Part 106

"Did you always send back the money spent by persons you hypnotized to conduct you through the different countries?"

"No. That was different. I--don't exactly know why, but it was. And you needn't look at me so queerly. I've never done anything to be ashamed of."

"I'd knock the person down who suggested that you had," said I. "I was looking at you because I was thinking you more marvelous than ever. You hypnotize me. You hypnotize everybody. I suppose you hypnotized the editor into giving you your job?"

"Perhaps I did," she laughed. "Often I can get people to do things for me--big things--if I want them to very much."

"You could get me to do anything!" I exclaimed. "You're a witch, and what's more, I believe you're a beauty. Great Scott! How you grow on one! Can this be why--because you are You--that in my heart of hearts I don't care a rap if Nell and Phyllis are engaged to others? I wonder if my instinct saw under the gray hair and blue glasses? Look here, are you Miss or Mrs. Mary Milton? and if you're Mrs., are you a widow, grass, or otherwise?"

She laughed. "Why, how old do you take me to be? As an aunt, my official age was over forty. But Miss Mary Milton isn't much more than half Lady MacNairne's age. It's as good to throw off the years as the wig and the spectacles. I'm only twenty-three. I haven't had time to marry yet, thank goodness!"

"Thank goodness!" I echoed. "And thank goodness for You as you are. You seem to me perfect."

"But I should never have done like this, for an aunt."

"Certainly not. But to think I should have been wasting you all this time as a mere aunt!"

"I wasn't wasted. I saved you lots of things--if I didn't save you money. Really, I did earn my salary--though you often thought me officious."

"Never!"

"Not when I kept you from proposing to Nell Van Buren?"

"That was a blessing in disguise."

"Like myself. But truly, I only did it to spare you humiliation in the end. I knew all along that she was in love with Rudolph Brederode--though perhaps she wouldn't have found it out so soon if it hadn't been for me."

"You've been our good genius all round," said I. "And I owe you----"

"Now, don't offer me more rewards! It was fun wheedling things from you at first; but bribes have been getting on my nerves lately. The play was played out."

"Let's pretend it was only a curtain-raiser," I suggested. "I'd like you to be 'on' in the next piece, in the leading part. Mary Milton! What a delicious name! And you're delicious! It's a great comfort to understand why I was never really in love with either of those Angels. You are not an angel--but I'm going to be madly in love with you. I feel it coming on. I shall adore you."

"Nonsense! A man mustn't be in love with his aunt."

"I strip you of your aunthood. But I can't give you up to The Meteor. If you go to America, you must personally conduct Ronald Lester Starr. You oughtn't to mind. You're used to looking after him."

I took a step toward her; but she stooped down and framed the ugly pansy of Tibe's face between her little hands.

"Tibe, what do you say to him?" she asked.

Tibe wagged his tail.

While he was wagging, the others came in. Their looks of radiant new happiness changed to surprise at sight of my companion. In spite of the dress nobody recognized the pretty girl with the wonderful eyes and crisp masses of sparkling auburn hair.

Yesterday I would have sacrificed anything, up to Tibe himself, to avoid explanations, but now I enjoyed them.

Everybody laughed and exclaimed (except Robert), and Brederode helped me out so nobly that I would have given him Nell with my own hand if she had not already made him that present.

"It's like one of Nell's stories," cried Phyllis. "Only she used to love to make hers end sadly."

"I should have died if this had ended sadly," Nell said frankly, holding out both hands to Brederode, with a lovely look in her eyes.

"So should I, I'm sure," said Phyllis. "Oh, isn't it glorious that we all adore each other so!"