MILLICENT
Very soon Millicent’s familiar figure appeared at the iron gate. Before
she started from home she had talked with her grandfather.
“You’re sending a message to Hugh by me that it will be more convenient
for you to see him in the morning after this,” she said.
“But it wouldn’t.” Colonel Duane looked surprised.
“Yes, it will be,” returned Millicent firmly.
The old gentleman blinked. “What’s this? Tired of the walks over here
together?”
“Never mind details, dear.”
“You’re a funny child, Milly. Hugh will feel something unfriendly in the
change, just at the present time.”
Millicent seized her grandfather’s arm. “Dearest, everything wonderful is
going to come to Hugh, now,” she said earnestly, “and I would like to be
out of it. I don’t want to hear him talk about it. Hugh Sinclair isn’t
Hugh Stanwood. He won’t be anything to us; not even a friend except at
long intervals and—can’t you understand? I’d rather be the one to do the
dropping.”
She released him suddenly and ran out of the house. Her grandfather stood
in the same spot for some minutes, considering.
“It’s the most natural thing in the world,” he said to himself at last.
“I don’t see how she could help it; but Milly has plenty of spirit, and
I’ll take the hint till he goes away. Of course, he’ll be going away to
law school.”
Now, as Millicent entered Miss Frink’s grounds and discerned Hugh on the
porch, she saw him rise and throw away his cigarette. He came down the
steps to meet her, looking unusually grave. His eyes studied her as if he
must know her attitude before she spoke. She put her hand in the one he
offered.
“How now that the cat is out of the bag?” he asked.
“What difference can it make to me?” she returned with a coolness that
did not satisfy him.
“I’m glad if it doesn’t make any. I thought perhaps there wouldn’t be any
route sufficiently roundabout for you to take me home this afternoon.”
His gaze continued to study her as they ascended the steps.
“Oh, I was to tell you that Grandpa can’t have you to-day. He will be
glad to see you to-morrow morning if you can come—and always in the
morning hereafter.”
Hugh nodded. Millicent started to go into the house.
“Sit down a few minutes,” he said. “Aunt Susanna and Mr. Ogden are busy
in the study. He is leaving to-night. She said she would call you as soon
as she was ready.”
Millicent seated herself in the swinging couch and Hugh promptly took the
place beside her.
“So our walks are over, are they?” he asked, still grave.
“Yes. Life is just like chapters in a story, isn’t it?” she replied
hurriedly. “One closes and another begins. This swing makes me think of
Mrs. Lumbard. Grandpa is perfectly wild about her ever since last night.
Mr. Ogden said she was going to live at the Coopers’, and on my way
over here I met a friend who said he had heard that the manager of the
Koh-i-noor is going to try to get her to provide their music.”
Hugh nodded. “That would solve a problem for her,” he said.
There was nothing natural about Millicent to-day, and he had seen her
shrink when he took the place beside her in the swing.
She went on: “Something big like that would seem more fitted to Mrs.
Lumbard than teaching. I wonder if she will take the position. You’ll
miss her here, won’t you?”
“Yes, another of those chapters that close while another begins. If only
the story grows more interesting as life goes on.”
“I’m sure it will for you.” That was too personal. She hurried headlong.
“And I think it does for all of us. You talked to that cute girl Damaris
Cooper last night. She will be delirious with Mrs. Lumbard living there,
and playing at the Koh-i-noor. Who said Farrandale was dull!” Millicent
laughed.
Hugh had not smiled since she came, and she was so uncomfortable under
his questioning eyes that she welcomed the opening of the door and the
appearance of John Ogden who took in the deceptively intimate appearance
of the swing.
“Your sleepy lady awaits you, Miss Duane,” he announced, “and you
certainly will do a missionary act to make her rest. She needs it.”
Millicent sprang up. “So I’ll say good-bye once more.” He held out his
hand, and the girl gave him hers.
“Farrandale will be very glad to see you back some day, Mr. Ogden.” She
vanished into the house.
“It’s just as I expected,” said Hugh gloomily. “Millicent is entirely
changed, and Colonel Duane can see me only in the mornings after this.
It’s significant of the whole spirit that I shall have to meet.”
John Ogden viewed the downcast gaze.
“You crazy—” he began—“I’ll say I hate to leave you. You’ll be deserting
Miss Frink between two days, as likely as not.”
“No, I won’t,” returned Hugh decidedly. “I’ve made up my mind to stay
with her.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that.”
“But it makes me—if Millicent had cried or done anything natural, I could
stand it; or if she would say right out that she is disgusted, I could
stand it; but to have her feel that it is too bad to talk about; that
gets me because what she feels is what everybody worth caring about will
feel.”
John Ogden regarded the boy as he sat there in the swing, dejected, and
his own lips twitched.
Hugh looked up suddenly. “Don’t you think she’s a fine girl, Ogden?”
“I do. Pure as a drop of dew; fine as a rose-leaf, softly iridescent as a
bird’s wing, transparent as crystal—”
Hugh frowned in displeased surprise.
“I wish you could do anything but chaff,” he said.
“I’m not chaffing,” replied Ogden; “but I must modify that a little, I
should have said, _sometimes_ as transparent as crystal.”
“Are you in love with her?” blurted out Hugh.
“Perhaps I should be if I hadn’t known Carol. The man that she loves will
be in luck, for though tender as a flower she’s as stanch as an oak tree.”
“You should write poetry,” said Hugh dryly. “After all that, you can’t
blame me for preferring that that sort of person should approve of me.”
Ogden, sitting in a hammock and swinging his foot, regarded the other
quizzically for a silent moment.
“Your lions in the way are going to turn into kittens, boy,” he said at
last. “And if they didn’t, isn’t it worth something to have transformed
the life of another human as you have Miss Frink’s? Isn’t it worth
meeting with some annoyance?”
Hugh shrugged his shoulders in silence.
When Millicent entered her employer’s room, the lady was not lying down
as usual. She met the girl with a sort of smiling exaltation.
“Do I look any different to-day?” she asked.
“You do look different. You have such pink cheeks. I suppose you are
still excited from last night.”
“Perhaps so.” As she spoke, Miss Frink drew the girl down beside her on
the divan and looked blissfully into her face. “What a comment it is on
me, Millicent, that you are the only woman friend I have to pour out to
at a time like this—and you not a woman yet, just a little girl who can’t
appreciate happiness, because you’ve never had anything else.”
“Oh, I have, Miss Frink, I’ve been terribly unhappy—is it because you’re
happy that you look so rosy?” Millicent’s heart beat under the full,
bright gaze bent upon her.
“Yes, all at once. The last time you saw me I was nobody. I was grubbing
along the way I have all my life, nobody caring about me except to get
the better of me in a business deal, and now to-day—do you wonder my
cheeks are pink? I’m a grandmother, Millicent.”
“You are!” The girl’s lips were parted.
“You know it’s even nicer than being a mother. Everybody knows that
grandmothers have the best of it. Mr. Ogden has told you that Hugh
belongs to me, and at midnight last night we, Hugh and I, were alone
together, and—and we talked of it. He seemed to be glad. He kissed me
like a real grandchild. Millicent, it seemed too wonderful for words that
I should be really happy! Those young arms around me made me feel richer
than—doubling my money on a corner lot.”
Millicent began to swallow fast.
“I’m so—so gl-glad,” she said. “I’ll try—not to cry.”
“You’re very sweet to care, child. You and Hugh are so well acquainted I
feel you will always take an interest.”
“It was wonderful!” said Millicent. The eagerness in the bright eyes
impelled her on. “Hugh is—my grandfather thinks he is an unusual fellow.
He has always seemed so frank, and kind, and simple. He takes an interest
in Grandpa’s garden and is so nice about it. He often says he wishes he
owned a little place just like ours.”
“Oh, he does, does he?” returned Miss Frink dryly. “Well, you’re ahead of
me. I have never heard him express a wish for anything.”
“Now, Miss Frink, you must lie down,” said the girl. “Mr. Ogden told
me to be sure to make you rest.” She arranged the pillows just as her
employer liked them, persuaded her to change her dress for a negligée,
and soon the happy woman was settled on the couch.
“You’ll guarantee I won’t wake up and find it all a dream?”
“I promise it,” she said.
Hugh was still on the piazza and alone when she went out. He rose at
sight of her. She had never seen him look so serious. He did not advance,
just looked at her in silence. She went to him, her hands outstretched.
“I’ve been talking with her,” she said. Her own repressed feelings, the
remembrance of Miss Frink’s exaltation, and the wonder of Hugh, himself,
overcame her. She could not speak; but her smile and her suddenly flooded
eyes made his gravity break into sunshine.
“It’s all right, then, is it, Millicent?” he asked eagerly.
She tried to pull a hand away to get her handkerchief, but he held it
fast and, seeing the corner of linen protruding from the low neck of her
dress, he took it out and dried her eyes himself.
“I’m not going to cry—much,” she said, smiling, “but she is so happy.”
“I’m a lucky dog, Millicent—if you think I am,” he answered. “It hasn’t
been easy.” His eyes clouded.
“I know it, Hugh. I can see it all, now.”
“And I mustn’t walk home with you?”
She hesitated. “I suppose you shouldn’t leave Mr. Ogden alone. He goes
so soon and Miss Frink is asleep.”
Hugh smiled down at her. She wished he wouldn’t. She could hardly bear
it. “A good excuse for you not to have to try to hide me,” he returned.
“No; I shall never wish to hide you again,” she said.
“You think I’m all right, then, eh, Millicent?”
“I know you are,” she answered, and, releasing herself and giving him an
April smile, she ran down the steps.
* * * * *
It was no small undertaking for Miss Frink, in the days that followed,
to keep her word about not idolizing her grand-nephew. What she did for
him she tried to clothe in such a matter-of-fact manner as to disarm him.
Almost at once invitations began to come to Hugh from the young people
of Farrandale for tennis parties, dances, picnics, and so on. Miss Frink
saw that he was declining them all. She went to his room one morning with
another envelope in her hand.
“This has just come from the Tarrants,” she said, “and I suppose it is
another invitation. I hope you will accept, Hugh, for they are among our
best people.”
“I don’t know much about society, Aunt Susanna. I’d rather keep off the
grass if you don’t mind.”
“Yes, I do mind,” she answered pleasantly. “People will misunderstand if
you refuse to mix. They will think that either you don’t know how, or
else that you feel superior.”
“Both of them correct,” replied Hugh, laughing.
“Neither of them correct,” returned Miss Frink. “The first thing for
you to do is to get suitable clothes for the different sorts of things.
Sports clothes, evening duds, and so on.”
“Remember, Aunt Susanna. It was agreed. No Lord Fauntleroy.”
“Exactly,” she returned briskly. “Don’t get a velvet suit. I forbid it;
but please order the other things at once. Then, if you want to decline
an invitation, it won’t be because you haven’t the proper things to wear.”
“I didn’t know you were so vain.”
“I am, very. Now here is your bank book.” She laid the little leather
book on the table. “And here is your check book.” Hugh stepped toward
her. “Now, not a word,” she warned. “You know that was agreed upon. The
first of every month I shall deposit your allowance to your account.”
Hugh had reached her now. He put his arm around her and kissed her cheek.
“And this afternoon I want you to go on an errand with me. I’ve waked up
lately to what a hidebound person I’ve always been: unwilling to move
with the world. I’ve decided that I want an automobile.”
Hugh raised his eyebrows. “Well, I can’t see Rex and Regina thrown into
the discard.”
“No, neither can I; but there are times when the convenience of a motor
cannot be gainsaid. I borrow Leonard’s occasionally, and it is absurd,
when you come to think of it, to let a foolish prejudice deprive one of a
convenience. A motor is a great convenience.”
“It can’t be denied,” said Hugh, restraining himself from claiming to
smell a large and obvious mouse. She was having such a good time.
He hugged her once more, and she left the room as one whom business is
driving. He looked at the record in his bank book and gave a low whistle.
When the rumor of Adèle’s new position reached Miss Frink, she did not
have to assume approval in speaking to her secretary about it. The fact
that the young woman was going to play to the young people of Farrandale
from a distance, instead of standing toward them in the intimate
relation of a teacher, was a distinct relief. She still felt that new
kindness toward Grimshaw which came from the belief that he felt usurped,
and, perceiving in him a champion of Adèle, she took pains to express
herself pleasantly, as they sat together at their desks.
“I suppose the Koh-i-noor engagement will be a good arrangement for
Adèle,” she said. “It comes as a surprise.”
“Yes. I don’t think she is fitted for the drudgery of teaching,” he
returned.
“No one is who considers it drudgery,” declared Miss Frink. “When is the
theater to open?”
“A week from to-night.”
“Well, they have secured a real musician.”
“Adèle will be glad to hear that she has your approval,” said Grimshaw.
He took from his pocket an envelope. “Mr. Goldstein asked me to give you
these tickets for the opening. He hopes you will honor him with your
presence.”
Miss Frink took the offered envelope. Across it was written: “For the
Queen of Farrandale.”
“You know I don’t go to the movies, Grim. Why didn’t you tell him so?”
“Because this is different. He intends to give only artistic
entertainment. Everybody will go.”
“I—I don’t expect to be in town a week from to-night.”
“Ah? I didn’t know you were planning to leave. Is Mr. Sinclair
accompanying you?”
The secretary always clung to the formal title.
“No, he isn’t. You and he can divide these tickets and take your best
girls. Perhaps he will have one by that time.”
She put the envelope back on Grimshaw’s desk.