He was conscious once more of Mills’s intent scrutiny. It seemed to him as he walked away that Mills’s eyes followed him.
“What’s the matter, old top?” Bud demanded. “You’re not tired?”
“No; I’m all right,” Bruce replied, though his heart was pounding hard; and feeling a little giddy, he laid his hand on Henderson’s arm.
CHAPTER FIVE
I
Franklin Mills stood by one of the broad windows in his private office gazing across the smoky industrial district of his native city. With his hands thrust into his trousers’ pockets, he was a picture of negligent ease. His face was singularly free of the markings of time. His thick, neatly trimmed hair with its even intermixture of white added to his look of distinction. His business suit of dark blue with an obscure green stripe was evidently a recent creation of his tailor, and a wing collar with a neatly tied polka-dot cravat contributed further to the impression he gave of a man who had a care for his appearance. The gray eyes that looked out over the city narrowed occasionally as some object roused his attention—a freight train crawling on the outskirts or some disturbance in the street below. Then he would resume his reverie as though enjoying his sense of immunity from the fret and jar of the world about him.
Bruce Storrs. The name of the young man he had met at the Country Club lingered disturbingly in his memory. He had heard someone ask that night where Storrs came from, and Bud Henderson, his sponsor, had been ready with the answer, “Laconia, Ohio.” Mills had been afraid to ask the question himself. Long-closed doors swung open slowly along the dim corridor of memory and phantom shapes emerged—among them a figure Franklin Mills recognized as himself. Swiftly he computed the number of years that had passed since, in his young manhood, he had spent a summer in the pleasant little town, sent there by his father to act as auditor of a manufacturing concern in which Franklin Mills III for a time owned an interest. Marian Storrs was a lovely young being—vivacious, daring, already indifferent to the man to whom she had been married two years.... He had been a beast to take advantage of her, to accept all that she had yielded to him with a completeness and passion that touched him poignantly now as she lived again in his memory.... Was this young man, Bruce Storrs, her son? He was a splendid specimen, distinctly handsome, with the air of breeding that Mills valued. He turned from the window and walked idly about the room, only to return to his contemplation of the hazy distances.
The respect of his fellow man, one could see, meant much to him. He was Franklin Mills, the fourth of the name in succession in the Mid-western city, enjoying an unassailable social position and able to command more cash at a given moment than any other man in the community. Nothing was so precious to Franklin Mills as his peace of mind, and here was a problem that might forever menace that peace. The hope that the young man himself knew nothing did not abate the hateful, hideous question ... was he John Storrs’s son or his own? Surely Marian Storrs could not have told the boy of that old episode....
Nearly every piece of property in the city’s original mile square had at some time belonged to a Mills. The earlier men of the name had been prominent in public affairs, but he had never been interested in politics and he never served on those bothersome committees that promote noble causes and pursue the public with subscription papers. When Franklin Mills gave he gave liberally, but he preferred to make his contributions unsolicited. It pleased him to be represented at the State Fair with cattle and saddle horses from Deer Trail Farm. Like his father and grandfather, he kept in touch with the soil, and his farm, fifteen miles from his office, was a show place; his Jersey herd enjoyed a wide reputation. The farm was as perfectly managed as his house and office. Its carefully tended fields, his flocks and herds and the dignified Southern Colonial house were but another advertisement of his substantial character and the century-long identification of his name with the State.
His private office was so furnished as to look as little as possible like a place for the transaction of business. There were easy lounging chairs, a long leathern couch, a bookcase, a taboret with cigars and cigarettes. The flat-top desk, placed between two windows, contained nothing but an immaculate blotter and a silver desk set that evidently enjoyed frequent burnishing. It was possible for him to come and go without traversing the other rooms of the suite. Visitors who passed the office boy’s inspection and satisfied a prim stenographer that their errands were not frivolous found themselves in communication with Arthur Carroll, Mills’s secretary, a young man of thirty-five, trained as a lawyer, who spoke for his employer in all matters not demanding decisions of first importance. Carroll was not only Mills’s confidential man of business, but when necessary he performed the duties of social secretary. He was tactful, socially in demand as an eligible bachelor, and endowed with a genius for collecting information that greatly assisted Mills in keeping in touch with the affairs of the community.