“Yes; quite as much as a town house, and you’d never use it more than two or three months a year. By the way, Connie, do you know those Cincinnati Marvins Leila and I met up there?”
Connie knew that her father-in-law had, with characteristic deftness, disposed of the Harbor Hills house as effectually as though he had roared a refusal. Shepherd, still smarting under the rejection of his plan for giving his workmen a clubhouse, marveled at the suavity with which his father eluded proposals that did not impress him favorably. He wondered at times whether his father was not in some degree a superman who in his judgments and actions exercised a Jovian supremacy over the rest of mankind. Leila, finding herself bored by her father’s talk with Constance about the Marvins, sprang from the table, stretched herself lazily and said she guessed she would go and dress.
When she reached the door she turned toward him with mischief in her eyes. “What are you up to tonight, Dada? You might stroll over and see Millie! The Claytons didn’t ask her to their party.”
“Thanks for the hint, dear,” Mills replied with a tinge of irony.
“I think I’ll go with you,” said Constance, as Leila impudently kissed her fingers to her father and turned toward her room. “Whistle for me at eight-thirty, Shep.”
Both men rose as the young women left the room—Franklin Mills was punctilious in all the niceties of good manners—but before resuming his seat he closed the door. There was something ominous in this, and Shepherd nervously lighted a cigarette. He covertly glanced at his watch to fix in his mind the amount of time he must remain with his father before Constance returned. He loved and admired his wife and he envied her the ease with which she ignored or surmounted difficulties.
Connie made mistakes in dealing with her father-in-law and Shepherd was aware of this, but his own errors in this respect only served to strengthen his reliance on the understanding and sympathy of his wife, who was an adept in concealing disappointment and discomfiture. When Shepherd was disposed to complain of his father, Connie was always consoling. She would say:
“You’re altogether too sensitive, Shep. It’s an old trick of fathers to treat their sons as though they were still boys. Your father can’t realize that you’re grown up. But he knows you stick to your job and that you’re anxious to please him. I suppose he thought you’d grow up to be just like himself; but you’re not, so it’s up to him to take you as the pretty fine boy you are. You’re the steadiest young man in town and you needn’t think he doesn’t appreciate that.”
Shepherd, fortifying himself with a swift recollection of his wife’s frequent reassurances of this sort, nevertheless wished that she had not run off to gossip with Leila. However, the interview would be brief, and he played with his cigarette while he waited for his father to begin.
“There’s something I’ve wanted to talk with you about, Shep. It will take only a minute.”