“You’d be a wonderful partner, Millicent. Even at school I used to feel there was a sort of—well, a sort of perfume around where you were.”
Millicent laughed. “Damaris, is that a compliment?”
“Well, sweetness, anyway. You’d get around the customers every time. You’d really like them. I would, too, if I could make ’em look pretty. I’d like to have Miss Frink come in! Wouldn’t I do her up! Gosh, what she’d look like when she got out of the chair. Leonard, too. Wouldn’t I like to give Leonard scalp massage!” The speaker made a threatening gesture.
“Don’t swear, dear. Say, you haven’t told me how snappy I look. ‘Chick’s’ the word, isn’t it?”
Millicent looked at the dark, sparkling face. “Yes, but I wish you hadn’t done it, dear.”
“Well,” Damaris sighed. “I can’t put it back. Mother wept, but I bet I’ll get something just as good. Mother felt it was so refined to go to that grand house every day and get Miss Frink to sleep.”
“Yes, I read to her after lunch every day, and I always left her asleep. That was my job.”
Applause for the speech sounded, and Miss Frink rose.
“There she goes,” said Millicent as they watched the tall black satin figure rise and take the arm of the Mayor. “Wonderful! She’s wonderful!”
“Yes,” said Damaris. “They say the man that stopped the runaway was awfully hurt. He may be dead by this time, but what cares she? She’s back on her job, Queen of Farrandale.”
“But she took him to her own home,” said Millicent.
“Yes,” Damaris smiled. “In Leonard’s car, they say. I’ll bet he writhed. Good enough for him. I hope—”
“No, you don’t. Now, stop, Damaris. Let us get your mother, and both of you come home with me to supper.”
“Well, that would be awfully nice, Millicent,” returned the girl more gently. “You smell sweeter than usual.” The bobbed head was somewhat lowered. “You can comfort Mother if anybody can.”
Susanna Frink’s life had included little of the softer emotions. Of course, acquaintances and strangers had been voluble behind her back with suggestions as to what she ought to do. A woman, especially a rich woman, should have ties. Even the dignified, handsome, old-fashioned house she lived in had not been her family homestead, and it was declared an absurd purchase for a single woman when she moved into it nearly twenty years ago. The grounds, with their fine old trees, pleased her. The high iron fence, with the elaborate gates opening upon the driveway, pleased her. In the days of her restaurant—tea-house they would call it now—and candy-making, she had looked upon this house as fulfilling every idea she had ever had of elegance, and, when it fell to the possession of a globe-trotting bachelor who had no use for it, she bought it at a bargain as was her successful habit.