“Please wait, then,” she said impulsively. “I don’t want to be thrown off my balance for to-night.”
Miss Frink shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know much about temperamental people,” she said. “Go on, then. You look very handsome, Adèle.”
The young woman vanished quickly. Even Miss Frink said she looked very handsome. She exulted as she thought of Hugh. His image constantly filled her thought, and a thousand imaginings of the future went careering through her brain.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RECITAL
Of course, Adèle played wonderfully that night. No anxious to-morrow with Miss Frink ventured into the rose-color of her dreams. She was playing to Hugh; and occasionally she caught his spellbound and admiring eyes. Even the drop of gall occasioned by the fact that, Millicent’s duties with the hostess over, Hugh seated himself beside her to listen, was drowned in the sweetness of his frank admiration.
The great room was crowded. Miss Frink, unsmiling and reflective, regarded Adèle with a calculating eye and ear, absolving herself from any anxious care for the financial future of such a one.
To many of the audience this private view, as it were, of Miss Frink and her home was of as much or more interest than the programme. John Ogden, as master of ceremonies, conducted the affair with grace, and his easy cordiality among a crowd almost entirely strange to him was a marvel to Miss Frink, and all her mental reservations were for the time being submerged in gratitude.