“Is this the Rajah of Nankagorah!” cried Ogden.
Hugh’s heart leaped with a combination of joy and rage. It was ages since he had seen a soul who knew him, and here was the reason. He wanted to hug him. He wanted to choke him.
He kicked away the stool, pulled himself to his feet and showed his teeth in a snarling sort of smile. “Damn you, Ogden!” he said.
John Ogden laughed and, striding forward, threw an arm around the satin-clad shoulders.
“Which is the safe hand? Which arm was it?” he asked.
“They’re both safe to do for you one of these days,” returned Hugh, clutching his friend.
The secretary waited for no more. The apparition of Miss Frink’s extravagance and its stunning effect roused a fever of resentment in him. He went out and closed the door. He continued to stand outside it for a minute, but the old house was well built and the voices within were low. He moved away and downstairs, and was just in time to see Miss Frink going out the front door, attired in wrap and hat.
“Dear lady, aren’t you coming into the study?”
“Some time,” she replied lightly. “I made a purchase by ’phone this morning and I want to look at it before it is sent up. Have you seen Mr. Ogden?”
“Yes, I’ve just taken him to Mr. Stanwood’s room.”
“I suppose the boy was delighted to see him.”
“I don’t know. He swore like a trooper,” replied the secretary with a righteous, long-suffering lift of his crest.
The lady of the old school looked pensive, and smiled.
“Can the boy swear? What a naughty boy!” she said. “I imagine he looks handsomer than ever when he is excited.”
Grimshaw’s full lips tightened as he escorted her out to the carriage.
“Breaking. Breaking fast,” he thought, and he made up his mind to be on the lookout for the bill for that dressing-gown. As a matter of fact, he never did see it. In some way Miss Frink managed to extract that from the usual routine.
“What is she up to now?” he muttered, watching the spirited bays jingling up the street at the pace they took when their owner was in a hurry. An awful certainty possessed him that the occupant of the White Room—the resplendent young Rajah who looked handsome when he swore—had something to do with their celerity.
John Ogden waited long enough to shake his fist toward the closed door before he turned back to regard Hugh, who, with features refined by illness, perfectly groomed, and grandly arrayed, seemed to him a new person. The gloomy expression in the eyes, however, warned him.