I
Several interviews with Freeman had resulted in an arrangement by which
Bruce was to enter the architect’s office immediately. As Henderson had
predicted, Mrs. Freeman was a real power in her husband’s affairs. She
confided to Bruce privately that, with all his talents, Bill lacked
tact in dealing with his clients and he needed someone to supply this
deficiency. And the office was a place of confusion, and Bill was prone
to forgetfulness. Bruce, Mrs. Freeman thought, could be of material
assistance in keeping Bill straight and extricating him from the
difficulties into which he constantly stumbled in his absorption in
the purely artistic side of his profession. Bruce was put to work on
tentative sketches and estimates for a residence for a man who had no
very clear idea of what he wanted nor how much he wanted to spend.
Bruce soon discovered that Freeman disliked interviews with contractors
and the general routine necessary to keep in touch with the cost of
labor and materials. When he was able to visualize and create he was
happy, but tedious calculations left him sulky and disinclined to work.
Bruce felt no such repugnance; he had a kind of instinct for such
things, and was able to carry in his head a great array of facts and
figures.
On his first free evening after meeting Millicent Harden at the Country
Club he rang the Harden doorbell, and as he waited glanced toward the
Mills’ house in the lot adjoining. He vaguely wondered whether Franklin
Mills was within its walls.
He had tried to analyze the emotions that had beset him that night when
he had taken the hand of the man he believed to be his father. There
was something cheap and vulgar in the idea that blood speaks to blood
and that possibly Mills had recognized him by some sort of intuition.
But Bruce rejected this as preposterous, a concession to the philosophy
of ignorant old women muttering scandal before a dying fire. Very
likely he had been wrong in fancying that Mills had taken any special
note of him. And there was always his mother’s assurance that Mills
didn’t know of his existence. Mills probably had the habit of eyeing
people closely; he shouldn’t have permitted himself to be troubled by
that. He was a man of large affairs, with faculties trained to the
quick inspection and appraisment of every stranger he met....
The middle-aged woman who opened the door was evidently a member of the
household and he hastily thrust into his pocket the card he had taken
out, stated his name and asked if Miss Harden was at home.
“Yes, Millie’s home. Just come in, Mr. Storrs, and I’ll call her.”
But Millicent came into the hall without waiting to be summoned.
“I’m so glad to see you, Mr. Storrs!” she said, and introduced him to
her mother, a tall, heavily built woman with reddish hair turning gray,
and a friendly countenance.
“I was just saying to Doctor Harden that I guessed nobody was coming
in tonight when you rang. You simply can’t keep a servant in to answer
the bell in the evening. You haven’t met Doctor Harden? Millie, won’t
you call your papa?”
Millicent opened a door that revealed a small, cozy sitting-room and
summoned her father--a short, thick-set man with a close-trimmed gray
beard, who came out clutching a newspaper.
“Shan’t we all go into the library?” asked Millicent after the two men
had been introduced and had expressed their approval of the prolonged
fine weather.
“You young folks make yourselves comfortable in the library,” said Mrs.
Harden. “I told Millie it was too warm for a fire, but she just has to
have the fireplace going when there’s any excuse, and this house does
get chilly in the fall evenings even when it’s warm outside.”
Harden was already retreating toward the room from which he had
been drawn to meet the caller, and his wife immediately followed.
Both repeated their expressions of pleasure at meeting Bruce; but
presumably, in the accepted fashion of American parents when their
daughters entertain callers, they had no intention of appearing again.
Millicent snapped on lights that disclosed a long, high-ceilinged room
finished in dark oak and fitted up as a library. A disintegrating log
in the broad fireplace had thrown out a puff of smoke that gave the air
a fleeting pungent scent.
The flooring was of white and black tiles covered with oriental rugs in
which the dominant dark red brought a warmth to the eye. Midway of the
room stood a grand piano, and beyond it a spiral stair led to a small
balcony on which the console of an organ was visible. Back of this was
a stained glass window depicting a knight in armor--a challenging,
militant figure. Even as revealed only by the inner illumination, its
rich colors and vigorous draughtsmanship were clearly suggested. And it
was wholly appropriate, Bruce decided, and altogether consonant with
the general scheme of the room. Noting his interest, Millicent turned
a switch that lighted the window from a room beyond with the effect of
vitalizing the knight’s figure, making him seem indeed to be gravely
riding, with lance in rest, along the wall.
“Do pardon me!” Bruce murmured, standing just inside the door and
glancing about with frank enjoyment of the room’s spaciousness. The
outer lines of the somewhat commonplace square brick house had not
prepared him for this. The room presented a mingling of periods in both
architecture and furnishing, but the blending had been admirably done.
“Forgive me for staring,” he said as he sat down on a divan opposite
her with the hearth between them. “I’m not sure even yet that I’m in
the twentieth century!”
“I suppose it is a queer jumble; but don’t blame the architect! He,
poor wretch, thought we were perfectly crazy when we started, but I
think before he got through he really liked it.”
“I envy him the fun he had doing it! But someone must have furnished
the inspiration. I’m going to assume that it was mostly you.”
“You may if you’ll go ahead and criticize--tear it all to pieces.”
“I’d as soon think of criticizing Chartres, Notre Dame, or the
hand that rounded Peter’s dome!” Bruce exclaimed. “Alas that
our acquaintance is so brief! I want to ask you all manner of
questions--how you came to do it--and all that.”
“Well, first of all one must have an indulgent father and mother. I’m
reminded occasionally that my little whims were expensive.”
“I dare say they were! But it’s something to have a daughter who can
produce a room like this.”
He rose and bowed to her, and then turning toward the knight in the
window, gravely saluted.
“I’m not so sure,” he said as he sat down, “that the gentleman up there
didn’t have something to do with it.”
“Please don’t make too much of him. Everyone pays me the compliment of
thinking him Galahad, but I think of him as the naughty Launcelot. I
read a book once on old French glass and I just had to have a window.
And the organ made this room the logical place for it. Papa calls this
my chapel and refuses to sit in it at all. He says it’s too much like
church!”
“Ah! But that’s a tribute in itself! Your father realizes that this is
a place for worship--without reference to the knight.”
She laid her forefinger against her cheek, tilted her head slightly,
mocking him with lips and eyes.
“Let me think! That was a pretty speech, but of course you’re referring
to that bronze Buddha over there. Come to think of it, papa does rather
fancy him.”
When she smilingly met his gaze he laughed and made a gesture of
despair.
“That was a nice bit of side-stepping! I’m properly rebuked. I see my
own worshiping must be done with caution. But the room is beautiful.
I’m glad to know there’s such a place in town.”
“I did have a good time planning and arranging it. But there’s nothing
remarkable about it after all. It’s merely what you might call a
refuge from reality--if that means anything.”
“It means a lot--too much for me to grasp all at once.”
“You’re making fun of me! All I meant was that I wanted a place to
escape into where I can play at being something I really am not. We all
need to do that. After all, it’s just a room.”
“Of course that’s just what it isn’t! It’s superb. I’ve already decided
to spend a lot of time here.”
“You may, if you won’t pick up little chance phrases I let fall and
frighten me with them. I have a friend--an awful highbrow--and he bores
me to death exclaiming over things I say and can’t explain and then
explaining them to me. But--why aren’t you at the Claytons’ party?”
“I wasn’t asked,” he said. “I don’t know them.”
“I know them, but I wasn’t asked,” she replied smilingly.
“Well, anyhow, it’s nicer here, I think.”
Bruce remembered what Henderson had said about the guarded social
acceptance of the patent medicine manufacturer and his family; but
Millicent evidently didn’t resent her exclusion from the Claytons’
party. Social differentiations, Bruce imagined, mattered little to
this girl, who was capable of fashioning her own manner of life, even
to the point of building a temple for herself in which to worship gods
of her own choosing. When he expressed interest in her modeling, which
Dale Freeman had praised, Millicent led the way to a door opening into
an extension of the library beyond the knight’s window, that served
her as a studio. It was only a way of amusing herself, she said,
when he admired a plaque of a child’s profile she confessed to be
her work. The studio bore traces of recent use. Damp cloths covered
several unfinished figures. There was a drawing-board in one corner
and scattered among the casts on the wall were crayon sketches, merely
notes, she explained, tacked up to preserve her impressions of faces
that had interested her.
He was struck by her freedom from pretense; when he touched on
something of which she was ignorant or about which she was indifferent,
she did not scruple to say so. Her imaginative, poetical side expressed
itself with healthy candor and frequent flashes of girlish enthusiasm.
She was wholly natural, refreshingly spontaneous in speech, with no
traces of pedantry or conceit even in discussing music, in which her
training had gone beyond the usual amateur’s bounds.
“You haven’t been to see Leila yet? She asked you to call, and if you
don’t go she’ll think it’s because of that little unpleasantness on the
river. Leila’s altogether worth while.”
Bruce muttered something about having been very busy. He had determined
never to enter Franklin Mills’s house, and he was embarrassed by
Millicent’s intimation that Leila might take it amiss that he ignored
her invitation.
“Leila’s a real person,” Millicent was saying. “Her great trouble is
in trying to adjust herself to a way of life that doesn’t suit her a
little bit.”
“You mean----” he began and paused because he didn’t know at all what
she meant.
“I mean that living in a big house and going to teas and upholding the
dignity of a prominent and wealthy family bores her to distraction. Her
chief trouble is her way of protesting against the kind of life she’s
born to. It’s screamingly funny, but Leila just hates being rich, and
she’s terribly bored at having so much expected of her as her father’s
daughter.”
“His standard, then, is so high?” Bruce ventured, curious as to what
further she might say of her neighbor.
“Oh, Mr. Mills is an interesting man, and he worships Leila; but
she worries and puzzles him. It isn’t just the difference between
age and youth----” She paused, conscious perhaps of the impropriety
of discussing her neighbor with a comparative stranger, but Bruce’s
gravely attentive face prompted her to go on. “He’s one of those people
we meet sometimes who don’t seem--how can one put it?--they don’t seem
quite at ease in the world.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “but--where all the conditions of happiness are
given--money, position, leisure to do as you please--what excuse has
anyone for not finding happiness? You’d conclude that there was some
fundamental defect----”
“And when you reach that conclusion you’re not a bit better off!” she
interrupted. “You’re back where you started. Oh, well!” she said,
satisfied now that she had said quite enough about her neighbor and
regretting that she had mentioned him at all, “it’s too bad happiness
can’t be bought as you buy records to play on a machine and have
nothing to do but wind it up and listen. You have to do a little work
yourself.”
“We’ve all got to play in the band--that’s the idea!” he laughed, and
to escape from the thought of Mills, asked her whether she ever played
for an ignorant heathen like himself.
“You’re probably a stern critic,” she replied, “but I’ll take a chance.
If you don’t mind I’ll try the organ. Papa and Mamma always like me to
play some old pieces for them before they go to bed. Afterwards I’ll
do some other things.”
In a moment she was in the balcony with the knight towering above her,
but he faded into the shadows as she turned off the lights in the
studio below. Bruce’s eyes at once became attentive to her golden head
and clearly limned profile defined by the lamp over the music rack.
She seemed suddenly infinitely remote, caught away into a world of
legendary and elusive things. The first reedy notes of the organ stole
eerily through the room as though they too were evoked from an unseen
world.
The first things she played were a concession to her parents’ taste,
but she threw into them all the sentiment they demanded--the familiar
airs of “Annie Laurie,” “Ben Bolt,” and “Auld Lang Syne.” She played
them without flourishes, probably in deference to the preferences of
the father and mother who were somewhere listening. To these she added
old revival songs--“Beulah Land,” and “Pull for the Shore”--these also
presumably favorites of the unseen auditors. He watched her aureoled
head, the graceful movement of her arms and shoulders as she gave
herself to her task with complete absorption. She was kind to these
parents of hers; possibly it was through her music that she really
communicated with them, met them on ground of their simpler knowledge
and aspirations.
He was conscious presently of the faint ring of a bell, followed by
the murmur of voices in the hall. Someone entered the room and sat
down quietly behind him. Millicent, who had paid no heed to him since
mounting to the organ, was just beginning the Tannhäuser overture. She
followed this with passages from Lohengrin and Parsifal and classical
liturgical music touched with a haunting mystery....
She came down slowly into the room as though the spell of the music
still held her.
“I shan’t say anything--it might be the wrong word,” he said as he went
to meet her. “But it was beautiful--very beautiful!”
“You were a good listener; I felt that,” she replied.
He had forgotten that there had been another listener until she
smilingly waved her hand to someone behind him.
“So I had two victims--and didn’t know it! Patient sufferers! Mr.
Mills, you and Mr. Storrs have met--I needn’t introduce you a second
time.”
It was Franklin Mills, then, exercising a neighbor’s privilege, who had
arrived in the middle of the recital and taken a seat by the door.
“Mr. Storrs is a perfect listener,” Mills was saying as he shook hands
with Bruce. “He didn’t budge all the time you were playing.”
Mills’s easy, gracious manners, the intimacy implied in his chaffing
tone as he complained that she played better when she didn’t know
he was in the house, irritated Bruce. He had been enjoying himself
so keenly, the girl’s talk had so interested him and he had been so
thrilled and lifted by her music that Mills’s appearance was like a
profanation.
They were all seated now, and Millicent spoke of a book Mills had
sent her which it happened Bruce had read, and she asked his opinion
of it before expressing her own. Very likely Mills was in the habit
of sending her books. She said that she hadn’t cared greatly for the
book--a novel that discussed the labor question. The author evidently
had no solution of his own problem and left the reader in the air as to
his purpose.
“Maybe he only meant to arouse interest--stir people up and leave the
solution to others,” Bruce suggested.
“That was the way I took it,” said Mills. “The fact is, nobody has any
solution short of a complete tearing down of everything. And that,” he
added with a smile and a shrug, “would be very uncomfortable.”
“For us--yes,” Millicent replied quickly. “But a good many of our
millions would probably welcome a chance to begin over again.”
“What with,” Mills demanded, “when everything had been smashed?”
“Oh, they’d be sure to save something out of the wreck!” Millicent
replied.
“Well,” Mills remarked, “I’m hoping the smash won’t come in my day. I’m
too old to go out with a club to fight for food against the mob.”
“You want us to say that you’re _not_ too old,” laughed Millicent; “but
we’re not going to fall into that trap!”
“But--what _is_ going to happen?” asked Bruce.
“Other civilizations!” Mills replied, regarding the young man with an
intent look. “We’ve had a succession of them, and the world’s about
due to slip back into chaos and perhaps emerge again. It’s only the
barbarians who never change; they know they’ll be on top again if they
just wait.”
“What an optimist you are!” cried Millicent. “But you don’t really
believe such things.”
“Of course I do,” Mills answered with a broad smile.
She made it necessary for Bruce to assist her in combating Mills’s
hopeless view of the future, though she bore the main burden of the
opposition herself. Mills’s manner was one of good-natured indulgence;
but Bruce was wondering whether there was not a deep vein of cynicism
in the man. Mills was clever at fencing, and some of the things he
said lightly no doubt expressed real convictions.
Bruce was about to take his leave when Mills with assumed petulance
declared that the fire had been neglected and began poking the embers.
Carefully putting the poker and tongs back in the rack, he lounged
toward the door, paused halfway and said good-night formally, bowing
first to one and then the other.
“Come in again sometime!” Millicent called after him.
“Is that impudence?” Mills replied, reappearing from the hall with his
coat and hat. In a moment the door closed and they heard the sound of
his stick on the walk outside.
“He’s always like that,” Millicent remarked after a moment of silence.
“It’s understood that he may come in when I’m playing and leave when he
pleases. Sometimes when I’m at the organ he sits for an hour without my
knowing he’s here. It made me nervous at first--just remembering that
he _might_ be here; but I got over that when I found that he really
enjoyed the playing. I’m sorry he didn’t stay longer and really talk;
he wasn’t at his best tonight.”
Bruce made the merest murmur of assent, but something in Mills’s
quizzical, mocking tone, the very manner of his entrance into the
house, affected him disagreeably.
He realized that he was staying too long for a first call, but he
lingered until they had regained the cheery note with which the evening
began, and said good night.