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!
[259]
“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,[260] 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!”[261] 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 attitude[262] back 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.
[263]
“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,[264] 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![265] 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 people[266] i’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 money[267] for 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 time[268] for 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.
[269]
“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.”
[270]
“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 treatment[271] of 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, and[272] started 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.
