“I don’t care if you don’t. It’s my business what I see in him.” Leila nervously lighted a cigarette. “Freddy’s a fine fellow; father doesn’t know a thing against him!”
“If you marry him you’ll break father’s heart,” Shepherd declared solemnly.
“His heart!” repeated Leila with fine contempt. “You needn’t think he’s going to treat me as he treats you. I won’t stand for it! How about that clubhouse you wanted to build—how about this sudden idea of taking you out of the battery business and sticking you into the trust company? You didn’t want to change, did you? He didn’t ask you if you wanted to move, did he? I’ll say he didn’t! That’s dada all over—he doesn’t ask you; he tells you! And I’m not a child to be sent to bed whenever his majesty gets peevish.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” said Constance with a despairing sigh. “You’re going to make trouble for all of us if you don’t drop Freddy!”
“You tell me not to make trouble!”
Leila’s eyes flashed her scorn of the idea and something more. Her words had the effect of bringing a deep flush to Constance’s face. Constance walked to the fire and sat down. There was no counting on Leila’s discretion; and if she eloped with Thomas the town would hum with talk about the whole Mills family.
“Now, Leila,” began Shepherd, who had not noticed his wife’s perturbation or understood the nature of the spiteful little stab that caused it. “You’d better try to square yourself with father.”
“I see myself trying! You two make me tired! Please don’t talk to me any more!”
V
She waited until Constance and Shepherd had found reading matter and were settled before the fireplace, and then with the remark that she wanted to fix her hair, went upstairs; and after closing a door noisily to allay suspicions, went cautiously down the back stairs to the telephone in the butler’s pantry. Satisfying herself by a glance through the window that her father was still at the stables, she called Thomas’s number and explained her inability to go to the Burtons’ where they had planned to meet. Happy to hear his voice, she talked quite as freely as though speaking to him face to face, and his replies over the wire soothed and comforted her....