The young widow’s angry breath caught in her throat, but she stammered meekly:
“Oh, you wouldn’t be willing to do that, would you?” said Miss Frink reasonably.
“Would you want Miss Frink’s niece to be selling gloves in her store?”
“Ho!” exclaimed the other with a short laugh. “Miss Frink herself sold candy and cake and waited on table and was glad when she got a tip, and everybody in town knows it.”
Adèle’s cheeks burned again. “It would be foolish not to utilize my music,” she said. “Since you have no pride in the matter, no doubt there are movie theaters in Farrandale, and I can perhaps play in one.”
The young woman got the reaction she was trying for.
“No, you can’t,” returned Miss Frink promptly. “That’s where I draw the line. Let the men do that.”
Mrs. Lumbard rose. “Please excuse me,” she said faintly. It was the psychological moment. She had put Miss Frink in the wrong. Let her reflect a little. She knew the conscientious fairness under that rough husk. “I feel ill, Aunt Susanna,” she faltered. “I should like to lie down for a while.”
Her handkerchief to her eyes she passed up the broad staircase, Miss Frink looking after her, and feeling baffled.
“Yes, you’d like to lie down the rest of your life,” she declared mentally. It was too bad that Alice Ray could not have given the legacy of her splendid backbone to her descendants. “It’s tiresome, too,” added Miss Frink to herself. “I meant her to play to the boy about now; but I suppose she’s got to snivel just so long.”
There being no tears behind Mrs. Lumbard’s handkerchief, she was herself when in the dim large hall above she met Mr. Ogden and the butler coming out of the green room.
“You can go,” she said hurriedly to the latter. “Mr. Ogden and I are old friends, Stebbins. I will show him Mr. Stanwood’s room.”
“Mr. Ogden, I’m not Mrs. Reece—that is, you know, not any more.” She gave a nervous little laugh. “I’m—I’m Mrs. Lumbard now.”
Ogden bowed. “I’ll remember. Such matters are very quickly arranged, these days. I’m sorry not to have been up-to-date.”
“You know Aunt Susanna is a lady of the old school and she detests—er—second marriages, and things like that—divorces and everything. You understand.”
“Your aunt!” exclaimed Ogden in amazement. “Well, I am indeed ’way, ’way behind the times. I had no idea Miss Frink had a niece and, and—”