“Why don’t you, then?” John Ogden thought he might as well share the waiter’s entertainment.

“Oh, it’s too much bother, and the director yells at you, and they put that yellow stuff all[14] over you when you know you’re yellow enough already.”

[14]

The boy laughed, and sending out a cloud of smoke from his Grecian nose again attacked his crab-meat.

After they had finished the ices and while they were drinking their coffee, Ogden succeeded in driving off the reluctant waiter.

“I’m interested in that inexorable grand-aunt of yours,” he said. “What is her name?”

“Susanna Frink,” returned Hugh, “affectionately known in the bosom of the family as ‘Old Sukey the Freak.’”

His host sat up and leaned forward. “Not possible! Susanna Frink your aunt?”

“’Tisn’t my fault,” said Hugh, raising the smooth dark eyebrows his host had been admiring.

“But I know her,” said Ogden. “There’s a masterful old lady for you!”

“You bet your life,” agreed Hugh. “I’ve always believed she must be a descendant of that old galoot—I mean Canute, that commanded the proud wave—thus far and no farther!”

“Well, I never knew that Susanna Frink was Mr. Sinclair’s aunt. He never said much about her to me, but Carol used to laugh about a[15] family fortune that was so near and yet so far. Miss Frink is a personage, Hugh. I’ve had business dealings with her, and she prides herself on being a lady of the old school. She told me so herself. All alone in the world, and feels it, I know, for all her proud front.”

[15]

“False front probably,” put in Hugh.

“Perhaps.” Ogden smiled. “Anyway, it is dark—”

“What did I tell you!”

“And faultlessly waved, and she is straight as an arrow and slender, and she drives about in her victoria with the bay horses in the fashion of fifty years ago, scorning automobiles with her whole soul. Her bonnet ties under her chin, and her eyeglasses are attached to a black ribbon. She has personality plus. You ought to meet her.”

“Meet her!” Hugh leaned forward with a scowl of incredulous 

 Prev. P 9/179 next