He stood to receive her good-night kiss. When he heard her door close he took several turns across the room before resuming his cigar. He sat down in the chair in which he had sat the night he brought Bruce into the house. Magazines and books were within easy reach of his hand, but he was not in a mood to read. He lifted his eyes occasionally to the portrait of his father on the opposite wall. It might have seemed that he tried to avoid it, averting his gaze to escape the frank, steady eyes. But always the fine face drew him back. When he got up finally and walked to the door it was with a hurried step as if the room or his meditations had suddenly become intolerable.
CHAPTER NINE
I
The morning after his dinner party Franklin Mills rose at eight o’clock. He had slept badly, an unusual thing with him, and he found little satisfaction in an attempt to account for his wakefulness on the score of something he had eaten. As he shaved he found that he was not performing the familiar rite automatically as usual. He tried a succession of blades and became impatient when they failed to work with their usual smoothness.... Perhaps he was smoking too much, and he made a computation of the number of cigars and cigarettes he had smoked the day before, and decided that he had exceeded his usual allowance by a couple of cigars.
The mental exercise necessary to reach this conclusion steadied him. He had no intention of breaking, as some of his friends and contemporaries had broken, from sheer inattention to the laws of health. He attained a degree of buoyancy as he dressed by thinking of his immunity from the cares that beset most men. No other man in town enjoyed anything like his freedom. He had not dreaded age because he never thought of himself as old. And yet the years were passing.
He must study means of deferring old age. Marriage might serve to retard the march of time. The possibility of remarrying had frequently of late teased his imagination. Leila would leave him one of these days; he must have a care that she married well. Mills had plans for Carroll’s future; Carroll would be a most acceptable son-in-law. Leila had so far shown no interest in the secretary, but Leila had the Mills common sense; when it came to marrying, Leila would listen to reason.
He called his man to serve breakfast in his room, read the morning paper, inspected his wardrobe and indicated several suits to be pressed.
From his south window he viewed the Harden house across the hedge. Millicent was somewhere within.... It might be a mistake to marry a girl as young as Millicent. He knew of men who had made that mistake, but Millicent was not to be measured by ordinary standards. With all the charm of youth, she was amazingly mature; not a feather-brained girl who would marry him for his money. There was the question of her family, her lack of social background; but possibly he magnified the importance of such things. His own standing, he argued, gave him certain rights; he could suffer nothing in loss of dignity by marrying Millicent. It gave a man the appearance of youth to be seen with a young wife. Helen Torrence would not do; she lacked the essential dignity, and her background was far too sketchy—no better than the Hardens’. He had settled that....
The remembrance of the young architect’s head superimposed upon the portrait of Franklin Mills III caused him an uneasiness which he was not able to dispel by a snap of the fingers. Any attempt to learn what had prompted Storrs to choose for his residence the city so long sacred to the Mills family might easily arouse suspicions. The portrait in itself was a menace. People were such fools about noting resemblances! If his sister, Alice Thornberry, met Storrs she might remark upon his resemblance to their father. And yet she was just as likely to note the removal of the picture if he relegated it to the attic....
By the time he had interviewed the house servants and driven to the office Mills had passed through various moods ranging from his habitual serenity and poise to apprehension and foreboding. This puzzled him. Why should he, the most equable of men, suddenly fall a prey to moods? He put on a pair of library glasses that he kept in his desk, though he usually employed a pince-nez at the office—a departure that puzzled Carroll, who did not know that Mills, in the deep preoccupation of the morning, had left his pocket case at home. Mills, in normal circumstances, was not given to forgetfulness. Aware that something was amiss, Carroll made such reports and suggestions as were necessary with more than his usual economy of words.