Miss Frink continued to look down at him reflectively. As John Ogden had said, she liked prosperous folk and had little patience with derelicts. Had she seen Hugh a few days ago shuffling along on his way to his job, unshaven, shabby, and careless, she certainly would not have looked at him twice, or if she had done so would have dilated disgusted nostrils at the odor of his cigarette; but John Ogden had sent his protégé forth from the hands of a good tailor and barber; and, had he known the disaster which befell that fine new suit, would have rubbed his hands in triumph.
“Don’t fret about expense,” said Miss Frink. “If it were not for you, I shouldn’t sign any more checks; and, speaking of checks, where is yours for your trunk? We must send for it.”
“It’s there in my pocketbook with my letter of introduction.”
Miss Frink, taking this as permission, found the pocketbook. She looked at the marking thereon. “Hugh Stanwood,” she read aloud. “That is odd,” she said. “Stanwood is one of our family names.” She looked toward the bed with a little twitch of her lips. “Perhaps we are related.”
“Who knows?” returned Hugh, who was longing for a cigarette.
“May I read this letter of introduction?”
“It is yours,” he answered.
Miss Frink read it attentively. “John Ogden,” she said aloud as she reached the signature. “I congratulate you on your friend. I respect John Ogden very much.”
“So he does you,” returned Hugh feebly, turning his bandaged head with a weary movement that his hostess was quick to notice.
He was wishing he had never seen John Ogden, and that he was back, a free Bolshevist without the headache, packing boxes with both hands in a basement, to pay for his hall bedroom and hot dogs.