His regard for Adèle had been deepened by the fact that Miss Frink was giving this affair for her. It seemed to prove that she was more and more a person to be reckoned with, and likely to share with himself in all his employer’s favors. Moreover, the young woman’s attraction to and for Hugh Stanwood had seemed to create a new eagerness for her in himself which at moments threatened to overcome his caution. If Adèle were really to be one of Miss Frink’s heirs, there was no need for caution. What worried him was that he feared that some time he might commit himself on an uncertainty. Adèle in her present mood was a menace to clear thinking.
The day of the recital arrived. John Ogden was here, there, and everywhere. The piano was freshly tuned. He supervised the removal of the drawing-room furniture and the placing of the crowd of camp-chairs. Miss Frink, feeling invertebrate for the first time in her life, forgot that he was a smooth rascal, and followed his suggestions implicitly as to dressing-rooms and the servants’ duties. Leonard Grimshaw’s nostrils dilated when his employer informed him that Mr. Ogden had given instructions to the caterer and that he, Grim, need feel no care.
“I think you would find, Miss Frink, that we could manage this affair if Mr. Ogden were still in New York,” he said.
“Thank Heaven he isn’t,” returned that lady devoutly.
Millicent found it not such an easy matter to put her employer to sleep to-day. She was reading the book of an Arctic explorer; and Miss Frink was learning more about the astonishing flora of those regions than she had ever expected to know as the pleasant voice read on, with an intelligence born of long assistance to her grandfather’s failing eyes.
At last Miss Frink flung off the white silk handkerchief. “It’s no use, Millicent,” she said. “You know how it is when a young débutante is taking her first plunge into society. It’s exciting. I never gave a party before.”
“I’m sure it is going to be a wonderful one,” replied the girl, closing the book on her finger. “Every one is so pleased to be coming.”
She spoke perfunctorily. Adèle had been steadying a ladder for Hugh as she crossed the veranda coming in, and the look on the former’s face as she gazed up, and he laughed down, had infuriated her by the sudden heat it brought on at the back of her own neck.
“How-do, Millicent,” Hugh had cried; “you’ll have to go home alone to-day. Don’t you cry!”
She had bowed to Adèle, ignoring his chaff, and said something pleasant about anticipating the evening.