Millicent Duane, enveloped in an apron, had brought out some vegetables to prepare for the noon dinner and was sitting on the porch with a large tin pan in her lap.
Her grandfather, who had been as usual working about the garden, finally came slowly up the steps and sank restfully into his favorite chair with the calico cushion.
“I can’t get that last piece she played out of my head,” he said. “Mrs. Lumbard said it was a Marche Militaire. I should say so.” The speaker drummed the rhythm on the arms of his chair.
“It was splendid,” agreed Millicent. She had been hearing all the morning about the recital, and the English “fed up” but faintly described her satiation.
The morning was so beautiful, the birds so tuneful, everything that had not unfolded was so busy unfolding, and the air so full of sweetness, Millicent could not understand why she felt at odds with a world that was so amiably putting its best foot forward. She forced herself to respond with ardor to her grandfather’s comments. She was glad he had had such an unusual treat. He had seen nothing but charm in Mrs. Lumbard’s manner; while Millicent still felt the perfunctoriness of the star’s response to her own effort to express her appreciation. Hugh had been beside her at the time, and as usual Mrs. Lumbard had implied, or at least Millicent felt the implication, that she was negligible, and the sooner she effaced herself the sooner could life really go on. And it had gone on. The stinging remembrance was that, before the Duanes left, Millicent had seen Hugh and the star disappear together. The girl’s annoyance, and resentment that she could feel it, made her an extra lively and agreeable companion to her grandfather on the way home. He remarked affectionately on the good the evening had done her, and how she needed such outings; and she laughed and hugged him, then went to bed, strains of music flowing through her hot head, while her wet eyes buried in the pillow still saw the moonlight sifting through the great trees with their black shadows, shadows through which they were walking. She wanted—she knew now how desperately she wanted—to walk in the moonlight with Hugh herself, and her feeling that it was a contemptible wish did not help the situation in the least.
Now, this morning, she sat there, enveloped in her pink checked apron, the bright tin pan in her lap and her hands busy, while her grandfather watched her fleeting smiles.
“Seems to me you look sort of pale this morning, honey,” he said.
“Dissipation,” she returned. “You know I’m a country girl.”
“It wasn’t late,” he returned reminiscently, still evidently enjoying his memories. “How she did play the ‘Spring Song’! Simplest things are the best, aren’t they, Milly? I think you look sweeter in that pink apron than in your party dress,” he added.