When they had gone upstairs to the library for coffee, Leila lighted a
cigarette and proceeded to open some letters that had been placed on a
small desk kept in the room for her benefit. She perched herself on the
desk and read aloud, between whiffs of her cigarette, snatches of news
from a letter. Shepherd handed her a cup and she stirred her coffee,
the cigarette hanging from her lip. Constance feigned not to notice
a shadow of annoyance on her father-in-law’s face as Leila, her legs
dangling, occasionally kicked the desk frame with her heels.
“By the way, Leila,” said Constance, “the Nelsons want to sell their
place at Harbor Hills. They haven’t been there for several years, you
know. It’s one of the best locations anywhere in Michigan. It would
solve the eternal summer problem for all of us--so accessible and a
marvelous view--and you could have all the water sports you wanted. And
they say the new clubhouse is a perfect dream.”
Shepherd Mills’s cup tottered in its saucer with a sharp staccato. He
had warned his wife not to broach the matter of purchasing the northern
Michigan cottage, which she had threatened to do for some time and had
discussed with Leila in the hope of enlisting her as an ally for an
effective assault upon Mills.
“It’s a peach of a place, all right,” Leila remarked. “I wonder if the
yacht goes with the house. I believe I could use that yacht. Really,
Dada, we ought to have a regular summer place. I’m fed up on rented
cottages. If we had a house like the Nelsons’ we could all use it.”
She had promised Constance to support the idea, but her sister-in-law
had taken her off guard and she was aware that she hadn’t met the
situation with quite the enthusiasm it demanded. Mills was lighting a
cigar in his usual unhurried fashion. He knew that Constance was in the
habit of using Leila as an advocate when she wanted him to do something
extraordinary, and Leila, to his secret delight, usually betrayed the
source of her inspiration.
“What do the Nelsons want for the property?” he asked, settling himself
back in his chair.
“I suppose the yacht isn’t included,” Constance answered. “They’re
asking seventy thousand for the house, and there’s a lot of land, you
know. The Nelsons live in Detroit and it would be easy to get the
details.”
“You said yourself it was a beautiful place when you were there last
summer,” Leila resumed, groping in her memory for the reasons with
which Constance had fortified her for urging the purchase. “And
the golf course up there is a wonder, and the whole place is very
exclusive--only the nicest people.”
“I thought you preferred the northeast coast,” her father replied.
“What’s sent you back to fresh water?”
“Oh, Dada, I just have to change my mind sometimes! If I kept the same
idea very long it would turn bad--like an egg.”
Constance, irritated by Leila’s perfunctory espousal of the proposed
investment, tried to signal for silence. But Leila, having undertaken
to implant in her father’s mind the desirability of acquiring the
cottage at Harbor Hills, was unwilling to drop the subject.
“Poor old Shep never gets any vacation to amount to anything. If we had
a place in Michigan he could go up every week-end and get a breath of
air. We all of us could have a perfectly grand time.”
“Who’s all?” demanded her father. “You’d want to run a select boarding
house, would you?”
“Well, not exactly. But Connie and I could open the place early and
stay late, and we’d hope you’d be with us all the time, and Shep,
whenever he could get away.”
“Shep, I think this is only a scheme to shake you and me for the
summer. Connie and Leila are trying to put something over on us. And of
course we can’t stand for any such thing.”
“Of course, Father, the upkeep of such a place is considerable,”
Shepherd replied conciliatingly.
“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.”
“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.”
“Not just to her!” exclaimed Mills, with a lifting of the brows. “In
what way have I been unjust to her?”
Shepherd knew that his remark was unfortunate before it was out of
his mouth. He should have followed his habit of assenting to what his
father said without broadening the field of discussion. He was taken
aback by his father’s question, uttered with what was, for Franklin
Mills, an unusual display of asperity.
“I only meant,” Shepherd replied hastily, “that you don’t always”--he
frowned--“you don’t quite give Connie credit for her fine qualities.”
“Quite the contrary,” Mills replied. “My only concern as her
father-in-law is that she shall continue to display those qualities.
I realize that she’s a popular young woman, but in a way you pay for
that, and I stand for it and make it possible for you to spend the
money. Now don’t jump to the conclusion that I’m intimating that you
and Connie wouldn’t have just as many friends if you spent a tenth of
what you’re spending now. Be it far from me, my boy, to discredit your
value and Connie’s as social factors!”
Mills laughed to relieve the remark of any suspicion of irony. There
was nothing Shepherd dreaded so much as his father’s ironies. The dread
was the greater because there was always a disturbing uncertainty as to
what they concealed.
“About those little matters I mentioned,” Mills went on, “I count on
you to help.”
“Certainly, father. Connie and I both will do all we can. I’m glad you
spoke to me about it.”
“All right, Shep,” and Mills opened the door to mark the end of the
interview.