“Yes, father.”
“It’s about Leila”—he hesitated—“a little bit about Constance, too. I’m not altogether easy about Leila. I mean”—he paused again—“as to Connie’s influence over your sister. Connie is enough older to realize that Leila needs a little curbing as to things I can’t talk to her about as a woman could. Leila doesn’t need to be encouraged in extravagance. And she likes running about well enough without being led into things she might better let alone. I’m not criticizing Connie’s friends, but you do have at your house people I’d rather Leila didn’t know—at least not to be intimate with them. As a concrete example, I don’t care for this fellow Thomas. To be frank, I’ve made some inquiries about him and he’s hardly the sort of person you’d care for your sister to run around with.”
Shepherd, blinking under this succession of direct statements, felt that some comment was required.
“Of course, father, Connie wouldn’t take up anyone she didn’t think perfectly all right. And she’d never put any undesirable acquaintances in Leila’s way. She’s too fond of Leila and too deeply interested in her happiness for that.”
“I wasn’t intimating that Connie was consciously influencing Leila in a wrong way in that particular instance. But Leila is very impressionable. So far I’ve been able to eliminate young men I haven’t liked. I’m merely asking your cooperation, and Connie’s, in protecting her. She’s very headstrong and rather disposed to take advantage of our position by running a little wild. Our friends no doubt make allowances, but people outside our circle may not be so tolerant.”
“Yes, that’s all perfectly true, father,” Shepherd assented, relieved and not a little pleased that his father appeared to be criticizing him less than asking his assistance.
“For another thing,” Mills went on. “Leila has somehow got into the habit of drinking. Several times I’ve seen her when she’d had too much. That sort of thing won’t do!”
“Of course not! But I’m sure Connie hasn’t been encouraging Leila to drink. She and I both have talked to her about that. I hoped she’d stop it before you found it out.”
“Don’t ever get the idea that I don’t know what’s going on!” Mills retorted tartly. “Another thing I want to speak of is Connie’s way of getting Leila to back her schemes—things like that summer place, for example. We don’t need a summer place. The idea that you can’t have a proper vacation is all rubbish. I urged you all summer to take Connie East for a month.”
“I know you did. It was my own fault I didn’t go. Please don’t think we’re complaining; Connie and I get a lot of fun just motoring. And when you’re at the farm we enjoy running out there. I think, Father, that sometimes you’re not—not—quite just to Connie.”