“He’s good to look at! Millicent says there’s a Greek-god look about him.”
“Millicent likes him?” asked Mills with an effort at indifference which did not wholly escape Leila’s vigilant eye.
“Oh, I don’t think it’s more than that. You never can tell about Millie.”
This was in Edinburgh, shortly before they sailed for home. All things considered the trip abroad had been a success. Leila had not to the best of his knowledge communicated with Thomas—she had made a point of showing him the letters she received and giving him her own letters to mail. Very likely, Mills thought, she had forgotten all about her undesirable suitor, and as a result of the change of scene and the new amity established between them, would fulfill her destiny by marrying Carroll.
II
The town house had been opened for their return, this being a special concession to Leila, who disliked Deer Trail. Mills yielded graciously, though he enjoyed Deer Trail more than any other of his possessions; but there was truth in her complaint that when he was in town all day, as frequently happened, it was unbearably lonely unless she fortified herself constantly with guests.
Mills found all his business interests prospering. Though Carroll was no longer in the office in the First National Building, the former secretary still performed the more important of his old functions in his rôle of vice-president of the trust company. Mills was not, however, to sink into his old comfortable routine without experiencing a few annoyances and disturbances. His sister, Mrs. Granville Thornberry, a childless widow, who had taken a hand in Leila’s upbringing after Mrs. Mills’s death—an experience that had left wounds on both sides that had never healed—Mrs. Thornberry had lingered in town to see him. She had become involved in a law suit by ignoring Mills’s advice, and now cheerfully cast upon him the burden of extricating her from her predicament. The joy of reminding her that she would have avoided vexatious and expensive litigation if she had heeded his counsel hardly mitigated his irritation. But for his sense of the family dignity he would have declined to have anything to do with the case.
Carroll had been present at their interview, held in Mills’s office, and when he left Mrs. Thornberry lingered. She was tall and slender, quick and incisive of speech. She absorbed all the local gossip and in spite of her wealth and status as a Mills was a good deal feared for her sharp tongue. It was a hot day and Mills’s patience had been sorely tried by her seeming inability to grasp the legal questions raised in the law suit.
“Well, Alice,” he said, with a glance at his desk clock. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes, Frank; there’s a matter I feel it my duty to speak of. You know that I never like to interfere in your affairs. After the trouble we had about Leila I thought I’d never mention your children to you again.”