“No, nothing of that kind, Colonel Duane,” he said as he took his chair again. “This is a story that I will make brief. Long ago there was a feud in Miss Frink’s small family.”
Millicent tried to moisten her dry lips, and ceased attempting to use the knife which seemed determined to beat a rat-a-plan against the side of the pan.
“She had a nephew, Philip Sinclair, whom she loved; but his opposition to her plans for him angered her to such a degree that it made a complete break. She never met his wife or children, and refused to know them. I was a friend of that family, and Hugh was one of the children. When he returned from the war, I hunted him up.”
Ogden glanced at Millicent. She was leaning back in her chair, her lips parted, her face very pale, and her eyes full upon him. He looked back at once to Colonel Duane, who was giving him similar fixed attention.
“When I met Hugh, whom I had last seen as a child, you can understand what an impression he made on me, and how I thought of his lonely great-aunt whom I had come to know well in the way of business. Hugh was alone, and drifting, like so many of the returned boys, and a scheme came into my head which I suggested to him. It was to come here with a letter of introduction from me, and, using only his first two names, Hugh Stanwood, apply to Miss Frink for a job in Ross Graham Company. I knew there was no hope of her receiving him if she knew he was the son of the man who had so bitterly disappointed and offended her, and I trusted to his winning her esteem before the truth came out. I had a lot of difficulty in getting Hugh’s consent to this, but at last I succeeded. I fitted him out for the experiment, which, of course, put him under some obligation to me: an obligation which was my weapon to hold him to our compact. He has had times of hating me, because Hugh is essentially honest; and the remarkable coincidence which threw him into his aunt’s house as a guest, instead of allowing him to be an employe in her store, gave him many a weary hour of thought which he used mostly for condemnation of me and himself. I came on as soon as I learned of his illness, and found that Miss Frink had become very fond of the boy. When she at last experienced the shock of discovering who he was, she suspected me at once as being the instigator of the plan, and for a time she was torn: undecided as to whether I should be cannonaded or canonized. I judge she has decided on the latter course, for this morning she called me her benefactor.”
Ogden paused.
“Extraordinary!” said Colonel Duane. “I’ll warrant the old lady is happy.”
Millicent said nothing; just gazed.
“My reason for coming to tell you this”—Ogden addressed Millicent now—“is that, as the affair is known and discussed, Hugh is going to be misunderstood and condemned. Thoroughly disagreeable things are going to be said about him. He is going to be called a fortune-hunter.”
“He was, wasn’t he?” broke in Millicent suddenly.