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.
[211]
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.”
[212]
“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[213] 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[214] 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.
[215]
“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,[216] 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.[217] 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[218] 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[219] 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[220] 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[221] 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,[222] 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.
