“Oh, Grandpa!” groaned the girl.
“So he went, and he said if he didn’t find you he would go back and tell Miss Frink that you preferred to walk.” The old gentleman laughed again. “Grimshaw believes in self-preservation. That is what we are all to say. You preferred to walk.” He rose. “I promised to call up as soon as you arrived. I’ll tell them you enjoyed the trip. Eh?”
CHAPTER XVI
MISS FRINK MAKES A CALL
At the tears on Millicent’s face now, Hugh laughed aloud. She was looking aghast.
“To-morrow everybody will know it!” she ejaculated.
“Know what?”
“That Mr. Grimshaw couldn’t find us.” And crystal drops began again to race down her cheeks.
“You cry-baby!” said Hugh, regarding her curiously. “Here, I have more of a handkerchief than that. Come here and I’ll bail while you pour.”
“Oh, am I crying?” she returned, distractedly mopping her cheeks. “I must speak to Damaris as soon as Grandpa gets through. You don’t know what it is to live in a little town.”
“Oh, is that it?” returned Hugh, regarding her flushed, troubled face, and thinking it was as sweet as a dew-washed flower. “They’ll say we eloped, eh? I’ll tell the world I thank ’em for the compliment.”
Colonel Duane here reappeared and Millicent dashed by him into the house. He seemed to be serenely unaware of his grandchild’s excitement, and, telling Hugh not to talk, but to rest, he seated himself a little way off, and Hugh had the full benefit of the one-sided conversation within.
It was a particularly cheerful and care-free voice speaking, with little gulps in the throat that caught it at unexpected moments.
“Oh, yes, Damaris, it’s Millicent. I was sorry Mr. Grimshaw had to trouble you.”
“Oh, yes, I’m home. It was such a beautiful day, you know, we walked over.”
“Yes, Mr. Stanwood had business with Grandpa, and—and he didn’t understand that Mr. Grimshaw—What? Yes, didn’t know that he was expected to wait for the carriage. What? Yes, it was queer Mr. Grimshaw didn’t see us. We were just—walking along, you know, just walking along. What? Yes, he’s here. He and Grandpa are together. Did you say Mr. Grimshaw looked scared? Why, what for? Yes, of course, Mr. Stanwood isn’t entirely strong yet. Oh, that’s all right. I just wanted you to know that nobody is lost, strayed, or stolen.” Suddenly, with great dignity, the voice changed. “No, no, indeed. Good-bye.”
When Millicent went back to the piazza after washing her face and applying powder where it would be most effective, she found her grandfather seated by his recumbent guest and asking him about his previous studies.
“You might bring Mr. Stanwood a cup of bouillon, Milly,” said the Colonel, and the girl went back into the house.
When she reappeared, her own fresh, fair, and demure self, bearing her offering, Hugh looked at her approvingly.
“My life is just one tray after another,” he said.
The patient had just taken his last swallow when a sound of wheels was heard. Miss Frink’s victoria stopped before the gate, and that lady herself dismounted and came up the path. Colonel Duane hastened to meet her. Millicent stood up, holding the tray undecidedly, with an expression of face which seemed to be bracing for a coup de grace, and Hugh flung a long leg out of the hammock.
“Lie still, Hugh,” ordered the visitor, waving her parasol authoritatively.
Hugh withdrew the leg. Miss Frink had never walked up on that piazza before, although it was her own property. She looked around approvingly.
“You’ve made this place lovely, Colonel Duane.”
“Well, we think it is a good deal of a paradise this time of year.”
“So you overdid yourself,” said Miss Frink, seating herself in the offered chair by the hammock.
Colonel Duane lifted Millicent’s tray and carried it into the house, and the girl took a chair near the visitor.
“What makes you think so?” inquired Hugh blandly.
“You didn’t come by the road. There was only one other way you could come.”
No one in the world ever looked guiltier than Millicent at this moment. Her awe of Miss Frink kept her eyes dry and very large, but she saw her job disappearing, and herself stingingly rebuked.
Miss Frink’s gaze turned upon her.
“What was your idea?” she asked bluntly, but she was conscious of the picture made by the blue-gowned girl against the background of apple blossoms.
Millicent’s lips opened and closed several times without a sound emerging.
Miss Frink laughed, and exchanged a look with Hugh.
“You took him down Lover’s Lane. That’s what you did,” said Miss Frink, regarding the girl accusingly. “Of course, it’s ever so much more romantic than the highroad; but we’ve got to build Prince Charming up before you can cut up any such didos as that.”
“Oh, Miss Frink!” It was a gasp, not only of extreme embarrassment, but also of relief that the matter might be treated jocosely.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” said Hugh, grinning. “I’ve found out what she did it for. She was hiding me.” Miss Frink grimaced her glasses off. “Yes, madam, she lives in a small town and she was hiding me.”
“And set every dog and goose to barking and cackling,” declared Miss Frink.
“But I revenged myself on her. I waited till we came to a mossy couch under an apple tree, and then I keeled over.—Look out”—a warning hand toward Millicent—“don’t you cry now. She was the best little sport you ever heard of. I nearly crushed her poor little wing while she and Colonel Duane were getting me up here, and they have filled me with the milk of human kindness and beef tea ever since.”
“It was all Grimshaw’s stupidity,” said Miss Frink. “I put it in his hands and he didn’t order the carriage in time.” Her lips twitched amusedly. “He tried to shift the responsibility, and make out that you preferred to walk; but I X-rayed him. He hadn’t a chance. Did I ever tell you, Hugh, to beware of my X-ray mind?” She regarded him quizzically, admiring his beauty as she always did. “Double-dealing hasn’t a chance with me. I always see directly through it.”
Hugh rearranged his pillows. “Quite a business asset, I should judge,” he returned, and for a minute his complexion matched the hectic hue of Millicent. Why should Miss Frink be boring into him, as it were, with her dark, bright eyes?
“So when Grim got through the account of his pilgrimage, I knew you must have come by Lover’s Lane.” The speaker suddenly turned again upon the young girl with a smiling frown.
“Oh, Miss Frink, I can’t tell you how sorry I am!” Millicent’s hands were clasped.
“Now, be careful,” broke in Hugh. “Remember the size of your handkerchief.”
“I’ll try not to cry,” she responded, her voice teetering, as it were, like a person trying to keep his balance on a tight rope. “I’m so thankful if you’re not vexed with me. I do think now it was awfully stupid; but you know what Farrandale is.”
“Bless me!” said Miss Frink. “Then the child really was trying to hide you!”
“Yes,” said Millicent frankly; “and then Mr. Grimshaw went right over to the Coopers’, hunting!”
Miss Frink gave her rare laugh. Millicent was so pretty against the apple blossoms, and so genuinely disturbed, and Hugh so handsome and amused, she thoroughly enjoyed the situation.
“Didn’t I say you set all the geese to cackling? I will call a town meeting and announce that there is nothing in it. How will that do?”
Millicent struggled not to feel embarrassed. “With your X-ray mind you’ll know there isn’t,” she returned, with more spirit than Hugh had given her credit for.
Colonel Duane reappeared with another tray. It bore tea and little cakes this time. Miss Frink liked the way his granddaughter sprang to his assistance and arranged everything on the porch table. Colonel Duane was a gentleman of the old school and his breeding showed in Millicent. She liked their simplicity and fineness. The girl’s job was never safer.
When tea was served, Millicent opened a subject near her heart.
“Miss Frink,” she said, “will you let me beg a favor of you?”
“Certainly. Speak right up.”
“It is about Damaris. I have experimented, and I can fix her hair so you would never know it was bobbed.”
The caller eyed her sharply. “Are you tired of reading to me?”
“No, indeed!” The ejaculation was earnest. “But couldn’t she have my place in the gloves, if—if I show you the way I can fix her hair? And she is so attractive, and bright, and pretty, and people would love to have her fit them, and she knows so many people—” The girl stopped, it was so extraordinary to be talking courageously to Miss Frink.
That lady turned toward Colonel Duane. “Your granddaughter would make a good press-agent, wouldn’t she?”
“Yes, Milly would,” he returned, composedly sipping his tea.
“Then if people didn’t believe her she would cry,” remarked Hugh.
“What’s all this about your crying, Millicent?” asked Miss Frink.
“When I’ve done wrong, like making Mr. Stanwood too tired and—and having everybody talk about it, I cry; that’s natural, isn’t it? But never mind his teasing. I wish I could get the place for Damaris.”
“This generation is so full of silly girls,” said Miss Frink. “Hugh, have you your mother’s picture in your pocket?”
He blinked, and colored again. Throwing his long legs out of the hammock, he sat up against the netting. “I didn’t tell you it was Mother,” he blurted out.
“No,” said Miss Frink quietly. “There are a number of things you didn’t tell me.”
Hugh felt in his pocket and produced the case.
“You don’t have to tell her things,” said Millicent—“with an X-ray mind, you know.”
Silently Miss Frink accepted the offered morocco case, and opened it under Millicent’s eyes.
“Isn’t she lovely!” exclaimed the girl.
“Yes. Look at that hair and compare Damaris’s with it. Does your sister resemble your mother?” Miss Frink suddenly addressed Hugh.
His tea-cup jingled in his hand.
“I didn’t—I—yes, she does. You have been X-raying, Miss Frink. I didn’t tell you about my sister.”
“No, but Mr. Ogden did. She must be a very fine woman.”
Hugh regarded the speaker with parted lips. Was she about to release the sword of Damocles before these witnesses; or was this all she knew?
“But it will be growing all the time, you see,” said Millicent; and Miss Frink passed the photograph to the Colonel. “I wish you’d let me show you, Miss Frink.”
That lady’s lips twitched and the bright eyes were very kind as she looked at this girl who didn’t sprawl, or loll in her chair, and who was fresh as Aurora.
“Very well, I suppose I must listen to such a special pleader. I offered the position to Mrs. Lumbard, but she seemed to think that teaching music would be more in her line.”
“I can’t see her there,” said Millicent, shaking her blonde head seriously, “nearly so well as I can Damaris.”
“To tell the truth, neither can I,” returned Miss Frink.
“Then—then may I tell her there is hope?” asked Millicent eagerly.
“Yes. You might use it as a bribe to get her not to tell everybody of Mr. Grimshaw’s coming around with a search-warrant. Eh?” The speaker returned the photograph case to its owner. “It’s time I took this boy home. Have we some big books to carry, Colonel Duane?”
CHAPTER XVII
ADÈLE
As they entered the carriage, and on the way home, Hugh waited for some further personal remarks from his companion, but none came regarding themselves. Miss Frink declared herself in favor of pushing through the plans for Mrs. Lumbard’s recital.
“I should like to get it over with for many reasons. One is that I feel like a bull in a china shop when it comes to entertaining. I know no more about it, nor half so much as my cook. I rely on you to be host, Hugh.”
“I’ll do the best a clumsy doughboy can; but there is Mr. Ogden. He knows the ropes about everything.”
“Yes, he does. I admit that.” Miss Frink nodded in a way which again made Hugh feel that the day of reckoning was upon him. “He’s a smooth rascal!”
Hugh felt profoundly uncomfortable. He yearned to loose that Damocles weapon himself. He couldn’t break his promise to Ogden, but he could relieve himself in an honest remark, something that would lend some respectability to the situation.
“Are you going to let me have that job in the store that I came for, Miss Frink?” he asked.
She smiled vaguely at the roadside. “Of course. Let us see. You want to begin at the sub-basement, and learn how department stores are constructed.”
Hugh blushed furiously. “Don’t make fun of me, please. I was packing boxes in a basement when Mr. Ogden looked me up, for my family’s sake.”
“Yes. He says he used to be in love with your sister,” returned Miss Frink composedly; “but he says so many things besides his prayers.”
“I guess there’s no doubt about that,” returned the boy, miserably embarrassed. “It took some pretty strong impulse to make anybody take any interest in such a shuffling proposition as I was.—It seems a year ago, that day he found me. My hand against every man, and every man’s hand against me.”
“And he dressed you up in nice clean clothes, and laid out your programme, and sent you on your way.”
“Why—he did—but did he tell you so this morning when you were hobnobbing so long?”
Had Ogden laid down the cards without telling him?
“No,” replied Miss Frink equably. “I just X-rayed him a little. He was taking all the credit of your saving my life. I believe he allowed Providence a small part.”
“Oh, do let us forget that, Miss Frink!” ejaculated the boy. “I’m a chap that’s come to you for a job, and you are kind enough to give it to me. I do want to learn the business.”
“And perhaps you will,” was the quiet reply; “but we’ll wait a bit yet till you can walk a mile or so and stand up under it. I do like those Duanes. That little Millicent—I can’t help calling her little, though she’s as tall as I am. What a refreshment it is in these days to find a girl a lady.”
“I’m sorry you don’t like Ally,” said Hugh.
“I don’t like liars,” returned Miss Frink calmly.
The boy’s ears grew crimson.
“I suppose I ought to have been a man,” she added. “I seem to be out of sympathy with most things feminine. Mr. Ogden gave me information concerning Mrs. Lumbard this morning which lifted a big irritation. It makes whatever I do for her now a favor instead of a duty. Once, Hugh, I had an honest friend—just one. There never has been another. We loved each other. Mrs. Lumbard came here representing herself as this woman’s granddaughter, and she called me Aunt Susanna on the strength of it. Mr. Ogden unconsciously spoiled her game this morning. I never had trusted her, and had rebuked myself for it; but I’m usually right—that X-ray, you know.”
Hugh, rolling along beside her in the charming little carriage, wondered wretchedly if she trusted him, or if the X-ray was working.
“I’m sorry for Ally,” he said gravely.
“So am I,” responded Miss Frink promptly. “I hope she will develop some day into a worthy woman. I regret that it has to be in Farrandale, but we can’t have all things to please us.”
“Some day,” thought Hugh, “she will want me to be a worthy man, anywhere but in Farrandale.”
He was in his room dressing for dinner when Ogden came in.
“Well, admitted to the bar yet?” demanded the latter gayly.
“Look here, Ogden”—Hugh advanced and seized his friend. “When you were spilling Ally’s beans this morning, did you spill mine, too, and never told me?”
“Not so, dear one. Will you kindly not pull the button off my coat?”
“She acts as if she knew. We were all on the Duanes’ porch and she asked me to show my mother’s picture to Miss Duane. How did she suddenly know it was my mother?”
“Whew!” Whistled Ogden, surprised. “Search me. I never gave her a clue; but she seemed to have it in for me for some reason this morning. Oh,” after a thoughtful moment, “she doesn’t know! She’s the yea-yea, and nay-nay, kind. If she knew you were Hugh Sinclair, she would either say, ‘bless you, my child,’ or tell you to get off the earth. I know her.”
“I’m growing to know her,” said Hugh, going on with his toilet, “and I’ll say she’s a trump. I don’t like to look forward to being despised by her.”
“Hugh, my son, don’t make me laugh. You’ve got the woman. I don’t know whether it’s the shape of your nose or your general air of having the world by the tail, but the deed’s done.”
Hugh regarded him gloomily. “All to be knocked over by a simple twist of the wrist when she learns that I’m the thing she despises most—a liar. She says she has had only one honest friend. I’d tell her the truth to-night if it weren’t for Ally’s recital. I don’t want anything to disturb that, poor girl.”
Under Ogden’s guidance, the invitations to Mrs. Lumbard’s recital were sent out promptly, and Farrandale society rose to its first opportunity to be entertained in the Frink mansion. Not a regret was received by Miss Frink’s social secretary pro tem. Adèle, as the star of the occasion, took an oddly small part in the preparations. She did some practicing on her programme, apologizing to Hugh for its more weighty numbers.
Leonard Grimshaw observed her infatuation for the young man, and it added to the score against him which began on the day Hugh was carried into the house. Was he in love with Adèle himself? He sometimes asked himself the question. She had sparkled into such life and vivacity in these last days that any man would have felt her attraction.
One day he found himself alone with her on the veranda. “Do you realize all Miss Frink is doing for you in giving this affair?” he asked.
“No. Is it such a great indulgence?” she returned lightly.
“Positively. It is breaking her habits of years, and it will be a great expense. She is making lavish preparations,” declared Grimshaw severely.
“Well, don’t blame me for it, Leonard,” said the young woman, reverting to the appealing manner. “It was Hughie’s idea.”
“For pity’s sake don’t call him ‘Hughie’!” exclaimed the other irritably. “It makes me sick. You’re so crazy about him, anyway.”
Adèle smiled up at her companion. “How delightful! I do believe you’re jealous, Leonard. I’m complimented to death.”
“You have far more reason to be jealous,” he retorted. “Anybody with half an eye can see that Stanwood is fascinated with Millicent’s demure ways. ‘In the spring a young man’s fancy,’ etc., you know, and these walks with her every day—”
“He has to go to her grandfather,” broke in Adèle, a frown gathering and quenching the light in her eyes. “He cares nothing for that stupid creature except to tease her.”
“And you should care nothing for him, Adèle,” said Grimshaw quickly. “He is a crude boy without a cent, just beginning life. Why waste your time? You are meat for his masters.”
She lifted her head coquettishly, the frown disappearing. “Are you his master?”
“Perhaps,” said Grimshaw.
His regard for Adèle had been deepened by the fact that Miss Frink was giving this affair for her. It seemed to prove that she was more and more a person to be reckoned with, and likely to share with himself in all his employer’s favors. Moreover, the young woman’s attraction to and for Hugh Stanwood had seemed to create a new eagerness for her in himself which at moments threatened to overcome his caution. If Adèle were really to be one of Miss Frink’s heirs, there was no need for caution. What worried him was that he feared that some time he might commit himself on an uncertainty. Adèle in her present mood was a menace to clear thinking.
The day of the recital arrived. John Ogden was here, there, and everywhere. The piano was freshly tuned. He supervised the removal of the drawing-room furniture and the placing of the crowd of camp-chairs. Miss Frink, feeling invertebrate for the first time in her life, forgot that he was a smooth rascal, and followed his suggestions implicitly as to dressing-rooms and the servants’ duties. Leonard Grimshaw’s nostrils dilated when his employer informed him that Mr. Ogden had given instructions to the caterer and that he, Grim, need feel no care.
“I think you would find, Miss Frink, that we could manage this affair if Mr. Ogden were still in New York,” he said.
“Thank Heaven he isn’t,” returned that lady devoutly.
Millicent found it not such an easy matter to put her employer to sleep to-day. She was reading the book of an Arctic explorer; and Miss Frink was learning more about the astonishing flora of those regions than she had ever expected to know as the pleasant voice read on, with an intelligence born of long assistance to her grandfather’s failing eyes.
At last Miss Frink flung off the white silk handkerchief. “It’s no use, Millicent,” she said. “You know how it is when a young débutante is taking her first plunge into society. It’s exciting. I never gave a party before.”
“I’m sure it is going to be a wonderful one,” replied the girl, closing the book on her finger. “Every one is so pleased to be coming.”
She spoke perfunctorily. Adèle had been steadying a ladder for Hugh as she crossed the veranda coming in, and the look on the former’s face as she gazed up, and he laughed down, had infuriated her by the sudden heat it brought on at the back of her own neck.
“How-do, Millicent,” Hugh had cried; “you’ll have to go home alone to-day. Don’t you cry!”
She had bowed to Adèle, ignoring his chaff, and said something pleasant about anticipating the evening.
“You would think,” she said now, “that Mrs. Lumbard would be the excited one. How coolly she takes it.”
Miss Frink shook her pillowed head. “I think it is nothing in her life to play to a lot of rubes,” she remarked.
“They won’t care to be taught by her if she feels that way,” said Millicent stiffly.
Miss Frink laughed. She had learned to laugh in the last month. “I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t repeat it and ruin business. I’m just guessing; but I don’t believe any kind of an audience would disconcert her. Have you heard her play?”
“No.”
“Well, you have a treat in store. As Hugh says, nobody can hit the box like Ally.”
“Why does he call her Ally?”
“Because of her white hair. When she was working among the doughboys they called her an albino.”
“Is she one?” Millicent looked preternaturally serious.
“Search me,” returned the débutante carelessly. “Now, look here, Milly, I have another job for you. I want you to receive with me to-night.”
“What, Miss Frink?”
“Mr. Ogden says I’ve got to stand up there by the portières like a black satin post, and receive the guests as they come in. I thought I should like to have you and Hugh stand by me in the ordeal.”
It entertained Miss Frink to see Millicent blush, and she watched the color come now, and the startled look in the girl’s eyes, like that of a bird ready to fly.
“You see,” went on Miss Frink, “somebody will have to nudge me when I say, ‘Good-evening, Mr. Griscom; I see you put that deal over for the Woman’s Club Building!’ ‘Good-evening, Mr. Bacon; so that rise in real estate across the river is upon us. Congratulations!’ etc., etc.”
“But I wouldn’t be any good, Miss Frink, and I—and I couldn’t—it would—for you to honor Hugh and me together like that—”
Miss Frink sighed. “I suppose I should have to call another town meeting to tell them again that there was nothing in it. I was saying what I would like to have; but, as a matter of fact, Mr. Grimshaw would be very justly hurt if I planned on Hugh’s supporting me.”
Millicent looked relieved. “Mr. Grimshaw is just the right one,” she said.
“And you would have no objection to standing up with him?” Miss Frink’s quizzical smile was playing about her lips.
The young girl shook her head.
“Then you put on your prettiest frock and come and stand beside the old lady, and burst out with something about the weather if you hear me mention stocks, bonds, or real estate.”
Millicent went home and told her grandfather of the high honor thrust upon her. The responsibility, with that of netting Damaris’s hair into a demure coiffure for the occasion, made her all aquiver with excitement.
As soon as she had left Miss Frink that day, Adèle knocked on her hostess’s door.
“I heard you and Miss Duane talking, so I knew you were not asleep, Aunt Susanna,” she said. “I wanted you to see if I look all right for to-night.”
Miss Frink drew herself up to a sitting posture and regarded her visitor. Adèle looked like a French marquise, with her snowy hair, excited color, and eyes sparkling like brown diamonds. Her white crêpe gown clung to her.
Miss Frink adjusted her glasses and nodded. “Very picturesque,” she said. “Sit down a minute, Adèle.”
The latter’s eyes scintillated with swift apprehension. There was no warmth in her hostess’s approval.
“What do you wish to say, Aunt Susanna? Is it about my hair? I’ll tell you.”
“No, no,” said Miss Frink. “We are way past that.”
Adèle liked the atmosphere less and less.
“Please wait, then,” she said impulsively. “I don’t want to be thrown off my balance for to-night.”
Miss Frink shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know much about temperamental people,” she said. “Go on, then. You look very handsome, Adèle.”
The young woman vanished quickly. Even Miss Frink said she looked very handsome. She exulted as she thought of Hugh. His image constantly filled her thought, and a thousand imaginings of the future went careering through her brain.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RECITAL
Of course, Adèle played wonderfully that night. No anxious to-morrow with Miss Frink ventured into the rose-color of her dreams. She was playing to Hugh; and occasionally she caught his spellbound and admiring eyes. Even the drop of gall occasioned by the fact that, Millicent’s duties with the hostess over, Hugh seated himself beside her to listen, was drowned in the sweetness of his frank admiration.
The great room was crowded. Miss Frink, unsmiling and reflective, regarded Adèle with a calculating eye and ear, absolving herself from any anxious care for the financial future of such a one.
To many of the audience this private view, as it were, of Miss Frink and her home was of as much or more interest than the programme. John Ogden, as master of ceremonies, conducted the affair with grace, and his easy cordiality among a crowd almost entirely strange to him was a marvel to Miss Frink, and all her mental reservations were for the time being submerged in gratitude.
But, in spite of the interest in the Queen of Farrandale as a private individual, Hugh Stanwood was really Exhibit A of the evening: the man who had saved Miss Frink’s life and lived in her house ever since. Was Leonard Grimshaw’s star descending? Was the handsome youth going to be adopted by his hostess? Why was Millicent Duane receiving with Miss Frink? Was Mr. Stanwood really reading law with her grandfather?
Tongues would wag to-morrow. To-night they were silenced, first, by the music of—according to the programme—“Mrs. Adèle Lumbard, famous pianist of Atlanta, Georgia,” and later, by a very delicious supper.
A procession of enthusiasts approached Adèle where she stood in a bay window at the close of the programme. Leonard Grimshaw was stationed beside her.
“You are a queen, Adèle,” he murmured worshipfully, and she let her brown eyes speak her thanks.
Colonel Duane approached her. “Please accept my compliments,” he said, bending over her hand. “You will have all us oldsters practicing five-finger exercises to-morrow. Here is Hugh; he is almost bursting with pride that he knows you.”
“For a fact, Ally, you outdid yourself,” said Hugh, taking her hand. “Here is Millicent fairly afraid to approach such a star.”
“It was perfectly beautiful,” said the young girl, gazing at her fervently.
“Thanks,” returned Adèle perfunctorily, looking by her and wondering if she should have patience to receive the oncoming stream of people whom Grimshaw formally introduced one by one ere they dispersed about the house and out into the grounds.
“I think one party will go a long way with me, Ogden,” said Miss Frink late in the evening, hiding a yawn behind her hand.
John Ogden stood beside her as she sped the parting guests.
When nearly all had gone, Adèle had opportunity to speak to Hugh: “Take me outdoors. Let us lose ourselves so I won’t have to say any more good-nights.”
They slipped away and strolled far out underneath the great trees.
“A perfect success,” said Hugh.
“Was it?” Adèle leaned wearily on his arm.
“You will have all Farrandale for pupils if you want them,” he went on; “but honestly, Adèle”—he looked down into her upturned face—“it’s like hitching a blooded horse to a coal-wagon to make you teach.”
“You see it, do you?” she returned. “Oh, how I hate drudgery, Hughie.”
“You must have gone through a lot of it, to play the way you do.”
“I didn’t realize it. It didn’t seem so. I liked it.”
Back and forth they strolled in the shadow of the old elms, Adèle’s cigarette adding its spark to his among the magic lanterns of fireflies.
“The house looks quiet,” she said at last. “Let us go in and see if we can find something to eat. I am nearly starved.”
They crossed the lawn and went up the veranda steps. In the hall they met the butler, hanging about aimlessly.
“Mrs. Lumbard has been neglected, Stebbins,” said Hugh. “She hadn’t a chance to eat much of anything. See if you can’t get some sandwiches and grapejuice for us. Has everybody gone to bed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, when you’ve set out the stuff you go, too. You can lock up and I’ll see to putting out the lights.”
The two entered the big dim dining-room and sat down side by side at the table. For all Adèle’s protestations of hunger, she only played with a sandwich and sipped the grapejuice. So far everything had gone exactly to suit her. Miss Frink, Leonard Grimshaw, and Mr. Ogden had all effaced themselves.
She had Hugh to herself in the high-ceiled old room, and her heart was still exulting in the incense that had been burned before her all the evening, incense that was valuable because Hugh had seen it burning.
Time was flying. This was her great opportunity.
“What are you planning to do with your life, Hugh?” she asked suddenly.
“I mean to keep on with the law work on the side while I go into Miss Frink’s store. Don’t you think you ought to go to bed, Ally? I know you must be very tired.”
She tossed aside the trivial suggestion with an impatient motion of her head. “I never sleep after playing a programme,” she said. Then she added in a low, appealing voice, her eyes fixed on his: “I want you to give up that idea, Hughie. Do you know what wonderful playmates we are—simply made for each other?”
Hugh began to feel uncomfortable under the clinging look. “Yes, but life isn’t play,” he returned.
“It would be for us—together. Come to me, Hughie. You would shrivel up, here. Let us go away. I will make you happier than you ever dreamed of being. I love you every second of every minute, and every minute of every hour. I—”
“Ally, Ally,” interrupted Hugh gently, “you’re mistaken. Love begets love, and if you loved me I should love you. I don’t, and—”
“Stop”—she seized his hand—“I’ll show you what love is. I will show you what happiness is. I will take care of the practical side. I have some money that no one knows of: enough to start you in business. We will work together, play together—I can’t live without you, Hughie, I can’t—”
“Adèle!” It was Miss Frink’s voice. In the silk negligée she was standing behind them inside the door.
Adèle sprang to her feet, the brown eyes flashing their fire directly into Hugh’s as he rose.
“Speak, Hugh,” she said, excitedly, “before she has a chance to talk. You know what I have said, and I mean every word.”
“No, you don’t. Now, let us forget it, Ally.”
“No, never; and whatever Miss Frink has heard she is welcome to remember. Speak, Hugh.” There was hysterical appeal in the last words.
“Then I can only repeat, Ally. Oh, don’t spoil our friendship!”
“This is enough,” said Miss Frink, coming forward, and looking Adèle straight in the eyes. “Why must an artist be a fool?”
“Sometimes others are fools,” cried Adèle, carried away by her thwarted passion. “The great Miss Frink is a dupe herself. Hugh has fooled you as he has fooled me.”
Miss Frink lifted her head. “Do you refer to the fact that Hugh Stanwood is Hugh Sinclair, my nephew? That is ancient history.” A moment of tense stillness while the women’s gaze still struck a mutual fire. “Will you kindly leave us, Adèle?”
With a murderous parting look the young woman obeyed. With only a moment’s hesitation, and without a glance at Hugh, she dashed from the room, knocking over a chair in her flight. Hugh’s gaze was fixed on Miss Frink. She turned deliberately and faced him. The look in her eyes, the softness of her lips, were unmistakable even if she had not extended a hand; but Hugh had no use for the hand. With one stride, he reached her, flung his arms around her and she was held fast in his big embrace. Some sealed door within her, whose firm fastening had already been weakened, opened gently. A flood of amazing happiness flowed through, and softly inundated her whole being.
From the hall came the chime of the Westminster clock. The four quarters rang; then through the stillness of the quiet house sounded the deep, deliberate strokes of the midnight hour.
Through it all they stood there. Miss Frink could feel the sobbing catch in the broad chest to which she was strained.
“I don’t deserve it,” she thought humbly. “The cross-grained, dominating, selfish, obstinate woman I have been, to be given this child of my old age!”
When the last tone died away and intense stillness reigned again, she spoke:
“Twelve o’clock, and all is well, Hugh. This is the first time I have been hugged in fifty years.”
Gently she pushed him from her with hands that still clung to him. He dropped his arms and stood looking down at her. She was touched to see the moisture in the eyes that met hers.
“It is good of you to let me hug you,” he replied in a low, thick voice.
“I suppose you think you have a lot of explanations to make,” she said, her kind tone wavering a little in the intense feeling of the moment, “but you haven’t. It was all so obvious after I gained the first clue, that it scarcely needed your Aunt Sukey’s X-ray mind to see the whole thing clear as A B C.”
“Don’t use that name!” exclaimed Hugh, as if it hurt.
“What? Aunt Sukey? Oh, I’ve X-rayed that, too. I can fully understand the idea of your great-aunt that you grew up with. I”—a catch in Miss Frink’s throat stopped her speech for a second—“I was very unkind to Philip—to your father. Mr. Ogden knew me, knew that the only way you could reach my heart was to smuggle you in; but you got there, Hugh, my own dear boy, you got there.”
Hugh caught her slender, dry hand in his big one.
“If I was Aunt Sukey to your father, I am Aunt Susanna to you, and it was a gift of God that it was you, yourself, who saved my life that I might not die before I knew what it is not to be all alone in the world: what it is to have my own flesh and blood to love, and perhaps to love me a little.”
“Aunt Susanna, I don’t feel worthy of your love,” exclaimed the boy hotly, but softly as if the dark wainscoted walls might have ears. “I hated it all the time.”
“I know that, too,” returned Miss Frink quietly.
“What you don’t know,” he continued, “is how I admire you. You’re the finest woman I’ve ever known, and the finer you were, and the more frank, and the more generous, the more miserable I was. Oh”—shaking his broad shoulders restlessly—“I’m so glad it’s over. I want to go away.”
“You want to leave me, Hugh?”
“To pick up my own self-respect somewhere. I feel as if you couldn’t really trust me!”
“My child”—Miss Frink spoke tenderly—“what is my boasted X-ray for if I don’t know, positively, that I can trust you? To lose you, to have you go away, would leave my life the same dry husk it was before you came.”
A line grew in Hugh’s forehead, his eyes dimmed as the two stood looking at each other. Then he put his arms around her again, and this time he kissed her.
“Thank you, Prince Charming. How little I ever expected to have a child to kiss me. Starving, famished, I was when you came, Hugh, and didn’t know it.” She pushed him away again with gentle, firm hands. “Now I want to do a little explaining, myself. To-night I heard Stebbins stumbling up the servants’ stairs after everything was quiet, and I felt something was wrong. I came into the hall and saw that the lights below were still on. I came down, heard voices in here, and the rest followed. You mustn’t feel too unhappy about what happened to-night. Believe in my X-ray enough to know that her life has been made up of similar incidents; not just the same, of course, but the pursuit of excitement of some sort. I have a problem now unless she elects to leave Farrandale.”
“Be kind to her, Aunt Susanna!”
“I will, you soft-hearted boy. I imagine a man finds it the hardest of tasks to turn down a woman.”
“She said I had fooled her. I don’t know what she meant.”
“She doesn’t either. At that moment it was a necessity with her to sting, and she stung, that’s all.”
“How did she know—know about me?” asked Hugh, frowning.
“The same way I did: by the letter she held in your room addressed to your full name. She held it for a second under both our eyes. She thought she had a weapon; but the name did not tell her what it told me. She didn’t know until to-night that you belonged to me.”
“I wish she would leave Farrandale,” said Hugh restlessly.
“Most women would, under the circumstances. She belongs to a genus I don’t know much about. It isn’t safe for me to predict.”
“I’m glad you’re so wonderful,” returned Hugh, “so big that you will be good to her.”
“I will be if you won’t be,” said Miss Frink, with her little twitching smile. “You might as safely try to show affection to a rattlesnake as to a woman without principle. You can’t know how or when she’ll strike.”
Hugh walked up and down the room. “Ally’s such a good fellow. I don’t like—”
“Yes, I know you don’t; and you may have to get your wisdom by experience; but she’s a hard teacher, Experience, Hugh, and she has given you one big lesson to-night.”
“I’m blessed if I know how I deserved it. I deserve to be kicked out of the house by you, but ‘not guilty’ when it comes to Ally.”
Miss Frink’s eyes followed him adoringly. It was of no use to try to make him understand.
“I guess I’m pretty tired,” she said at last, with a sigh.
“And I keeping you up!” returned Hugh, suddenly penitent and stopping in his promenade.
“Débutantes find it rather difficult to go to sleep when they are tired. This is the first party I ever gave in my life, Hugh.”
“Never too late to mend,” he returned.
“But sometimes too late to go to bed,” she answered. “We must look out for that.”
“You go upstairs,” said Hugh. “I told Stebbins I’d see to the lights. Ally was hungry. I’ll fix everything.”
“Yes, she was,” thought Miss Frink, “and thirsty, too.” But she kept the reflection to herself. She turned toward the door. “Good-night,” she said.
Hugh took a long step after her. “Let me tell you before you go how I thank you: how happy you have made me!”
She looked up at him sideways. She even had inspiration to perform a novel act. She threw the big, earnest, troubled boy a kiss as she vanished into the hall.
For the first time in her life Miss Frink felt rich—and satisfied with her wealth.
CHAPTER XIX
JOHN OGDEN
John Ogden’s eagle eye had been on Adèle and Hugh when they slipped out of the house this evening, and he was well aware that they had not come in when he persuaded Miss Frink to seek her couch and leave the disposition of affairs below-stairs to him. At last, when Stebbins alone was prowling sleepily about, Ogden decided that Hugh might become unmanageable if he found his guardian up and waiting for him and his lady, as if with rebuke; so he decided to go to his room. It was scarcely past eleven o’clock, but, in this household of early hours, it was late.
Arrived in his room, Ogden opened a window, turned on the reading-lamp, and taking a book set himself to listen for his mutinous young friend. It was not long before he heard the murmur of voices beneath his window and then the muffled closing of the house door. He set his own ajar in order to hear the pair come upstairs. They did not come. He scowled at his book and said something between his teeth which was an aspiration concerning Adèle Reece. Long minutes passed. He fumed. The clock on the stairs chimed the half-hour.
By the time the solemn midnight bell fell upon the quiet house, Ogden had made up his mind to have nothing more to do with his protégé. He would leave for New York the next day, after making a few straight-from-the-shoulder remarks to Hugh, releasing him from their partnership. Scowling at his book, he heard the clock chime another quarter, and, starting up, went to the door and pulled it open. The lights were still on. He set his teeth. He felt his ears burn. It was indecent. He was humiliated before the chaste image of Miss Frink. He would wait until the clock chimed again and then he would go downstairs, no matter what he came upon. He was determined to quarrel with Hugh, anyway. It might as well be to-night as in the morning.
He went back to his book. At the first stroke of the half-hour, he bounded to the door and opened it once more. All was dark below. Hugh’s room was near his. He went to it. The brilliantly lighted transom was open. He knocked softly on the door and opened it. Hugh, turning about, faced a gentleman in his shirt-sleeves with a scarlet face, rumpled hair, and a generally wild and angry appearance.
“Anything wrong, Mr. Ogden?” he asked.
“Anything wrong!” John Ogden was speechless. He had never seen Hugh look like this. The boy’s face was alive with—was it hope? It was certainly gladness, satisfaction.
“I’ve been frank with you, Hugh,” he said in a lowered voice; then to be more certain that there was no eavesdropping, Ogden turned and closed the transom. “I told you she was a person of no principle, knowing no law but her own will, and, to say nothing of the bad taste and danger of playing with such a woman, you risk outraging Miss Frink’s strict ideas of decorum by staying down there alone all this time. I’m thoroughly disgusted. I must be honest. Right at the time when you are wanting to disclose yourself, to have you play the fool like this, it’s painfully disappointing. That’s what it is, painfully disappointing. I shall leave for New York to-morrow, and you can conduct your affairs to suit yourself.”
The effect of this intense speech on his listener surprised Ogden even while he was delivering it. Was Hugh so fatuous, so impervious?
The boy, smiling and looking exasperatingly handsome and happy, seized the smaller man and pulled him down beside him on the couch at the foot of the bed.
“It is true,” he said. “I’ve been party of the second part in a love-scene downstairs, and I owe it all to you, Ogden.” Hugh threw an arm around his companion’s shoulders. “I’ll never, never forget it.”
Ogden with open mouth stared into the violet eyes.
“It’s Aunt Susanna. I’ve been hugging Aunt Susanna.”
Ogden went limp. He still stared. He brushed his hand across his eyes.
Hugh laughed low. “Yes; she’s known it ever since Ally held that letter of Carol’s in her lap; and she forgives us, and she understands.”
“What—where—when did you exchange Ally for Miss Frink?”
“Aunt Susanna couldn’t understand the lights, and she came downstairs.”
“Where—where is Ally?” asked Ogden, still stunned.
“Asleep, I suppose,” Hugh sobered.
“Intact, then?” Ogden looked questioning.
“Of course. She shared in the big surprise. Aunt Susanna told her I was her nephew—Ally had seen Carol’s letter, too.”
Ogden’s alert brain grasped the possible scene. “Ah! Perhaps she had thought that she was the one to provide the surprise.”
“Perhaps,” said Hugh vaguely; then impulsively, “Don’t go home, Ogden. Stay and be happy with us awhile. I told Aunt Susanna I wanted to go away, but the idea seemed to hurt her.”
John Ogden began to nurse his knee, and rock back and forth reflectively, keeping up occasional bursts of low, nervous laughter.
“It won’t hurt her to have me go away,” he said. “That explains all those side-winders and innuendoes. Ha, ha, it is a good joke on the lady. It gives her the nettle-rash that I got away with it, at the same time that she’s glad of it.” Ogden’s eyes were bright as he continued to consider. “And Grimshaw! Oh, Grimshaw! Draw a veil.” At this, his laughter threatened to grow violent. He buried his face in the satin cushions.
The secretary awoke the morning after the recital with a confused but happy sense that the world was a pleasant place to live in. He had not sounded many of its pleasures, and it was time he began. What a wonderful companion in all that was gay, in all of life that he had avoided, was the niece of his employer, the talented young creature about whom all Farrandale would be talking to-day!
How quietly and demurely Adèle had taken the adulation of last evening: creeping off modestly to her room at the last, without even a good-night. Where had Stanwood been at the time? Grimshaw frowned a little in his effort to remember where Stanwood had been while the guests were departing. John Ogden had stood beside Miss Frink while the good-byes were being said. He, himself, had had too much to attend to in supervising the departure of the caterer’s retinue, and other household movements. He gave it up finally. Probably Hugh had been with the Duanes. Grimshaw had never liked Millicent since her mild defiance of him in the matter of taking the records to the White Room. A suggestion from any one that he was not in full authority in Miss Frink’s house put the culprit in his black books.
Getting out of bed, he now crossed the room and observed a white folded paper pushed beneath his door. He picked it up, opened it, and read as follows: