White Room the convalescent’s pensive eyes widened. “Who can that be?” he asked the nurse.
“I’m sure I’ve no idea, Mr. Stanwood. It sounds like a man. Perhaps it is Mr. Grimshaw.”
“Say, if it is, he’s some good, after all. Only that’s a punk thing he’s playing. That stuff’ll do when you’re dead. Would you mind going down and asking him if he knows anything from ‘The Syncopated Playfellows’?”
“I shall be glad to, Mr. Stanwood.” And Miss Damon went downstairs and stood outside the entrance to the drawing-room until the lastdignified chord was dying away, then she entered.
“Why, Mrs. Lumbard!” she exclaimed in surprise; “we thought it was a man.”
“I wish I was,” said Adèle vindictively, “and that I was just going to fight a duel, and had the choice of weapons. I’d choose horsewhips and I guarantee I’d get there first.”
Miss Damon’s demure little mouth smiled leniently. “Mr. Stanwood sent me down. He was very pleased to hear music, and we thought it might be Mr. Grimshaw; and Mr. Stanwood wanted me to ask him if he could play something from ‘The Syncopated Playfellows.’”
Adèle’s eyes grew their widest. “Goodness, he’s human then if he did come from Olympus!” The eyes brightened. “To think of having a live one in the house! It’s the jazziest kind of jazz, Miss Damon. I might just as well meet Miss Frink at the door with a string of profanity. Will you stand at the window and watch for the carriage while I loosen up?”
She plunged at once into the audacious rhythm and jerking melody requested, and it was not long before Leonard Grimshaw’s pointed nose and amazed spectacles appeared between the heavy satin portières. Adèle flashed defiance at him and pounded on hercomplicated way. The secretary felt beating symptoms in his feet, but he still glared.
The barbaric strains came to a close.
“I’m surprised,” he said.
“You look it,” retorted the musician.
Miss Damon glided from the room and upstairs. She found enthusiasm in the pale face of her patient.
“Thank you. Grimshaw isn’t so dusty, after all. Why, he’s a wizard.”
“It wasn’t Mr. Grimshaw. It was a Mrs. Lumbard, a niece of Miss Frink’s, who lives here.”
“Lives here? I wonder why she hasn’t played before.”
“Oh, Miss Fink wouldn’t allow the piano opened while you were ill, Mr. Stanwood.”
“Say”—Hugh looked out the window thoughtfully—“she’s been awfully white to me. Miss or Mrs. Lumbard did you say?” looking back at the nurse.
“Mrs. She’s a widow with white hair. Quite pretty.”
“H’m! She’d better have her hair dyed if she’s going to play like that. It’s a wonder it doesn’t turn red and curl of its own accord.”
Meanwhile Miss Frink had directed her liveried coachman to drive to Ross GrahamCompany’s. Rex and Regina would probably have gone there if left to themselves, so often did they traverse the road. Holding their heads high, their silver harness jingling, they, like their mistress, seemed to be scorning the parvenu motors among which they threaded their way.
Arrived at the store, Miss Frink told the new coachman where to wait—it was a nuisance to have to break in new servants, to have to initiate a novice into her established customs. She supposed the man who had held that position for so many years could not help dying; nevertheless, if he had not done so Rex and Regina would never have run away with her; and, as she left the victoria with this reflection, another consideration followed close on its heels. She would never have known Hugh Stanwood. A softened expression grew around her thin lips.
Yes, she would probably have received him into the store to please John Ogden, but she would never have taken any notice of him. The clerks in the big establishment held just the same place in her consideration as the lights, or the modern fixtures for carrying cash.
She entered the store and was met by a deferential floorwalker.
“How do, Mr. Ramsay. Where are the men’sdressing-gowns or bathrobes or smoking-jackets, or whatever you call ’em?”
“Why, that’s quite flattering, Miss Frink. I didn’t know that you trusted the manager to plan a department out of your knowledge.”
“That is because you don’t know me, then. I make certain that a person is competent, and after that I don’t tie any strings to him; but this is the first time in my life I ever bought anything for a man. I hope you’ve got something decent.”
“Now, look here, Miss Frink”—they were walking toward the back of the store, and every unoccupied clerk was casting furtive glances at the eagle-eyed proprietor—“that’s heresy, you know. New York might come over here and take a few lessons from our stock.”
Miss Frink’s lips twitched. It was her usual manner of smiling.
“Glad to hear it. Now, prove it.”
They reached the section desired, and Mr. Ramsay nodded to a blonde girl busy with her cash book.
“Dressing-gowns, Miss Duane”—then he bowed and moved away.
Miss Frink’s bright gaze fixed on the clerk. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere else?” she demanded.
“Yes, Madam,” returned the girl. “I am in the glove section, but Miss Aubrey has gone out to lunch, so I’m over here.”
“Do you know anything about the stock?”
Millicent colored under this abruptness, but she smiled.
“Not very much, but I can show you what we have.”
Miss Frink liked her tone and manner.
“Human intelligence, eh?—Do you know who I am?” with sudden consideration that perhaps this sweetness was for the occasion.
“Yes, indeed, Miss Frink. We all know you. I have fitted you to gloves.”
The lady of the old school still regarded the blonde head with its simple twist of hair carried back from a low broad forehead. “I was sure I had seen you. Are you always patient with people that snap you up?”
“Oh, yes. I might lose my job if I wasn’t.” The girl laughed a little.
The wholesomeness of her, with her color coming and going, pleased her customer, but above all the charm of her low-pitched voice attracted Miss Frink.
“Well, let’s get at it, then,” she said. “I want a dressing-gown for a man who is recovering from a severe accident and beginning to sit up.”
Millicent approached a series of hangers, Miss Frink close on her heels.
“What size does he wear?”
“Heaven knows, but he’s built on the quantity plan.”
“Takes a large size, then.”
“That’s the idea.”
“How about this?” Millicent drew out a garment covered with Persian figures.
“Take it away, child. I don’t want a Sheik pattern.”
The girl tried next a soft blue wool wrapper with cord and tassels.
“Nor a baby bunting,” snapped Miss Frink. “I tell you he’s a he-man.”
Millicent could feel the tears of amusement pressing to her eyes, but she was quite frightened at the same time. The customer towered so above her and now began pulling over the gowns with her own hands.
“Look here, haven’t you got something handsome?” demanded Miss Frink at last.
“Oh, I’m sure we have what any one has,” stammered Millicent. “I thought if it was for a sick person, something soft—”
“Well, he isn’t going to be sick all his life, I hope.”
Millicent hurried to some drawers at one side,and opening one drew forth a dressing-gown of heavy black satin on which were printed small wine-colored flowers. Each one burst into brightness with one crimson petal, giving an effect of jewels. The rich cord and tassels showed threads of crimson.
Miss Frink’s expression was one she had probably not worn since she was confronted by her first wax doll with real hair. She grimaced her eyeglasses off.
“Well, I think better of Ross Graham,” she said, after an eager pause.
“It is very rich,” remarked the saleslady, demurely.
“Not too rich for his blood, I guess,” said Miss Frink, handling the lustrous fabric and putting back her eyeglasses.
“Do you suppose it’s big enough?”
“It is a large size.”
“Do you think he’d feel like a Christmas tree in it?”
“Is he a young man?” asked Millicent.
“Oh, yes. He’s got a mustache and beard now,” said Miss Frink, appearing to think aloud as she caressed the satin musingly. “Of course that makes him look older, and his beard is quite red. Much redder than his hair and, of course,crimson—but that will be offin a few days—” She paused, continuing to consider, and Millicent’s soothing voice fell upon her perturbed thought.
“You see the lining is very nice. They have taken that dark tint in the flowers and matched it, so there is nothing too gay about it, I should think.”
Her hazel eyes met Miss Frink’s and her smile was winning. “Of course, you know best, but it seems to me this is a dressing-gown for Prince Charming.”
Miss Frink grimaced her eyeglasses off.
“For whom did you say?” quickly.
Millicent blushed. Miss Frink liked to see her do it.
“Oh, that’s just nonsense, but you know, the hero of all the fairy tales?”
“Don’t know one of them.”
“Well, Prince Charming is always the hero,” laughed Millicent. Miss Frink in her present torn mental condition was not frightening. “I think this dressing-gown looks good enough for him.”
“Very well.” Miss Frink took a long breath and replaced her glasses. “I’ll take it.”
“Do you wish it sent?” Millicent was again the demure saleslady.
“No. Just wrap it up.”
“There are mules that go with it,” suggested the girl. She turned back to the drawer and brought out the glinting satin slippers.
The corners of Miss Frink’s lips drew down. “What fool things for a man!” she remarked.
“I don’t see why,” said Millicent, perceiving that the customer wished urging. “They’re very comfortable, and when he wears the gown he must have some sort of slippers.”
Miss Frink started. “I don’t believe he has any,” she mused. “Put them in,” she added, and sighed again.
“You’re a very good saleswoman,” she said at last. “Probably hungry this minute. I am.”
“Oh, that’s no matter for me. Did—” the girl paused, the box in her hand. “Did you want the price marks taken off?”
“Well, well! You have got more than human intelligence. Of course I do. How much are they, by the way?”
Millicent said nothing, for her customer seized the articles and examined the marks.
“Well”—straightening up—“Prince Charming thinks pretty well of himself, doesn’t he? All right, let the hide go with the hoofs, put the mules in.”
While the box was being wrapped, MissFrink looked so closely at Millicent that her ready color came again.
“What did Ramsay say your name was?”
“Duane. Millicent Duane.”
“I never have time to beat about the bush. How would you like to come and read to me an hour every day? I’ve lost my reader and I like your voice.”
“Oh, Miss Frink”—the girl’s hands clasped together unconsciously. “I know Damaris. She was so sorry to have offended you. Her hair will grow again very soon—”
“Well, her common sense won’t,” returned Miss Frink impatiently. “When a thing is past with me it’s past. I have no post mortems. Think it over, Miss Duane.”
“But I can’t afford to lose my job, Miss Frink,” said the girl with soft eagerness. “They would never let me go for an hour a day, and my grandfather has just a small pension; we have to be very careful.”
That voice. That wholesome face. That delicately clean shining hair. Miss Frink smiled a little at the ingenuous lack of consciousness of the power of money.
“That would be my care,” she said. “Think it over.”
“Oh, of course, I should like it,” said Millicent,still with eagerness, “if it was right for me. It would give me so much more time with Grandpa. But there is Damaris! I can’t bear to think of hurting her feelings.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” said Miss Frink. “Business is business. You’ll hear from me again.”
A boy was called to carry the box and the purchaser departed leaving Millicent flushed, and happy, and apprehensive.
As Miss Frink was leaving the store the floorwalker intercepted her. He had in his hands a letter.
“I wonder if you can throw any light on this, Miss Frink. A letter that came several days ago to Mr. Hugh Stanwood in care of the store. We have no employee of that—”
“No, but you will have,” interrupted Miss Frink, almost snatching the letter. “Hugh Stanwood is the man who hindered the rendezvous my horses were trying to keep with that express train a few weeks ago.”
“You don’t say so. The young hero who put us all under such obligation?”
“Me, anyway. I’m in no hurry to play the harp. Yes, he was on his way to Ross Graham’s when he stubbed his toe, poor boy.”
Mr. Ramsay bowed. “I’ve heard that you are caring for him royally. I’m sure we shall be very glad to welcome him into our ranks if it is your wish.”
“Well, we’ll let him catch his breath first, anyway. He’s doing well and, believe me, Icouldn’t sleep nights if he wasn’t. I’ve just been getting him a dressing-gown; you don’t sell dressing-gowns for your health here, do you?”
The floorwalker smiled deferentially. “Do you find us exorbitant?”
“Do I! I’ll have to pay for this on the installment plan.”
“Ha, ha! Very good. Very good, indeed. Glad we had something that pleased you. Good-afternoon, Miss Frink.”
On the way home the lady gazed at the letter she was carrying.
“John Ogden has beat me to it,” she reflected. At certain moments the lady of the old school found a relief to her feelings in slang. “Saber cuts of Saxon speech,” Mark Twain called it, and Miss Frink liked saber cuts. She hadn’t time to beat about the bush.
Leaving her box below stairs where her secretary and Mrs. Lumbard could if they wished whet their curiosity on its shape and the Ross-Graham label, she went in to lunch with her bonnet on.
The others of her family dutifully took their places. Adèle’s ivory tints were somewhat flushed. She knew from Miss Damon that she had scored a triumph with her invisible audience, and it was a certainty that that meantcredit with Miss Frink. She cast an occasional unforgiving glance at the secretary who kept to his usual safe programme of speaking when he was spoken to.
Miss Frink addressed him now. “Here is a letter from John Ogden to our patient,” she said.
Adèle’s brown eyes suddenly glanced up, startled. Still, there were probably hundreds of John Ogdens in the world.
“Yes. I do feel mortified not to have written him as soon as I received his letter of introduction. He will think I’m a savage when he learns why he hasn’t heard from his young friend.” The speaker regarded the letter beside her plate. “He addressed it in care of the store. Mr. Stanwood was headed for Ross Graham’s, you know; and they had no more ideatherewho Hugh Stanwood was than the man in the moon.”
“That is a little embarrassing,” returned Grimshaw circumspectly. “Is there anything I can do about it?”
“No,” returned Miss Frink good-naturedly, “since you didn’t stand over me and make me answer that letter.”
“You never showed me the letter of introduction,” said the secretary, “or I might have ventured—”
“Oh, you would have ventured,” returned Miss Frink, “though I don’t think, Grim, that your slogan is ‘Nothing venture, nothing have.’”
“My duty is to protect you, dear lady,” declared Leonard, unsmiling.
“Oh, I know that, and you’re a good boy,” said Miss Frink carelessly. She set down her tea-cup. “Well, I’ll go upstairs and take my medicine. I hope both the boy and Mr. Ogden will forgive me. Will you both excuse me, please?”
She left the room. Adèle longed to comment on the interesting-looking box she had passed in the hall, but she was still too angry with Grimshaw to address him.
“Miss Frink is in remarkably good spirits,” he observed; and because Adèle knew she could irritate him, she responded:
“Yes. She must have succeeded in finding something very fine for her protégé.”
“It is going rather far to call that young person her protégé,” said the secretary stiffly.
Adèle shrugged her shoulders. “Personally I think it is a mild name for him.”
“She will give him the employment he seeks, doubtless, when he is about again,” remarked Leonard.
“Unless she just passes over half her kingdom to him,” said Adèle. “You have been seeing him. Is he really such a beauty as he seemed that first day?”
“Remarkable,” answered the secretary dryly, “with a flaming red beard and mustache.”
“Horrors!” ejaculated Adèle. Then: “Poor thing, I suppose he couldn’t be shaved.”
The secretary pushed his chair back from the table. “Only a most common person could have demanded the music you played for him.”
Adèle grimaced. “Go on. I know what you want to say—And only the commonest sort of person could have played it. Go on. Have courage, the courage of your convictions.”
“I think Miss Frink will be the best person to comment on your actions, in this as in all other matters while you are a guest in her house.”
The two exchanged a dueling glance. Again Adèle experienced that fear of her antagonist which she sometimes experienced. She didn’t dare to allow him to dislike her.
“Oh, what’s the use, Leonard,” she said with a sudden change of tone and manner, and she held out her hand.
He drew back. “Persons shake hands whenthey are about to fight,” he said. “I hope there is nothing of that sort in the air.”
Adèle dropped her hand. “I should hope not,” she returned, trying to hold him with her soft brown glance; but he was impervious and left the room.
Miss Frink, armed with her box, went to the White Room and knocked on the door. As the nurse opened it, her grave little mouth was smiling.
“We’ve nearly cured Mr. Stanwood while you have been gone,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve heard that music was being used a good deal now to heal the sick; and here we have an example.”
Hugh was smiling, too, above his blanket wrappings. “Some pianist you have here,” he said.
“Oh, did you like that?” asked Miss Frink. “Mrs. Lumbard played, then.”
“By George, it was all I could do to stay in the chair,” said Hugh.
“Well, now I’m glad to hear that,” said Miss Frink. “Music is one thing we can give you. I’m glad you’re in a good mood, too, for I’m just a little bit more ashamed than I ever thought I should be again.” She dropped her box on a chair, and, advancing, held out theletter. “From Mr. Ogden,” she continued, “and I don’t know how old it is, and I’m real sorry I’m too old to blush.” She noted that the invalid’s hands were enveloped in the blanket. “Would you like me to read it to you?”
“No, oh, no,” returned Hugh hastily, thrusting out a hand for the letter. “I can read it all right.”
The caller crossed to a window and sat down; and as Hugh opened his letter Miss Frink noticed that he was not too old to blush.