I
On a Sunday afternoon a fortnight later Bruce, having been reproved by Dale Freeman for his recent neglect of her, drove to the architect’s house. He had hoped to see Millicent there and was disappointed not to find her.
“You expected to see someone in particular!” said Dale. “I can tell by the roving look in your eye.”
“I was merely resenting the presence of these other people. My eyes are for you alone!”
“What a satisfactory boy you are! But it was Millicent, wasn’t it?”
“Lady, lady! You’re positively psychic! Do you also tell fortunes?”
“It’s easy to tell yours! I see a beautiful blonde in your life! Sorry I can’t produce Millie today. She’s not crazy about my Sunday parties; she hates a crowd. I must arrange something small for you two. You must meet that girl who just came in alone—the one in the enchanting black gown. She’s a Miss Abrams, a Jewess, very cultivated—lovely voice.”
The rooms were soon crowded. Bruce was still talking to Miss Abrams when he caught sight of Shepherd and Constance Mills, who had drifted in with Fred Thomas. A young man with a flowing tie and melancholy dark eyes claimed Miss Abrams’s attention and Bruce turned to find Shepherd at his elbow.
“Just the man I wanted to see!” Shepherd exclaimed. “Let’s find a place where we can talk.”
“Not so easy to find!” said Bruce. However, he led the way to Freeman’s den, which had not been invaded, wondering what Franklin Mills’s son could have to say to him.
“Do pardon me for cornering you this way,” Shepherd began. “I looked for you several days at the club, but you didn’t show up.”
“I’ve been too busy to go up there for luncheon,” Bruce replied. “You could always get track of me at the office.”
“Yes, but this was—is—rather confidential for the present.” Shepherd, clasping and unclasping his hands in an attempt to gain composure, now bent forward in his chair and addressed Bruce with a businesslike air. “What I want to talk to you about is that clubhouse for our workmen. You know I mentioned it some time ago?”
“Yes; I remember,” Bruce replied, surprised that Shepherd still had the matter on his mind.
“It’s troubled me a good deal,” said Shepherd, with the earnestness that always increased his stammering. “I’ve felt that there’s a duty—a real duty and an opportunity there. You know how it is when you get a thing in your head you can’t get rid of—can’t argue yourself out of?”
“Those perplexities are annoying. I’d assumed that you’d given the thing up.”
“Well, I thought I had! But I’m determined now to go on. There’s a piece of land I can get that’s just the thing. That neighborhood is so isolated—the people have no amusements unless they come to town. I’d like to go ahead so they can have some use of the house this winter.”
Bruce nodded his sympathy with the idea.
“Now since I talked with you I’ve found some pictures of such houses. I’ve got ’em here.” He drew from his pocket some pages torn from magazines. “I think we might spend a little more money than I thought at first would be available. We might go thirty thousand to get about what’s in this house I’ve marked with a pencil.”
Bruce scrutinized the pictures and glanced over the explanatory text.
“The idea seems to be well worked out. There are many such clubhouses scattered over the country. You’d want the reading room and the play room for children and all those features?”
“Yes; and I like the idea of a comfortable sitting-room where the women can gather and do their sewing and that sort of thing. And I’d like you to do this for me—begin getting up the plans right away.”
Shepherd’s tone was eager; his eyes were bright with excitement.
“But, Mr. Mills, I can hardly do that! I’m really only a subordinate in Mr. Freeman’s office. It would be hardly square for me to take the commission—at least not without his consent.”
Shepherd, who had not thought of this, frowned in his perplexity. Since his talk with Constance he had been anxious to get the work started before his father heard of it; and he had been hoping to run into Bruce somewhere to avoid visiting Freeman’s office. He felt that if he had an architect who sympathized with the idea everything would be simplified. His father and Freeman met frequently, and Freeman, blunt and direct, was not a man who would connive at the construction of a building, in which presumably Franklin Mills was interested, without Mills’s knowledge.
His sensitive face so clearly indicated his disappointment that Bruce, not knowing what lay behind this unexpected revival of the clubhouse plan, said, with every wish to be kind:
“Very likely Mr. Freeman would be glad to let me do the work—but I’d rather you asked him. I’d hate to have him think I was going behind his back to take a job. You can understand how I’d feel about it.”
“I hadn’t thought of that at all!” said Shepherd sincerely. “And of course I respect your feeling.” Then with a little toss of the head and a gesture that expressed his desire to be entirely frank, he added: “You understand I’m doing this on my own hook. I think I told you my father thought it unwise for the battery company to do it. But I’m going ahead on my own responsibility—with my own money.”
“I see,” said Bruce. “It’s fine of you to want to do it.”
“I’ve got to do it!” said Shepherd, slapping his hand on his knee. “And of course my father and the company being out of it, it’s no one’s concern but my own!”
The door was open. Connie Mills’s laugh for a moment rose above the blur of talk in the adjoining rooms. Shepherd’s head lifted and his lips tightened as though he gained confidence from his wife’s propinquity. Mrs. Freeman appeared at the door, demanding to know if they wanted tea, and noting their absorption withdrew without waiting for an answer.
It was clear enough that Shepherd meant to put the scheme through without his father’s consent, even in defiance of his wishes. The idea had become an obsession with the young man; but his sincere wish to promote the comfort and happiness of his employees spoke for so kind and generous a nature that Bruce shrank from wounding him. Seeing Bruce hesitate, Shepherd began to explain the sale of his trust stock to obtain the money, which only increased Bruce’s determination to have nothing to do with the matter.
“Why don’t you take it up with Mr. Carroll?” Bruce suggested. “He might win your father over to your side.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that! Carroll, you know, is bound to take father’s view of things. Father will be all right about it when it’s all done. Of course after the work starts he’ll know, so it won’t be a secret long. I’m going ahead as a little joke on him. I think he’ll be tickled to know I’ve got so much initiative!”
He laughed in his quick, eager way, hoping that he had made this convincing. Bruce, from his observation of Franklin Mills, was not so sanguine as to the outcome. Mills would undoubtedly be very angry. On the face of it he would have a right to be. And one instinctively felt like shielding Shepherd Mills from his own folly.
“If you really want my advice,” said Bruce after a moment’s deliberation, “I’d take a little more time to this. Before you could get your plans we’ll be having rough weather. I’d wait till spring, when you can develop your grounds and complete the whole thing at once. And it would be just as well to look around a bit—visit other cities and get the newest ideas.”
“You think that? I supposed there’d be time to get the foundations in if I started right away.”
“I wouldn’t risk it; in fact I think it would be a serious mistake.”
“Well, you are probably right,” assented Shepherd, though reluctantly, and there was a plaintive note in his voice. “Thanks ever so much. I guess I’ll take your advice. I’ll let it go till spring.”
“Damon and Pythias couldn’t look more brotherly!” Constance Mills stood at the doorway viewing them with her languid smile. “It peeves me a good deal, Mr. Storrs, that you prefer my husband’s society to mine.”
“This is business, Connie,” Shepherd said. “We’ve just finished.”
“Let’s say the party is just beginning,” said Bruce. “I was just coming out to look you up.”
“I can’t believe it! But Leila just telephoned for us to come out to Deer Trail and bring any of Dale’s crowd who look amusing. That includes you, of course, Mr. Storrs. Everyone’s gone but Helen Torrence and Fred Thomas and Arthur Carroll. Mr. Mills is at the farm; it’s a fad of his to have Sunday supper in the country. Leila hates it and sent out an S. O. S., so we can’t desert her. No, Mr. Storrs, you can’t duck! Millicent is there—that may add to the attractions!”
This with a meaningful glance at Bruce prompted him to say that Miss Harden’s presence hardly diminished the attractions of the farm. There was real comedy in his inability to extricate himself from the net in which he constantly found himself enmeshed with the members of the house of Mills.
In discussing who had a car and who hadn’t, Freeman said his machine was working badly, to which Shepherd replied that there was plenty of room in his limousine for the Freemans and any others who were carless.
“Mr. Storrs will want to take his car,” said Constance. “He oughtn’t really to drive out alone——”
“Not alone, certainly not!” Bruce replied. “I shall be honored if you will drive with me!”