When that lady lost consciousness to-day, and began gently to blow the silk handkerchief thrown over her face, Millicent despised the sensation of her heart beginning to beat a little faster as she tripped down the wide staircase to the ponderous front door. As she came out upon the veranda, she saw him. He was sitting in the porch swing with Mrs. Lumbard, and Mrs. Lumbard looked unusually pretty in a pink dimity gown, and was exhibiting lengths of crossed silk stockings as she impelled the swing with the tip of one slipper.
Hugh at once jumped up, and Adèle nodded. “You made a short job of it to-day,” she remarked, and Millicent hated her.
“Perhaps you are not quite ready, Mr. Stanwood,” she said, with what was Farrandale’s most formal and forbidding manner.
“Indeed, I am,” he replied, picking up his hat.
“Don’t you think you’d better take an overcoat, Hughie?” asked Adèle affectionately.
“No, indeed, it’s warm. Well, good-bye, Ally, I won’t ask you to be good—just to be as good as you can.”
She laughed and threw him a kiss. Millicent stood, stiff as a ramrod, hating them both.
Hugh smiled at her disarmingly as they went down the steps together. “You know I am as pleased as a boy with a pair of red boots to think Colonel Duane will take me,” he said.
“He seemed very willing,” returned the girl, without looking at him.