Ogden, sitting in a hammock and swinging his foot, regarded the other quizzically for a silent moment.
“Your lions in the way are going to turn into kittens, boy,” he said at last. “And if they didn’t, isn’t it worth something to have transformed the life of another human as you have Miss Frink’s? Isn’t it worth meeting with some annoyance?”
Hugh shrugged his shoulders in silence.
When Millicent entered her employer’s room, the lady was not lying down as usual. She met the girl with a sort of smiling exaltation.
“Do I look any different to-day?” she asked.
“You do look different. You have such pink cheeks. I suppose you are still excited from last night.”
“Perhaps so.” As she spoke, Miss Frink drew the girl down beside her on the divan and looked blissfully into her face. “What a comment it is on me, Millicent, that you are the only woman friend I have to pour out to at a time like this—and you not a woman yet, just a little girl who can’t appreciate happiness, because you’ve never had anything else.”
“Oh, I have, Miss Frink, I’ve been terribly unhappy—is it because you’re happy that you look so rosy?” Millicent’s heart beat under the full, bright gaze bent upon her.
“Yes, all at once. The last time you saw me I was nobody. I was grubbing along the way I have all my life, nobody caring about me except to get the better of me in a business deal, and now to-day—do you wonder my cheeks are pink? I’m a grandmother, Millicent.”
“You are!” The girl’s lips were parted.