“I wasn’t quite sure of the name. He’s an architect, is he?” asked Mills as he slowly buttoned his coat.
“Yes; I met him at the Freemans’ and had him for lunch at the club. Freeman is keen about him.”
“He’s rather an impressive-looking fellow,” Mills replied. “Expects to live here, does he?”
“Yes. He has no relatives here; just thought the town offered a good opening. His home was somewhere in Ohio, I think.”
“Yes; I believe I heard that,” Mills replied carelessly. “You have your car with you?”
“Yes; the runabout. I’ll skip home and dress and drive over with Connie. We’re going to the Claytons’ later.”
When they reached the street Shepherd ordered up his father’s limousine and saw him into it, and waved his hand as it rolled away. As he turned to seek his own car the smile faded from his face. It was not merely that his father had refused to permit the building of the clubhouse, but that the matter had been brushed aside quite as a parent rejects some absurd proposal of an unreasoning child. He strode along with the quick steps compelled by his short stature, smarting under what he believed to be an injustice, and ashamed of himself for not having combated the objections his father had raised. The loss of shrubs or trees was nothing when weighed against the happiness of the people who had enjoyed the use of the farm. He thought now of many things that he might have said in defence of his proposition; but he had never been able to hold his own in debate with his father. His face burned with humiliation. He regretted that within an hour he was to see his father again.
II
The interior of Franklin Mills’s house was not so forbidding as Henderson had hinted in his talk with Bruce. It was really a very handsomely furnished, comfortable establishment that bore the marks of a sound if rather austere taste. The house had been built in the last years of Mrs. Mills’s life, and if a distinctly feminine note was lacking in its appointments, this was due to changes made by Mills in keeping with the later tendency in interior decoration toward the elimination of nonessentials.
It was only a polite pretense that Leila kept house for her father. Her inclinations were decidedly not domestic, and Mills employed and directed the servants, ordered the meals, kept track of expenditures and household bills, and paid them through his office. He liked formality and chose well-trained servants capable of conforming to his wishes in this respect. The library on the second floor was Mills’s favorite lounging place. Here were books indicative of the cultivated and catholic taste of the owner, and above the shelves were ranged the family portraits, a considerable array of them, preserving the countenances of his progenitors. Throughout the house there were pictures, chiefly representative work of contemporary French and American artists. When Mills got tired of a picture or saw a chance to buy a better one by the same painter, he sold or gave away the discard. He knew the contents of his house from cellar to garret—roved over it a good deal in his many lonely hours.