"Oh, Miss Beatrice! I do hate goin' up!"
"Why, you little silly! This isn't the dentist's."
"I know. But, oh, miss! If there is one thing I can't bear it's being made game of," said Million, pitifully, half-way up the stairs. "This Mr. Chesterton—he won't half laugh!"
"Why should he laugh?"
"At me, bein' supposed to have come in for all those dollars of me uncle's. Do I look like an heiress?"
She didn't, bless her honest, self-conscious little heart. From her brown hat, wreathed with forget-me-nots, past the pin-on blue velvet tie, past the brown cloth costume, down to the quite new shoes that creaked a little, our Million looked the very type of what she was—a nice little servant-girl taking a day off.
But I laughed at her, encouraging her for all I was worth, until we reached the third floor and the clerk's outer office of Messrs. Chesterton, Brown, Jones, and Robinson.
I knocked. Million drew a breath that made the pin-on tie surge up and down upon the breast of her Jap silk blouse. She was pulling herself together, I knew, taking her courage in both hands.
The door was opened by a weedy-looking youth of about eighteen.
"Good morning, Mr. Chesterton. Hope I'm not late," Million greeted him in a sudden, loud, aggressive voice that I had never heard from her before; the voice of nervousness risen to panic. "I've come about that money of mine from my uncle in——"