A WARNING.
The girl who had been blind and could see and Madeleine of the
unconquerable soul appeared in Millicent's sumptuous apartment promptly
at three o'clock on Friday afternoon.
They carried with them a suitcase containing the implements of their
labor, taken chiefly from Madeleine's rag bag: some old stockings;
several wornout undervests and polishing cloths made from antiquated
flannel petticoats; also a bottle of ammonia and two boxes of silver
polish.
"Well, here we are," announced Madeleine, unconcernedly, when Millicent
had opened her door to them. "I hope you have the things out and ready.
Our time is valuable."
Of no avail were Millicent's pompous and important airs. Madeleine
insisted on treating her as a familiar and an equal.
"I have put you in the den. You will be less disturbed and you can use
the writing table to spread things on. Please be care----"
"Have you made an inventory?" interrupted Madeleine.
"No," faltered Millicent. Why was it that this poverty-stricken little
person took all the wind out of her sails?
"Make it please at once in duplicate. Keep one yourself and give us the
other."
"But----" began Millicent.
"No, we will not touch a thing until the inventory is made. No
'competent, reliable' person would think of doing work like this without
an inventory. We'll wait in the other room until you have made it."
There was nothing to do but proceed with the inventory. It was plain
that Madeleine knew the manner of person she was dealing with.
While the two girls waited in the big sitting room, now a studio,
Madeleine drew a book from her ulster pocket and began to study. The
little Southerner was never idle one moment of her waking day and the
other seven hours she put in sleeping very soundly. Judith began to look
about her.
The room was little changed from the old days, except that it was even
richer in aspect. There were some splendid old altar pieces on the walls
and a piece of beautiful old rose brocade hung between the studio and
the den. But, after all, what did it come to? Was anyone really fond of
Millicent with all her wealth? Why, Judith, poor and forgotten, had made
a friend. She felt small tenderness toward the rest of the world, but
she loved Madeleine.
Molly Brown came into the room at this stage in Judith's reflections.
"Why, hello, girls!" she exclaimed cordially, shaking hands with the
silver-rubbers. "Where is Millicent?"
"She is making an inventory of her valuables before we begin to clean
them," replied Madeleine, smiling sweetly and blinking both eyes at
once. "We insisted, because it would have been unprofessional not to
have had one."
"The idea!" said Molly. "No, it wouldn't. Besides, you're not
professionals."
"Yes, we are," insisted Madeleine. "Everything we do for money is
professional work."
"Oh, very well," laughed Molly, "and I suppose you'll polish them up so
carefullee that some day you'll be admirals in the Queen's Navee."
"Nothing less," said Madeleine. "It's my theory exactly."
"Oh, Molly," called the voice of Millicent from the den, "please come
and help me with this stupid thing. I can't seem to get it straight."
And that was how Molly came to be admitted into Millicent's inner
sanctum where she kept her most valued possessions under lock and key.
The top of a heavy oak chest rested against the wall and inside was a
perfect mine of silver articles, many of them Millicent's own work;
there was also a quantity of small ivory figures collected by her in her
travels.
"I'll lift out the things and call their names and you can copy each one
twice, like this: one silver necklace--grape-vine design."
Molly sat down and began to make the list. They were nearly finished
when Rosomond Chase's voice was heard in the next room.
"Millicent, please come out for a moment. I want to see you on
business."
Molly, left alone, went on with the list, taking each article from the
box and noting it carefully twice on the inventory.
In the meantime Millicent and her friend were having a secret conference
in the bedroom, while Madeleine and Judith silently waited in the
studio. The two silver-rubbers were presently startled by the apparition
of Molly standing in the doorway. She had the look of one fleeing before
a storm, her face very pale and her eyes dilated with horror. She
started to speak, but checked herself and closed the door behind her.
Then, hurrying into the room, she said in a low, strained voice:
"Madeleine, I would not advise you to do any work for Miss Porter."
The two girls exchanged a long look.
"Do you really mean that?" asked Madeleine.
"I was never more in earnest in my life."
"But, can't you explain?" demanded Judith Blount.
Molly shook her head and rushed from the room.
"Come on, Judith," said Madeleine, slipping on her ulster.
"But, this is absurd!" objected Judith again.
"Child," exclaimed her friend, "don't you know human nature well enough
to understand that a girl like Molly Brown would never have given a
piece of advice like that without knowing what she was talking about?"
"She's jealous because she would like to earn the money herself."
"Nonsense," said Madeleine. "She is not that kind. You know perfectly
well that she is the most generous-hearted, unselfish girl in
Wellington. She wouldn't injure a fly if she could help herself, and I
think we had better take her advice."
But Judith was stubborn.
"We've come to do the work. Why go?"
Having once committed herself to this menial labor, she wished to see it
through. After all, whatever Molly had against Millicent Porter couldn't
concern them, and in the end Madeleine reluctantly gave in.
Presently Millicent and Rosomond came into the room.
"What became of Molly Brown?" demanded Millicent suspiciously.
"She couldn't wait," answered Madeleine briefly.
"Was there anything the matter with her?"
"She seemed in perfectly good health as far as I know, but you had
better hurry up with the inventory, Miss Porter. We are losing time."
Rosomond helped Millicent with the remainder of the list, and by four
o'clock Madeleine and Judith were installed in the den hard at work. All
afternoon and evening they toiled and the next morning they appeared
soon after breakfast and started in again.
"This is easier than cracking rock, and the pay is considerably better,
but I am just as tired between the shoulders as a common laborer,"
Madeleine exclaimed, rubbing the last tray until she could see her own
piquant little face reflected in its depths.
"As for me, I feel as if I had been drawn and quartered," complained
Judith. "It's worth more than fifteen dollars. We should have asked
twenty."
"I would have asked it, if I had thought she could have been induced to
part with so much money, but I saw that fifteen was her limit."
Judith laughed.
"You're a regular little bargain driver," she said admiringly.
"No, not always," answered Madeleine. "Only when I meet another one."
"Well, I am glad we undertook it, and I am gladder still we have
finished it," said Judith.
They arranged the silver on half of the table, and the small army of
carved ivory ornaments, for which Millicent seemed to have a passion,
on the other half. Then, removing the loose gloves which had protected
their hands, they put on their things and marched into the next room
with expectant faces. For the first time in all her life Judith had
earned a sum of money, and the humblest wage-earner was not more anxious
for his week's pay than she was.
"Will you please inspect the work, Miss Porter, and give us our money?
We are tired and want to go home," said Madeleine.
Millicent was propped up against some velvet cushions in the window
seat. There was an expression of nervous worry on her thin sallow face,
and around her on the floor lay the scattered bits of a note she had
read, re-read, and torn into little pieces.
She was in a very bad humor, and her warped nature was groping for
something on which to vent its accumulated spleen. She rose from the
window seat, swept grandly into the next room and glanced at the
tableful of silver and ivory.
"It looks fairly well," she said; for Millicent was one of those persons
who grudged even her praise. "What was the amount I promised to pay?"
"I dare say you haven't forgotten it so soon," answered the intrepid
Madeleine. "Fifteen dollars."
"Oh, was it so much? Will this evening do? I haven't that sum on hand
just now. I'll have to go down to the bank."
"A check will do, then," said Madeleine, sitting down in one of the
carved chairs.
"I never pay with checks. I only pay cash. I would prefer to draw out
the money and pay you this evening."
"Nonsense," exclaimed Madeleine. "Besides, you know very well that the
bank closes on Saturdays at noon, and it's now nearly four o'clock."
"So it does. Then you will have to wait until Monday."
"We won't wait until Monday," ejaculated Madeleine. "We haven't been
rubbing silver for our health. You'd better look around in your top
drawer and see if you can't scrape fifteen dollars together, because I
tell you plainly if you don't you'll regret it."
"How regret it?" asked the other suspiciously. "I'm not obliged to pay
it until Monday, and I won't," she added stubbornly.
It was growing late. The girls were exhausted and hungry. They had eaten
no lunch except crackers and cheese. At last Judith, utterly crushed
with disappointment, drew Madeleine aside.
"Suppose we leave her," she said. "I can't stand it any longer."
Without another word they took their departure, leaving Millicent still
in the window seat looking pensively out on the campus. They were hardly
outside before she sprang to the door and locked it. Then she hastened
to the den and began to pack feverishly and with trembling nervous
hands. Wrapping each article of silver in tissue paper, she placed it in
the chest on a bed of raw cotton. When the table was entirely cleared,
she closed and locked the chest and, addressing a tag, wired it to the
handle.
Next she drew a trunk from the big closet and packed it with her best
clothes. This done, she crept downstairs to the telephone and engaged
Mr. Murphy to call that night for an express box and a trunk.
The Beta Phi girls were all at a Saturday night dance at one of the
other houses when Mr. Murphy called. Millicent explained to the matron
that her rooms were too crowded and she was sending some of her things
back to New York.
As quietly as possible she drew her other two trunks from the closet,
and by three in the morning the rooms were entirely dismantled and all
drapery and pictures carefully packed away. These also she locked and
tagged with the precision of one who intends to lose nothing, no matter
what's to pay. One more task remained. This was performed in the privacy
of the den behind closed doors. When it was done there stood on the
table a square box addressed in artistic lettering to "Miss M. Brown,
No. 5 Quadrangle."
Placing her watch on her pillow, Millicent now rested for several hours
without sleeping. At last, at seven o'clock, dressed for a journey, with
suit case, umbrella and hand bag, she crept softly downstairs and
plunged into the early morning mists.
Not once did she glance back at the two gray towers as she hastened down
to the station, and when the seven-thirty train for New York pulled in,
she boarded it quickly and turned her face away from Wellington
forever.