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:
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
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 suppose _he_ knew 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 how he 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.