Dear Leonard: A strange thing came to my knowledge last night, and, fearing that it may be a shock to you to learn it, I thought I would prepare you and I hope you will not consider it presumptuous on my part. If it does seem so, pardon me, because it is only my solicitude for you. It seems that Hugh Stanwood’s real name is Sinclair,and that he is a nephew of Miss Frink. She will doubtless tell you immediately her discovery of his identity; and we shall see if she resents his obtaining entrance to her under a false name.Yours everAdèle
Dear Leonard: A strange thing came to my knowledge last night, and, fearing that it may be a shock to you to learn it, I thought I would prepare you and I hope you will not consider it presumptuous on my part. If it does seem so, pardon me, because it is only my solicitude for you. It seems that Hugh Stanwood’s real name is Sinclair,and that he is a nephew of Miss Frink. She will doubtless tell you immediately her discovery of his identity; and we shall see if she resents his obtaining entrance to her under a false name.
Yours ever
Adèle
The secretary’s face became scarlet as he read. The shock was all his friend could have anticipated, and he felt grateful to her for the preparation. This interloper and liar to have had the damned luck to save Miss Frink’s life; to command her gratitude and regard! There was the chance now that his duplicity might antidote that gratitude. Grimshaw’s face became more hopeful as the thought grew. He saw Miss Frink, in her intolerance of falsity, sending the fellow about his business. Happy dénouement to the past afflicting weeks. Adèle was a sweet girl. Her thought was all of him, and for his protection.
At the same moment in another room another gentleman was finding a folded paper on the polished wood of his threshold. Opening it he read:
I am not responsible after playing. I am intoxicated, and a woman is as liable to tell the truth in her cups as a man. Can you forgive and forget,Hugh? You can imagine how deeply I regret that hysterical outburst. Be generous to me.Adèle
I am not responsible after playing. I am intoxicated, and a woman is as liable to tell the truth in her cups as a man. Can you forgive and forget,Hugh? You can imagine how deeply I regret that hysterical outburst. Be generous to me.
Adèle
Hugh frowned as he read. Poor Adèle! What lay before her now? He dreaded to meet her at breakfast, and hoped that she would decide to leave Farrandale. Ogden had assured him, before they parted last night, that she had no more idea of teaching in this town than she had of flying to the moon.
Adèle did not come to breakfast, and, as for Ogden, it took some hardihood for him to present himself to his hostess that morning. His gay, debonair look was the same as usual when she greeted him. She was already seated behind the coffee percolator when he came in, and, instead of going to his place, he came to her and held out his hand, with an odd chuckle.
“I’m as nervous as a cat this morning,” he said, meeting her bright eyes.
After a little hesitation she gave him her hand for a quick shake. “What is it: your conscience or your digestion?” she inquired.
Leonard Grimshaw was in his place watching their every move as a cat watches a mouse; and here Hugh came into the room. He, too, approached Miss Frink’s chair, and she held his hand while she addressed her secretary.
“Leonard,” she began—and it was only in her most serious moments that she thus addressed him—“I have a great surprise for you. This young man who put me under such obligation and to whom we are so much attached, is my grand-nephew, Hugh Sinclair. I have known it only a short time.”
Grimshaw felt that but for Adèle’s warning he should have collapsed. As it was, he turned pale under the discovery of his employer’s attitude toward the culprit.
“I supposeheknew it,” he returned, with a carefully respectful manner.
“Yes, he knew it,” returned Miss Frink, smiling up at Hugh and still retaining the hand that clasped hers closely.
“Why didn’t he tell us sooner?” asked Grimshaw politely.
“Pretty good aim,” reflected Ogden.
“Because he thought of me as an old dragon,” returned Miss Frink. “We don’t beat about the bush in this matter any more than in any other. Go and sit down, Hugh, and I’ll give you a really good cup of coffee.”
The boy obeyed, scarlet humiliation upon him again. He knew the secretary’s thoughts. He knew what would leak out all through Farrandale, and that no one would ever realize howhe had hated it. He gave a glowering look at Ogden.
That gentleman spoke up cheerfully. “That was my doing, Mr. Grimshaw, that feature of the matter, not telling Miss Frink at first. Mr. Sinclair would have infinitely preferred telling her at once, and I think the full explanation of my not being crippled for life lies in the fact that he has been bedridden and weak; but my motto is always, ‘All’s well that ends well.’ Isn’t it yours, too, Mr. Grimshaw?”
“Has it ended?” returned the secretary, as lightly as he was able.
Although Miss Frink had presented herself so promptly at breakfast that morning, she had been as sleepless as Adèle. Waves of wonder and joy had passed over her in the consideration of her happiness, and kept her awake. That honest boy—honest in spite of the part he had been induced to play—admired her, loved her. He had said so, and she believed him. She had not thought her life empty before, but now she felt compassion for her past. Her brain seethed with plans and possibilities, and certain charitable institutions lost a great deal of money that night.
As she thought thus, the remembrance of Adèle clouded the radiance of her reflections. She had yet this problem to meet. If the young woman would solve it by leaving town, what a mercy it would be! Of course, she had fallen in love with Hugh, head over heels. So, thought Miss Frink, sighing, would probably every girl who met him; but Adèle had hazarded all, tried to rush the boy off his feet, and, if she had known that he was related to Miss Frink, itwould not have deterred her. Her sort fears neither God nor man. Miss Frink shrank into her pillow and closed her sleepless eyes as she recalled Adèle’s bitter attitude toward herself, and the young woman’s triumphant hope of wounding her.
Miss Frink was a strong woman; but her excitement as she dressed that morning was not sufficient to lift her above her sense of weariness. Explaining the situation to Leonard Grimshaw was before her. It rankled that he would believe her splendid boy to be blameworthy. Then there was John Ogden to be met, and, looming dark above all these, was Adèle to be dealt with. She had been intending to have a final talk with Adèle this morning in any case; so, when the waitress at last went up to Mrs. Lumbard’s room with her breakfast, she carried a message that Miss Frink would come in to see her at ten o’clock.
“Pleasant prospect!” thought Adèle as she sat up in bed to receive the tray. “Thank you, Janet,” she said sweetly to the maid.
“You look awful tired, Mrs. Lumbard,” said the girl, “and so does Miss Frink. There’s all sorts of doings down in the breakfast room.” Janet’s eyes were big. “What do you think! Mr. Stanwood’s name is something else and he’ssome sort of relation to Miss Frink all this time, and nobody knew it!”
“Are you sure, Janet?” Adèle put the cream in her coffee.
“Yes, ma’am,” returned the excited girl. “Stebbins heard Miss Frink say so herself to Mr. Grimshaw.”
“Did Miss Frink seem pleased?” Adèle broke off a piece of toast, speaking languidly.
“Oh, yes, indeed, and holding his hand.”
“Mr. Grimshaw’s?” Adèle smiled wanly.
“No, Mr. Stanwood’s; and she seemed so happy over it.”
“Who wouldn’t be happy holding Mr. Stanwood’s hand?”
Janet giggled. “Yes, ain’t he awful handsome?—and now he’ll be the biggest catch in Farrandale; but I guess there won’t any o’ the girls have a chance when you’re around, Mrs. Lumbard.”
Janet’s head fell to one side in sentimental admiration as she regarded Adèle.
The latter smiled and nodded at her: “You’d better run along, Janet.”
The maid disappeared, and Adèle again clamped down the lid on the humiliating memories of last evening. She must not be humiliated when Miss Frink came in. She rememberedthe violence of her own attack upon that lady and regretted it as most unwise; nevertheless, her head might be “bloody,” but it should be “unbowed.” It had been quite evident for some time that Miss Frink’s hospitality was being strained; Adèle could not in any case have hoped to remain here much longer. Why should she be ashamed of loving Hugh? Why should she be ashamed of trying to get him? She was not. It was all in the game. She had lost for the present, but who could tell?
By the time Miss Frink’s knock sounded on the door, the young woman was dressed and ready to open it with an attempt at a smile.
“Good-morning, Aunt Susanna.”
“Good-morning, Adèle.” Miss Frink regarded the calm face and unfallen eyes uncomfortably; and felt her own self-possession strengthened by such control.
“Well,” she began, as they sat down in neighboring chairs, “we have come to the parting of the ways, Adèle.”
“Have we? Where are you going?” was the astonishing reply.
Miss Frink grimaced her glasses off the eyes beneath which were dark shadows, and at once replaced them.
“You certainly help me not to beat about thebush,” she said. “I thought perhaps last night’s experience would make you feel you did not care to stay in Farrandale.”
“After your giving such an expensive advertisement for me?” Adèle smiled.
Miss Frink’s own deep happiness embarrassed her. Hugh’s earnest “Be kind to Ally,” rang in her ears. This adventuress, pale and defiant, seemed to her so pitiful that, in spite of the other’s audacity, she had to summon her customary directness with an effort.
“That wouldn’t be good economy, would it?” added Adèle.
There was a pause; then Miss Frink spoke again: “I must tell you that I have discovered, quite by accident, that you are not the granddaughter of my dear friend. Her son married a lady with a little girl, a little pianist.”
Color stole over Adèle’s pallor.
“Ah, Mr. Ogden is a regular god in the machine, isn’t he?” she said lightly. “Delightful man!”
“My informant was unaware that he was telling me any news,” went on Miss Frink; “but, this being the case, I feel that it would be rather foolish for us to keep up the pose of aunt and niece.”
“Especially,” returned Adèle “since youhave found some one with the right of blood to call you ‘Aunt Susanna.’”
Miss Frink regarded her composed companion in silence. Not with her could she exchange words concerning her heart-warming miracle.
“A few days ago,” she said, “I obtained the refusal for you of a room at the Coopers’: cousins of Leonard’s. If you decide to stay in Farrandale, he will take you over there to-day and introduce you. Mrs. Cooper is ready for you to take possession at any minute. They have a very good piano.”
“I thought,” said Adèle, with unabashed eyes, “that I should like to go to the Duanes’. I hear they have such a pleasant garden, and I believe they are poor and might like a paying guest.”
Miss Frink regarded her incredulously. Was there, then, no limit to her audacity?
“Colonel Duane was very nice to me last evening,” added Adèle. “Such a courtly old gentleman.”
“They keep no maid and would not take any one,” said Miss Frink briefly.
“I shouldn’t be any trouble, for I would help Miss Duane like one of the family.”
Miss Frink felt a sort of horror of the smooth, fair speaker. She had been prepared to be verykind to the poor woman who had blundered so pitifully, but her own assurances to Hugh came back to her: the occurrence was no tragedy to Mrs. Lumbard, evidently to her while there was life, there was hope. To suggest going to the Duanes’! The image of Millicent rose before Miss Frink as the antithesis of all that Adèle represented.
The latter smiled now, wan, but still unembarrassed.
“If you are thinking that it will be awkward for me to meet Hugh, you are mistaken. He hasn’t lived all his life in a small town. He knows his way about. No man ever thought less of a woman for caring a lot for him, and Hugh and I will always be pals. I don’t think any the less of him for coming into your house under false colors. He carried his point.”
Miss Frink’s cheeks flushed. “Why, indeed, should you criticize him? You did the same.”
“Only I didn’t carry my point. You never liked me.”
“Nor were you really my niece,” said Miss Frink briefly. “Adèle,” she added—and there was appeal in her voice—“in this nine days’ wonder that is coming upon Farrandale I wish that, for the sake of such hospitality as I have shown you, you would help to give the trueexplanation of Hugh’s manner of introducing himself here. It was Mr. Ogden’s idea entirely, inasmuch as I had not been friendly to Hugh’s family. The sequel you know.”
Adèle’s stolid expression did not change, and she did not speak.
Miss Frink sat, looking at her and waiting.
“The truth generally comes out about everything,” said the young woman at last.
“Adèle, Adèle,” said Miss Frink solemnly. “Why won’t you try to make your life measure up to the beauty of your art? What I heard last evening will be buried forever, as you know, unless you yourself force a remembrance of it.” She looked at her watch. “Leonard will take you over to Mrs. Cooper’s as soon as you are ready.”
Miss Frink went out and closed the door. For the first time in her life she quivered with feeling. Her cheeks were flushed.
At the foot of the stairway she met John Ogden.
“Just the lady I want to see!” he cried cheerfully.
“Very well—my benefactor,” she said slowly.
“Do my ears deceive me? How good that sounds!” He seized both her hands for a quickmoment. Her flushed face and subdued tone impressed him.
“I’m afraid you’re very tired, Miss Frink. Too much excitement, perhaps.”
“Yes; in this world we must accept the bitter with the sweet, but—nothing is any matter. What did you want of me?”
“Why, I’m leaving for New York to-night, and I wish to ask a privilege before I go. I’ve no doubt there are numbers of gentle-folk in Farrandale, but I happen to have made the acquaintance of only two: Colonel Duane and his granddaughter. Tongues are going to buzz for a while now, and I would like to beat the gossips to it with those fine people. I should like to tell them my own part in what has taken place.”
“Very well; I have no objection. Open confession is good for the soul.” Miss Frink smiled wearily.
“Now you go to bed, Miss Frink. Please do. Let Grimshaw run the city of Farrandale to-day.”
“He is very soon going to escort Mrs. Lumbard to her new abiding-place at Mrs. Cooper’s.”
“That will rest you, eh?” asked Ogden appreciatively. “She really intends to stay here and teach the young idea?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I ought not to let her,” returned Miss Frink, and her companion saw her hold her lip under her teeth to still its quivering. “I seem to be sponsoring her, you see.”
“My dear Miss Frink, don’t you worry,” returned Ogden, speaking low but emphatically, for they were still standing at the foot of the stairs. “Don’t worry a minute. She won’t stick to that teaching a month.”
Miss Frink gave him a rather tremulous smile of gratitude; and, before Ogden took his hat to run out on his errand, he went up to Hugh’s room where the latter was busy with his books.
“Say, boy,” he said, “I’ve just come from Miss Frink, and she had just come from a talk with your friend Ally; and I tell you she was all in.”
Hugh wheeled around in his chair and fixed a troubled look on his friend.
“Yes, Miss Frink looked old and tired. Her pep was gone. Mrs. Re—Lumbard is leaving to-day, it seems.”
“Leaving Farrandale?” asked Hugh, with an eagerness which his friend misunderstood.
“No; don’t be afraid. I think Miss Frink is worrying about her being turned loose among the Farrandale lambs; and I just want to say,Hugh, that if you continue to pal with Mrs. Lumbard you’ll make a great mistake from every point of view. You owe it to Miss Frink to ease off and not encourage her. Miss Frink doesn’t want her coming here.”
Hugh continued his troubled stare. “I hope you didn’t tell her the damaging thing you told me—about the courts.”
“Of course not,” said Ogden impatiently; “but Miss Frink has the woman’s number all right. I don’t know what their good-bye talk was like, but this fine aunt of yours came out of it wounded. I tell you she was wounded; and you want to think of her and protect her, boy.”
“I’m going to, Ogden. Thank you,” replied Hugh, with a submissiveness that surprised his friend.
John Ogden stared at him for a silent moment. “Well, then,” he said, vaguely, and left the room.
Ogden went on thinking about the unusual docility with which Hugh had received his exhortation. Also there was the devotion to his studies at a moment when Ally was about to depart from the house. How about that?
As he swung along he began to smile, his retrospective reflection visualizing that slipping away into the moonlight which he had witnessed and worried over last evening. After a minute in a rush of thought his smile broadened. It seemed probable that the siren, in the excited reaction from her performance, might have thrown a scare into the heir apparent. At what juncture had she slipped away from Hugh’s arm and Miss Frink slipped into it? Something had gone on, to flush Miss Frink’s cheeks and weary her eyes this morning. All the time that he himself was reading and fretting in his room last evening, things had been happening downstairs. Anyway, the net result had been a joyous one, as transpired unmistakably, later.
As Ogden tramped along, he was roused fromhis reverie to realize that many persons he met greeted him. Realizing that they remembered him as the busy master of ceremonies on the night before, he responded cordially, and at last a short man in a checked suit forced him to a standstill by his effusive manner.
“Goldstein, Mr. Ogden. I. K. Goldstein. We had but a minute’s talk last night—”
“Ah, good-morning, Mr. Goldstein.” Ogden endeavored to edge away from the plump hand with the diamond ring, after yielding to its determined grasp.
“I cannot let you go without speaking again of that won-derful evening. Such an artist you have there, that Mrs. Lumbard; she is amazing. In a town the size of Farrandale we are all one family. You put us all under obligation bringing such an artist here!”
“Oh, not I at all; Miss Frink—”
“Miss Frink! Oh, she is the genius of our city!” Mr. Goldstein made known by gestures and upturned eyes that Miss Frink’s glories were indescribable. “You come any time to see me, Mr. Ogden, and I wish you would bring Miss Frink, and I show you both all over the Koh-i-noor, our theater—”
“Thank you, Mr. Goldstein, but I am leaving town to-night—”
“But can’t you spare a little time, a half an hour this afternoon?—it is a palace equal to any in the country. An organ—oh, such an organ I have installed!—we open in less than a month; you would be happy to see those velvet furniture in the lobby.”
“No doubt I should; but I have—”
“That young man at your house, the one who saved our wonderful Miss Frink’s life, he should be in the pictures, you must see that. There’s the story right there, too. I give him introductions; you send him to me.”
John Ogden disengaged the clinging hand from his lapel as best he could, and, mindfully thanking the manager of the Koh-i-noor, contrived to escape with an apology for his pressing business.
Mr. Goldstein called after him cordially as long as he could hear.
Millicent Duane, enveloped in an apron, had brought out some vegetables to prepare for the noon dinner and was sitting on the porch with a large tin pan in her lap.
Her grandfather, who had been as usual working about the garden, finally came slowly up the steps and sank restfully into his favorite chair with the calico cushion.
“I can’t get that last piece she played out of my head,” he said. “Mrs. Lumbard said it wasaMarche Militaire. I should say so.” The speaker drummed the rhythm on the arms of his chair.
“It was splendid,” agreed Millicent. She had been hearing all the morning about the recital, and the English “fed up” but faintly described her satiation.
The morning was so beautiful, the birds so tuneful, everything that had not unfolded was so busy unfolding, and the air so full of sweetness, Millicent could not understand why she felt at odds with a world that was so amiably putting its best foot forward. She forced herself to respond with ardor to her grandfather’s comments. She was glad he had had such an unusual treat. He had seen nothing but charm in Mrs. Lumbard’s manner; while Millicent still felt the perfunctoriness of the star’s response to her own effort to express her appreciation. Hugh had been beside her at the time, and as usual Mrs. Lumbard had implied, or at least Millicent felt the implication, that she was negligible, and the sooner she effaced herself the sooner could life really go on. And it had gone on. The stinging remembrance was that, before the Duanes left, Millicent had seen Hugh and the star disappear together. The girl’s annoyance, and resentment that she could feel it, made her an extralively and agreeable companion to her grandfather on the way home. He remarked affectionately on the good the evening had done her, and how she needed such outings; and she laughed and hugged him, then went to bed, strains of music flowing through her hot head, while her wet eyes buried in the pillow still saw the moonlight sifting through the great trees with their black shadows, shadows through whichtheywere walking. She wanted—she knew now how desperately she wanted—to walk in the moonlight with Hugh herself, and her feeling that it was a contemptible wish did not help the situation in the least.
Now, this morning, she sat there, enveloped in her pink checked apron, the bright tin pan in her lap and her hands busy, while her grandfather watched her fleeting smiles.
“Seems to me you look sort of pale this morning, honey,” he said.
“Dissipation,” she returned. “You know I’m a country girl.”
“It wasn’t late,” he returned reminiscently, still evidently enjoying his memories. “How she did play the ‘Spring Song’! Simplest things are the best, aren’t they, Milly? I think you look sweeter in that pink apron than in your party dress,” he added.
“Didn’t I look nice last night?” asked the girl with unexpected gravity.
“I should say so. Quite the up-to-date girl, standing there with Miss Frink in her august dignity.”
“Grandpa, here comes Mr. Ogden.”
Colonel Duane rose as the caller opened the gate, and came to the head of the steps to meet him.
“Don’t you move now, Miss Millicent,” said Ogden as the girl started to put aside the big pan. “You make the most charming domestic picture.”
“I can’t shake hands,” she returned, as he approached, and her cheeks matched the gay hue of her apron while her eyes welcomed him.
“This is my P.P.C.” he remarked, taking the chair Colonel Duane offered.
“Oh, are you leaving us?” asked the old gentleman, returning to his calico cushion. “I don’t know what they’ll do without you at Miss Frink’s. That was a great treat she gave us last night. We haven’t talked about anything else this morning; and your announcements, and the general pleasant informality with which you managed the occasion, gave it the last touch of charm. How is that delightful, bright particular star, this morning?”
“Mrs. Lumbard? I haven’t seen her. She didn’t come down to breakfast.”
“Well, she certainly earned that luxury,” responded the Colonel, while Millicent’s gaze fell demurely to her busy hands. “I’d like to have Milly take some lessons of her,” he added.
The girl flashed a quick glance up at the caller. “But I’m not going to,” she said. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
The men laughed.
“What makes you go away, Mr. Ogden?” she added.
“Oh, life can’t be all Farrandale, you know. There’s business waiting for me over there in the suburb of New York. I only came to see Hugh because he was ill.”
“Hugh seemed quite proud of his brilliant friend last night,” remarked the Colonel.
“Oh!” thought Millicent, “will he ever get through talking about her!”
“I shouldn’t blame him if he lost his heart—so handsome and so talented she is.”
Down went the young girl’s gaze again to the contents of her pan.
John Ogden saw the compression of her soft lips.
“Mrs. Lumbard is leaving Miss Frink to-day also,” he said.
Millicent looked up quickly again.
“Why is that? Not leaving Farrandale, I hope,” said the Colonel.
“No. I heard some one say something about the Coopers’. Of course, Mrs. Lumbard has only been visiting Miss Frink.”
“The Coopers’!” echoed Millicent. “Is Mrs. Lumbard going to live at the Coopers’?”
Ogden shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t quote me. I may be all off, but I understood that.”
“Of course, they are Mr. Grimshaw’s cousins,” said the girl reflectively.
“Another one of her satellites,” remarked the old gentleman, smiling. “It was easy to see last evening that Grimshaw’s steady head was all off its balance. I don’t believe you attractive bachelors are going to let that charmer teach very long. One of you will snatch her up.”
“I had to leave her to my rivals last night,” said Ogden. “I probably lost out for good.”
Millicent’s grave large gaze was upon him, trying to discover whether he was serious. She liked Mr. Ogden, but she would have been perfectly willing he should snatch up Mrs. Lumbard.
“You’re quite a matchmaker, Colonel,” he went on. “I don’t know how that rosebud overthere behind the tin pan escapes your machinations.”
Millicent threw a glance over her shoulder in evident search for the rosebud, and Ogden laughed.
“Oh, she,” returned the old man regarding the girl with eyes of placid love; “she has a heart like a flint. We have a lot of the nicest boys you’d ever care to know, in Farrandale. She used to like them, Milly did. When she was in the store, I used to have to complain of the way she let them bother around and keep her up late; but now she has left the store, and could sleep in the morning if she wanted to, she won’t have a thing to do with them. They can’t do anything right. One laughs too loud, one brings his mandolin and she hates it, one parts his hair in the middle, and they all varnish their locks—”
“Grandpa!” Millicent interrupted him with rather unnecessary severity, Ogden thought. “I don’t like to be discussed.”
Her grandfather laughed toward her affectionately, and raised his eyebrows. “Gracious!” he exclaimed. “What a grown-up baby I have.”
“Well, I must get at my business,” said the visitor. “I came this morning, not only to saygood-bye, but to let you nice people be the first to know something concerning our friend Hugh.”
Millicent’s collection of knives hit the tin pan and clattered to the floor. The pan so nearly fell after it that Ogden, springing forward, caught it just in time. The girl’s hands trembled as she grasped it, and murmured some inarticulate thanks.
“Ah, many a true word spoken in jest,” said the Colonel. “That is why the lovely pianist is leaving Miss Frink’s; but conventionality can be carried too far, I think.”
John Ogden was busy restoring Millicent’s goods, wares, and chattels to her lap, and he camouflaged her tremor by laughing allusion to Uncle Remus, and Brer Rabbit’s clatter with his seben tin plates, and seben tin cups.
“No, nothing of that kind, Colonel Duane,” he said as he took his chair again. “This is a story that I will make brief. Long ago there was a feud in Miss Frink’s small family.”
Millicent tried to moisten her dry lips, and ceased attempting to use the knife which seemed determined to beat a rat-a-plan against the side of the pan.
“She had a nephew, Philip Sinclair, whom she loved; but his opposition to her plans forhim angered her to such a degree that it made a complete break. She never met his wife or children, and refused to know them. I was a friend of that family, and Hugh was one of the children. When he returned from the war, I hunted him up.”
Ogden glanced at Millicent. She was leaning back in her chair, her lips parted, her face very pale, and her eyes full upon him. He looked back at once to Colonel Duane, who was giving him similar fixed attention.
“When I met Hugh, whom I had last seen as a child, you can understand what an impression he made on me, and how I thought of his lonely great-aunt whom I had come to know well in the way of business. Hugh was alone, and drifting, like so many of the returned boys, and a scheme came into my head which I suggested to him. It was to come here with a letter of introduction from me, and, using only his first two names, Hugh Stanwood, apply to Miss Frink for a job in Ross Graham Company. I knew there was no hope of her receiving him if she knew he was the son of the man who had so bitterly disappointed and offended her, and I trusted to his winning her esteem before the truth came out. I had a lot of difficulty in getting Hugh’s consent to this, but at last I succeeded.I fitted him out for the experiment, which, of course, put him under some obligation to me: an obligation which was my weapon to hold him to our compact. He has had times of hating me, because Hugh is essentially honest; and the remarkable coincidence which threw him into his aunt’s house as a guest, instead of allowing him to be an employe in her store, gave him many a weary hour of thought which he used mostly for condemnation of me and himself. I came on as soon as I learned of his illness, and found that Miss Frink had become very fond of the boy. When she at last experienced the shock of discovering who he was, she suspected me at once as being the instigator of the plan, and for a time she was torn: undecided as to whether I should be cannonaded or canonized. I judge she has decided on the latter course, for this morning she called me her benefactor.”
Ogden paused.
“Extraordinary!” said Colonel Duane. “I’ll warrant the old lady is happy.”
Millicent said nothing; just gazed.
“My reason for coming to tell you this”—Ogden addressed Millicent now—“is that, as the affair is known and discussed, Hugh is going to be misunderstood and condemned. Thoroughlydisagreeable things are going to be said about him. He is going to be called a fortune-hunter.”
“He was, wasn’t he?” broke in Millicent suddenly.
“I was. It was I. Please remember that. I exacted from him at the time a promise that he would not reveal their relationship to Miss Frink until I gave him permission; so, chafe as he might and did, he kept that promise. He’s a fine youngster; and to my relief and pleasure his aunt realizes it, and they understand each other.”
Colonel Duane nodded and smiled. “A story that ends well. Eh, Milly?”
She assented with another of the fleeting smiles. This change in Hugh’s fortunes put him still farther away. No one could tell to what lengths Miss Frink’s pride and joy would go, and what advantages now awaited him.
“What did you say Hugh’s name is?” asked the Colonel.
“Sinclair. Hugh Stanwood Sinclair, and one of the finest,” returned Ogden. “I hope I have set him right in your eyes and that you will defend him as occasion arises.”
“We’re fond of Hugh,” returned the old gentleman quietly, “and I don’t think you needdread unkind comments on him. You know the way of the world, and Miss Frink’s handsome heir is going to bepersona gratato everybody, except, perhaps”—Colonel Duane laughed—“Leonard Grimshaw.”
Ogden smiled. “The nephew was introduced to him this morning at breakfast; and, except for a look which endangered the sweetness of the cream, he took it very calmly.”
After the caller had departed, Colonel Duane came back to his chair.
“Well, well,” he said. “So the hero wasn’t called Prince Charming for nothing, was he? A story that ends well. Eh, Milly? He’ll grace the position, eh? I like the idea. Indeed, I do. Isn’t it fine?”
And Millicent said it was, and gathered up her paraphernalia and went into the house.
As soon as she had parted from John Ogden, Miss Frink went to her study. Her secretary was in his place. Could this possibly be the world of the barren yesterdays? The same world in which she and Leonard Grimshaw had sat at their adjoining desks in this room and opened mail, dictated letters, and considered investments, for so many years? Her welling sense of gratitude gave her a novel attitude of sympathetic comprehension. If her secretary, so long the sole partner and confidant of her days, were suffering now from being to a degree usurped, it would not be surprising. She felt a sort of yearning toward him.
He rose at her entrance, grave and businesslike as usual. She took her customary place beside him, and he seated himself, drawing toward him the morning’s mail.
“Never mind that now, Grim. We will attend to it this afternoon, if I can keep awake.” She gave a little laugh.
He glanced around at her. Miss Frink, flushed and laughing, unmindful of the mail! From bad to worse!
“The gayety of last evening too much for you?” he responded, with a gravity so portentous as to be a rebuke.
“I suppose so. Say, Grim, how did Goldstein get in here?”
“I asked him. I knew your desire not to have anybody overlooked.”
“But we have never had any contact with him.”
Grimshaw cleared his throat, and drew forward a bunch of pencils and put them back again.
“He is one of our stirring citizens,” he said.
“I know he stirs me,” remarked Miss Frink.
“He enjoyed the evening greatly,” declared Grimshaw.
“All right; but, if he ever comes to make his party call, remember he is your guest.”
“Very well, Miss Frink.”
“Now, my dear boy,” she went on, and she laid a hand on her secretary’s arm. He regarded it under dropped lids. “I feel I want to say a few things to you in this great change that has come into my life.”
“I have anticipated it,” he returned. “You wish to dispense with my services?”
Miss Frink withdrew her hand. “What could put such a wild idea into your head,Grim? So far from dispensing with you, I feel it an occasion to speak of my appreciation of your faithful service. In the great joy that has come to me I long to give happiness. If it pleases you to know that your efficient work is not taken for granted, but that it is given its full value, I want you to realize that I thank you.” She paused and the secretary bowed silently.
“In the changes that will result from the discovery of my nephew, I want you to know also that none will affect you. You are mentioned in my will, and nothing regarding you in that will be changed.”
Grimshaw did not alter his position, but some pulse leaped to his throat. It was not a leap of gladness. If that were the case, then his employer’s plans for him had fallen below expectations.
“In short,” said Miss Frink, “since this great blessing that has come to me should make me a better woman, I hope to be a better friend to you and to all.” As her companion did not break the pause that followed this, she added: “I hope you don’t begrudge it to me, Grim?”
“By no means, Miss Frink,” he responded, without looking up. “Pardon me for a moment, I am much moved.”
Miss Frink was touched. “The good boy!”she thought. “Probably constant contact with me has made it impossible for him to express any feeling that does not regard dollars and cents.”
“My narrow life could not fail to narrow you,” she said humbly. “I hope we may both expand after this.”
Neither spoke for a minute. Grimshaw continued to look down, one hand toying with a paper-cutter.
At last she spoke: “I told Adèle you would take her over to Mrs. Cooper’s as soon as she was ready.”
“I shall be glad to,” he returned. “Adèle made a great impression last night.”
“Indeed, she did. There is no doubt that she can teach here if she wishes to. I have just been saying to her that I hope, when the subject comes up, she will aid in letting it be known what a passive part Hugh played in the camouflaged way he came to Farrandale. Mr. Ogden was the motive power of it all, and you must help, too, Grim, in giving the right impression.”
The secretary turned to her with a strange smile. “Do you think that your nephew and heir will need any apologies?” he asked slowly. Miss Frink felt uncomfortably the inimical attitudeback of the words. “If he does, he will never know it, and you will never know it. That is the advantage of being the Queen of Farrandale.”
“The boy is jealous!” she thought.
“I hope,” he continued, “that your absorption is not so great that you cannot use your influence to help Adèle, even though she is leaving your house.”
Miss Frink felt the criticism in this. She was silent for a space.
“Adèle came here camouflaged also, Grim,” she said quietly. “She will tell you about it.”
The secretary flashed a quick look around at her. “Perfectly innocent in one case, I suppose,” he said, “and unpardonable in the other.”
Miss Frink was too deeply troubled about Adèle’s future in Farrandale to be ruffled by this. “It was her own idea,” she said. “That makes some difference. I am glad she has a friend in a truly upright man like you, Grim. Help her to be a good woman.”
The secretary frowned in surprise at the earnestness of this appeal; but, before he could speak, Adèle entered the room dressed for driving, smiling, and with head held high.
Her departure with Grimshaw a few minutes later was decorous. Miss Frink was at the door.
“Hugh will want to say good-bye to you,” she said. “Won’t you call him, Grim?”
“Oh, no,” interrupted Adèle. “He is at his studies. Don’t disturb him. We shall always be meeting.”
Miss Frink stood on the veranda and watched the motor drive away. She drew a long breath of the sweet air. Whatever should come now, Adèle was gone from the house. The relief of it!
In the motor, the two, sitting side by side, exchanged a mutual regard.
“It was very, very sweet of you to write me that note,” said Grimshaw.
“I thought it would help.”
“There has been some trouble between you and Miss Frink,” he pursued.
Adèle lifted her eyebrows and gave a little laugh. “Yes. Mr. Ogden kindly tipped her off that I was merely the step-grandchild of her beloved chum.”
“Step-grandchild?” repeated Grimshaw.
“Yes. Complicated, isn’t it?—and not worth while trying to understand. It served her as well as anything else as an excuse to get rid of me.”
Grimshaw frowned. He was angry with his employer for sending this lovely creature away from the luxurious home, the Steinway grand,and himself; but Miss Frink’s novel gentleness in their interview chained his always cautious tongue; then, if Adèle had really deliberately misrepresented facts, he knew how that must have offended Miss Frink’s rigorous principles.
“You will find the change to the simplicity of the Cooper home rather hard, Adèle.”
“No harder than your discovery that henceforward you are second-best in your home,” she returned; but her voice was sympathetic, even tender. “Perhaps you will have to go away.”
“No; she doesn’t want me to leave,” he answered dispiritedly. He turned again suddenly to his companion: “You must tell me, Adèle, how I can help you. How about this teaching business?”
She smiled at him, her sweetest. “Leonard, can you see me trudging around in all weathers and teaching youngsters how to play scales?”
He shook his head.
“Hu—somebody said it was like harnessing a blooded horse to a coal wagon to make me teach.”
Color rushed to Grimshaw’s face. “Adèle, it can’t be! You know I—”
She interrupted him with a laugh. “Look out!You nearly ran into that Mr. and Mrs. Rube in their light wagon. Now, I’ll talk to the motor man if he doesn’t look at me.” Grimshaw kept eyes ahead, and she continued. “I never had the dimmest idea of teaching. I knew something would turn up, and it has. Did you notice Mr. Goldstein draw me aside for a few minutes last night?”
“Yes; confound his impudence, keeping everybody else waiting.”
“Not at all. Mr. Goldstein is a highly important friend. He wants me to take charge of the music at the Koh-i-noor. He’s mad about the new organ, and he says I’m just the person they have been looking for.”
“Can you play the organ?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve played one; and I have three weeks before they open. He wants to add an orchestra later, and he wants me to take full charge of the musical end of the theater.”
“Pretty fine—but Miss Frink—”
“Who is Miss Frink?” asked Adèle saucily. “Leonard”—she leaned toward him, and her pressure thrilled him—“you and I have our own lives to live.”
“That arrangement would make you very independent, Adèle.”
“I can never be independent of the peopleI’m fond of,” she answered softly, and withdrew from him.
“Strange that Goldstein should be the one to approach you just now. I have had some business dealings with him, and he is all right; he has big, generous ideas. There is nothing small about Goldstein. He is after me now to put through a deal for him, but I don’t know. He makes it very tempting for me, but I’m afraid Miss Frink—”
“Oh, don’t be tied to her apron-string. What is the deal?”
“Well, then, mum’s the word,” said Grimshaw, smiling.
“Oh, yes, mum as an oyster,” she returned.
“He wants to buy that place where the Duanes live.”
Adèle’s heart leaped. “What does he want of that little shanty?”
“He wants to tear it down and put up a flat building to cover the whole lot.”
“Splendid idea,” responded Adèle. “It’s high time Farrandale had something handsome in the way of an apartment building, and Mr. Goldstein would do something with class.”
“But Colonel Duane’s garden. He is wrapped up in the place, and they haven’t any moneyfor another. It just happened that the cottage fitted their needs and was cheap.”
Color brightened Adèle’s pale face. Lady Luck was coming her way. To get rid of Millicent Duane was a rosier prospect than even the music at the Koh-i-noor.
“They could find a place in the country,” she said. “It would be something new if Miss Frink wanted to throw over such a chance to turn a few honest thousands. You ought not to let her. You ought to look after her better than that.”
“I told Goldstein that there was a probability that sentiment might enter into this matter; and he has offered to make it very much worth my while to put the sale through. It is the biggest temptation I ever received.” The speaker’s eyes shone.
“I’ll give you another,” said Adèle, leaning toward him again. “If you will put through the sale of the Duane place, I will—forget that there is another man in the world but you.”
Grimshaw flushed, and the road being clear just then, he met her soft gaze.
“Is that a promise, Adèle?” he asked.
“A solemn promise,” she answered.
John Ogden returned to his hostess in timefor luncheon. Leonard Grimshaw had remained for lunch at his cousin’s, for Adèle wanted him to go with her afterward to see Mr. Goldstein and talk over her contract. So it was that the three who felt very close to one another to-day sat at the table alone. Stebbins was dismissed, to his regret, for he had found breakfast very interesting and he wished to continue gathering data.
Ogden noted that the flush on Miss Frink’s cheeks, and Hugh’s subdued manner, persisted.
“I had a delightful call this morning,” he said in his usual cheerful tone. “I dropped my little bomb on the Duanes’ piazza with great effect.”
Hugh glanced up at him sharply.
“I do like those people. They have a distinctly pleasant atmosphere. Colonel Duane, always looking like somebody in particular, and so hospitable, and Miss Millicent more like a rosebud than ever this morning in a pink apron, delving in a big tin pan.”
“He went to tell them what a happy woman I am,” explained Miss Frink, looking across at Hugh. He met her eyes, and smiled acknowledgment, the more gently for the mutiny within. At last he was honest, but he was more than ever conspicuous and discussed. He hated it. His ears burned now.
“I suppose they nearly fainted,” he remarked. “I’m sure you told them that I was a puppet and you pulled the wires.”
“Don’t put it that way, Hugh,” pleaded Miss Frink.
“I can’t help it, Aunt Susanna! It’s a mess!”
“Don’t say so, dear boy.” Hugh met her bright, speaking eyes. “I have always been a successful woman, that’s what the world calls it; but I never was a happy one until last night.”
“I’m not much to make you happy,” said the boy restively. “Just a pawn in a game, not a penny in the world of my own, in debt to Ogden, and a sneak in the eyes of your town—”
“Oh, my boy! Oh, Hugh!” There was such pain and longing in Miss Frink’s tone that it checked him. Beside all that he expressed was the constant irritation and humiliation that remained from the scene with Adèle.
“Hugh, you told me last night that you—” Miss Frink stopped because something rose in her throat. No one broke the silence. “I know how your young pride is hurt,” she went on at last, “but it will be restored.”
“Colonel Duane said,” put in Ogden, “that there would be very little talk: that wherever you went, Miss Frink’s nephew would be always welcome.”
“That is true,” she agreed; “and, Hugh, if you can be so unselfish, don’t spoil this great joy of mine—a child belonging to me; but take it as if we had known all along that you were mine. In perfect frankness let me do for you what it is my right to do. In the presence of Mr. Ogden, who has accomplished such wonders for us, let me say that he and I shall together settle such of our obligation to him as can be paid, and then you, Hugh, until you are admitted to the bar, will accept from me your education, and your allowance, without a thought of dependence—”
Hugh regarded the earnest speaker with a mixture of resistance and appreciation.
“Ross Graham Company—” he began—
“Can take care of itself,” said Miss Frink with a return of her brisk, curt manner. “You can always get competent managers.” John Ogden’s mind took a leap back to the day when he told Hugh that the department store might belong to him. “Now I know,” went on Miss Frink, “that you’re a bit afraid of your old aunt, a little afraid that in my pride I may want to put you into a velvet suit and lace collar à la Fauntleroy, or its equivalent; but you needn’t be afraid. I haven’t lived seventy-two years for nothing, and I didn’t make a mess of my treatmentof your father for nothing. Neither am I in my second childhood. I have all my faculties, and, with so much now to live for, I expect to keep them until I’m one hundred. I don’t want to make an idol of you. I want you to be a man among men, and stand on your own feet; but it’s my right to give you a start, and I like to believe that you have enough common sense to accept it in the spirit in which it is offered, without any fuss or foolish hair-splitting.”
Hugh looked around at Ogden, who nodded at him.
“Put that in your pipe and smoke it,” remarked Ogden.
Hugh, pushing back his chair, rose and came around to Miss Frink.
“There’s only one answer a fellow can make to all that, Aunt Susanna,” he said, and, stooping, he kissed her.
“Now, then,” she, too, rose, “please go on the veranda and watch for Millicent. I want to see Mr. Ogden a few minutes in the study, and I’ll let her know when I’m ready for her.”
Hugh wandered through the hall, pausing between the portières of the drawing-room and looking at the piano. Was it only last evening that Ally had done her brilliant work? He shook his head, went out to the piazza, andstarted to take the swinging seat, but changed his mind, and, throwing himself on a wicker divan, lighted a cigarette. He was conscious of a deep soreness in the thought of Adèle. What a series of foolish moves her life had been! He shrank in distaste from it all.
What a different specimen of girlhood was Millicent Duane! Of course, she was nothing but a child, with her ready tears and blushes; still, it was better to be crude, and sweet, and pure, than sophisticated and audacious. He wished he could have seen her face when Ogden told them his news. A certain looking up to himself which the girl had evinced in their daily meetings, he suddenly found was valuable to him. Colonel Duane had said Miss Frink’s nephew was always sure of a welcome. He knew what that meant, and the implication again stirred his rebellion. He would know when he saw Millicent to-day if he had much to live down in her transparent soul.
Very soon Millicent’s familiar figure appeared at the iron gate. Before she started from home she had talked with her grandfather.
“You’re sending a message to Hugh by me that it will be more convenient for you to see him in the morning after this,” she said.
“But it wouldn’t.” Colonel Duane looked surprised.
“Yes, it will be,” returned Millicent firmly.
The old gentleman blinked. “What’s this? Tired of the walks over here together?”
“Never mind details, dear.”
“You’re a funny child, Milly. Hugh will feel something unfriendly in the change, just at the present time.”
Millicent seized her grandfather’s arm. “Dearest, everything wonderful is going to come to Hugh, now,” she said earnestly, “and I would like to be out of it. I don’t want to hear him talk about it. Hugh Sinclair isn’t Hugh Stanwood. He won’t be anything to us; not even a friend except at long intervals and—can’t you understand? I’d rather be the one to do the dropping.”
She released him suddenly and ran out of the house. Her grandfather stood in the same spot for some minutes, considering.
“It’s the most natural thing in the world,” he said to himself at last. “I don’t see how she could help it; but Milly has plenty of spirit, and I’ll take the hint till he goes away. Of course, he’ll be going away to law school.”
Now, as Millicent entered Miss Frink’s grounds and discerned Hugh on the porch, she saw him rise and throw away his cigarette. He came down the steps to meet her, looking unusually grave. His eyes studied her as if he must know her attitude before she spoke. She put her hand in the one he offered.
“How now that the cat is out of the bag?” he asked.
“What difference can it make to me?” she returned with a coolness that did not satisfy him.
“I’m glad if it doesn’t make any. I thought perhaps there wouldn’t be any route sufficiently roundabout for you to take me home this afternoon.”
His gaze continued to study her as they ascended the steps.
“Oh, I was to tell you that Grandpa can’t have you to-day. He will be glad to see you to-morrowmorning if you can come—and always in the morning hereafter.”
Hugh nodded. Millicent started to go into the house.
“Sit down a few minutes,” he said. “Aunt Susanna and Mr. Ogden are busy in the study. He is leaving to-night. She said she would call you as soon as she was ready.”
Millicent seated herself in the swinging couch and Hugh promptly took the place beside her.
“So our walks are over, are they?” he asked, still grave.
“Yes. Life is just like chapters in a story, isn’t it?” she replied hurriedly. “One closes and another begins. This swing makes me think of Mrs. Lumbard. Grandpa is perfectly wild about her ever since last night. Mr. Ogden said she was going to live at the Coopers’, and on my way over here I met a friend who said he had heard that the manager of the Koh-i-noor is going to try to get her to provide their music.”
Hugh nodded. “That would solve a problem for her,” he said.
There was nothing natural about Millicent to-day, and he had seen her shrink when he took the place beside her in the swing.
She went on: “Something big like that would seem more fitted to Mrs. Lumbard than teaching.I wonder if she will take the position. You’ll miss her here, won’t you?”
“Yes, another of those chapters that close while another begins. If only the story grows more interesting as life goes on.”
“I’m sure it will for you.” That was too personal. She hurried headlong. “And I think it does for all of us. You talked to that cute girl Damaris Cooper last night. She will be delirious with Mrs. Lumbard living there, and playing at the Koh-i-noor. Who said Farrandale was dull!” Millicent laughed.
Hugh had not smiled since she came, and she was so uncomfortable under his questioning eyes that she welcomed the opening of the door and the appearance of John Ogden who took in the deceptively intimate appearance of the swing.
“Your sleepy lady awaits you, Miss Duane,” he announced, “and you certainly will do a missionary act to make her rest. She needs it.” Millicent sprang up. “So I’ll say good-bye once more.” He held out his hand, and the girl gave him hers.
“Farrandale will be very glad to see you back some day, Mr. Ogden.” She vanished into the house.
“It’s just as I expected,” said Hugh gloomily.“Millicent is entirely changed, and Colonel Duane can see me only in the mornings after this. It’s significant of the whole spirit that I shall have to meet.”
John Ogden viewed the downcast gaze.
“You crazy—” he began—“I’ll say I hate to leave you. You’ll be deserting Miss Frink between two days, as likely as not.”
“No, I won’t,” returned Hugh decidedly. “I’ve made up my mind to stay with her.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that.”
“But it makes me—if Millicent had cried or done anything natural, I could stand it; or if she would say right out that she is disgusted, I could stand it; but to have her feel that it is too bad to talk about; that gets me because what she feels is what everybody worth caring about will feel.”
John Ogden regarded the boy as he sat there in the swing, dejected, and his own lips twitched.
Hugh looked up suddenly. “Don’t you think she’s a fine girl, Ogden?”
“I do. Pure as a drop of dew; fine as a rose-leaf, softly iridescent as a bird’s wing, transparent as crystal—”
Hugh frowned in displeased surprise.
“I wish you could do anything but chaff,” he said.
“I’m not chaffing,” replied Ogden; “but I must modify that a little, I should have said,sometimesas transparent as crystal.”
“Are you in love with her?” blurted out Hugh.
“Perhaps I should be if I hadn’t known Carol. The man that she loves will be in luck, for though tender as a flower she’s as stanch as an oak tree.”
“You should write poetry,” said Hugh dryly. “After all that, you can’t blame me for preferring that that sort of person should approve of me.”
Ogden, sitting in a hammock and swinging his foot, regarded the other quizzically for a silent moment.
“Your lions in the way are going to turn into kittens, boy,” he said at last. “And if they didn’t, isn’t it worth something to have transformed the life of another human as you have Miss Frink’s? Isn’t it worth meeting with some annoyance?”
Hugh shrugged his shoulders in silence.
When Millicent entered her employer’s room, the lady was not lying down as usual. She met the girl with a sort of smiling exaltation.
“Do I look any different to-day?” she asked.
“You do look different. You have such pinkcheeks. I suppose you are still excited from last night.”
“Perhaps so.” As she spoke, Miss Frink drew the girl down beside her on the divan and looked blissfully into her face. “What a comment it is on me, Millicent, that you are the only woman friend I have to pour out to at a time like this—and you not a woman yet, just a little girl who can’t appreciate happiness, because you’ve never had anything else.”
“Oh, I have, Miss Frink, I’ve been terribly unhappy—is it because you’re happy that you look so rosy?” Millicent’s heart beat under the full, bright gaze bent upon her.
“Yes, all at once. The last time you saw me I was nobody. I was grubbing along the way I have all my life, nobody caring about me except to get the better of me in a business deal, and now to-day—do you wonder my cheeks are pink? I’m a grandmother, Millicent.”
“You are!” The girl’s lips were parted.
“You know it’s even nicer than being a mother. Everybody knows that grandmothers have the best of it. Mr. Ogden has told you that Hugh belongs to me, and at midnight last night we, Hugh and I, were alone together, and—and we talked of it. He seemed to be glad.He kissed me like a real grandchild. Millicent, it seemed too wonderful for words that I should be really happy! Those young arms around me made me feel richer than—doubling my money on a corner lot.”
Millicent began to swallow fast.
“I’m so—so gl-glad,” she said. “I’ll try—not to cry.”
“You’re very sweet to care, child. You and Hugh are so well acquainted I feel you will always take an interest.”
“It was wonderful!” said Millicent. The eagerness in the bright eyes impelled her on. “Hugh is—my grandfather thinks he is an unusual fellow. He has always seemed so frank, and kind, and simple. He takes an interest in Grandpa’s garden and is so nice about it. He often says he wishes he owned a little place just like ours.”
“Oh, he does, does he?” returned Miss Frink dryly. “Well, you’re ahead of me. I have never heard him express a wish for anything.”
“Now, Miss Frink, you must lie down,” said the girl. “Mr. Ogden told me to be sure to make you rest.” She arranged the pillows just as her employer liked them, persuaded her to change her dress for a negligée, and soon the happy woman was settled on the couch.
“You’ll guarantee I won’t wake up and find it all a dream?”
“I promise it,” she said.
Hugh was still on the piazza and alone when she went out. He rose at sight of her. She had never seen him look so serious. He did not advance, just looked at her in silence. She went to him, her hands outstretched.
“I’ve been talking with her,” she said. Her own repressed feelings, the remembrance of Miss Frink’s exaltation, and the wonder of Hugh, himself, overcame her. She could not speak; but her smile and her suddenly flooded eyes made his gravity break into sunshine.
“It’s all right, then, is it, Millicent?” he asked eagerly.
She tried to pull a hand away to get her handkerchief, but he held it fast and, seeing the corner of linen protruding from the low neck of her dress, he took it out and dried her eyes himself.
“I’m not going to cry—much,” she said, smiling, “but she is so happy.”
“I’m a lucky dog, Millicent—if you think I am,” he answered. “It hasn’t been easy.” His eyes clouded.