Prudence Says So Part 32

"Will you kindly get back to your seat, young lady, and not interfere with my thoughts?" he reproved her sternly but with twinkling eyes. "The trouble is I have to go to Fort Madison on the noon train for that Epworth League convention. I'd like to see that boy. Andy's done well, I guess. I've always heard so. He's a millionaire, they say."

For a long second his daughters gazed at him speechlessly.

Then, "A millionaire's son," Lark faltered feebly.

"Yes."

"Why on earth didn't you say so in the first place?" demanded Carol.

"What difference does that make?"

"It makes all the difference in the world! Ah! A millionaire's son." She looked at Lark with keen speculative eyes. "Good-looking, I suppose, young, of course, and impressionable. A millionaire's son."

"But I have to go to Fort Madison. I am on the program to-night. There's the puzzle."

"Oh, father, you can leave him to us," volunteered Lark.

"I'm afraid you mightn't carry it off well. You're so likely to run by fits and jumps, you know. I should hate it if things went badly."

"Oh, father, things couldn't go badly," protested Carol. "We'll be lovely, just lovely. A millionaire's son! Oh, yes, daddy, you can trust him to us all right."

At last he caught the drift of their enthusiasm. "Ah! I see! That fatal charm. You're sure you'll treat him nicely?"

"Oh, yes, father, so sure. A millionaire's son. We've never even seen one yet."

"Now look here, girls, fix the house up and carry it off the best you can. I have a lot of old friends in Cleveland, and I want them to think I've got the dandiest little family on earth."

"'Dandiest'! Father, you will forget yourself in the pulpit some day,--you surely will. And when we take such pains with you, too, I can't understand where you get it! The people you a.s.sociate with, I suppose."

"Do your best, girls. I'm hoping for a good report. I'll be gone until the end of the week, since I'm on for the last night, too. Will you do your best?"

After his departure, Carol gathered the family forces about her without a moment's delay.

"A millionaire's son," she prefaced her remarks, and as she had expected, was rewarded with immediate attention. "Now, for darling father's sake, we've got to manage this thing the very best we can. We have to make this Andy Hedges, Millionaire's Son, think we're just about all right, for father's sake. We must have a gorgeous dinner, to start with. We'll plan that a little later. Now I think, Aunt Grace, lovely, it would be nice for you to wear your lavender lace gown, and look delicate, don't you? A chaperoning auntie in poor health is so aristocratic. You must wear the lavender satin slippers and have a bottle of cologne to lift frequently to your sensitive nostrils."

"Why, Carol, William wouldn't like it!"

"Wouldn't like it!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the schemer in surprise. "Wouldn't like it! Why wouldn't he like it? Didn't he tell us to create a good impression? Well, this is it. You'll make a lovely semi-invalid auntie.

You must have a faintly perfumed handkerchief to press to your eyes now and then. It isn't hot enough for you slowly to wield a graceful fan, but we can get along without it."

"But, Carol--"

"Think how pleased dear father will be if his old college chum's son is properly impressed," interrupted Carol hurriedly, and proceeded at once with her plans.

"Connie must be a precocious younger sister, all in white,--she must come in late with a tennis racquet, as though she had just returned from a game. That will be stagey, won't it? Lark must be the sweet young daughter of the home. She must wear her silver mull, her gray slippers, and--"

"I can't," said Lark. "I spilt grape juice on it. And I kicked the toe out of one of my slippers."

"You'll have to wear mine then. Fortunately that silver mull was always too tight for me and I never comported myself in it with freedom and destructive ease. As a consequence, it is fresh and charming. You must arrange your hair in the most _Ladies' Home Journal_ style, and--"

"What are you going to wear?"

"Who, me? Oh, I have other plans for myself." Carol looked rather uneasily at her aunt. "I'll come to me a little later."

"Yes, indeed," said Connie. "Carol has something extra up her sleeve.

She's had the millionaire's son in her mind's eye ever since father introduced his pocketbook into the conversation."

Carol was unabashed. "My interest is solely from a family view-point. I have no ulterior motive."

Her eyes sparkled eagerly. "You know, auntie darling--"

"Now, Carol, don't you suggest anything--"

"Oh, no indeed, dearest, how could you think of such a thing?"

disclaimed Carol instantly. "It's such a very tiny thing, but it will mean a whole lot on the general impression of a millionaire's son. We've simply got to have a maid! To open the door, and curtesy, and take his hat, and serve the dinner, and--He's used to it, you know, and if we haven't one, he'll go back to Cleveland and say, 'Ah, bah Jove, I had to hang up my own hat, don't you know?'"

"That's supposed to be English, but I don't believe it. Anyhow, it isn't Cleveland," said Connie flatly.

"Well, he'd think we were awfully cheap and hard up, and Andy Hedges, Senior, would pity father, and maybe send him ten dollars, and--no, we've got to have a maid!"

"We might get Mamie Sickey," suggested Lark.

"She's so ugly."

"Or Fay Greer," interposed Aunt Grace.

"She'd spill the soup."

"Then there's n.o.body but Ada Lone," decided Connie.

"She hasn't anything fit to wear," objected Carol.

"Of whom were you thinking, Carol?" asked her aunt, moving uneasily in her chair.

Carol flung herself at her aunt's knees. "Me!" she cried.

"As usual?" Connie e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed dryly.

"Oh, Carol," wailed Lark, "we can't think of things to talk about when you aren't there to keep us stirred up."

"I'm beginning to see daylight," said Connie. She looked speculatively at Lark. "Well, it's not half bad, Carol, and I apologize."

"Don't you think it is a glorious idea, Connie?" cried Carol rapturously.

"Yes, I think it is."

Carol caught her sister's hand. Here was an ally worth having. "You know how sensible Connie is, auntie. She sees how utterly preposterous it would be to think of entertaining a millionaire's son without a maid."

"You're too pretty," protested Lark. "He'd try to kiss you."