The only cloud on Mills’s horizon was his apprehension as to Leila’s
future. Mills was increasingly aware that she couldn’t be managed as
he managed Shepherd. He had gone as far as he dared in letting Carroll
know that he would be an acceptable son-in-law, and he had perhaps
intimated a little too plainly to Leila the desirability of such an
arrangement. Carroll visited the house frequently; but Leila snubbed
him outrageously. When it pleased her to accept his attentions it
was merely, Mills surmised, to allay suspicion as to her interest
elsewhere. It was his duty to see that Leila married in keeping with
her status as the daughter of the house of Mills.
In analyzing his duty with respect to Leila, it occurred to Mills
that he might have been culpable in not laying more stress upon the
merits of religion in the upbringing of Leila. She had gone to Sunday
school in her earliest youth; but churchgoing was not to her taste.
He was unable to remember when Leila had last attended church, but
never voluntarily within his recollection. She needed, he decided,
the sobering influence of religion. God, in Mills’s speculations,
was on the side of order, law and respectability. The church frowned
upon divorce; and Leila must be saved from the disgrace of marrying a
divorced man. Leila needed religion, and the idea broadened in Mills’s
mind until he saw that probably Constance and Shepherd, too, would be
safer under the protecting arm of the church.
The Sunday following Christmas seemed to Mills a fitting time for
renewing the family’s acquaintance with St. Barnabas. When he
telephoned his invitation to Constance, carefully putting it in the
form of a suggestion, he found his daughter-in-law wholly agreeable
to the idea. She and Shepherd would be glad to breakfast with him and
accompany him to divine worship. When he broached the matter to Leila
she did not explode as he had expected. She took a cigarette from her
mouth and expelled the smoke from her lungs.
“Sure, I’ll go with you, Dada,” she replied.
He had suggested nine as a conservative breakfast hour, but Constance
and Shepherd were fifteen minutes late. Leila was considerably later,
but appeared finally, after the maid had twice been dispatched to her
room. Having danced late, she was still sleepy. At the table she
insisted on scanning the society page of the morning newspaper. This
annoyed Mills, particularly when in spreading out the sheet she upset
her water glass, with resulting deplorable irrigation of the tablecloth
and a splash upon Connie’s smart morning dress that might or might not
prove permanently disfiguring. Mills hated a messy table. He also hated
criticism of food. Leila’s complaint that the scalloped sweetbreads
were too dry evoked the pertinent retort that if she hadn’t been late
they wouldn’t have been spoiled.
“I guess that’ll hold me for a little while,” she said cheerfully. “I
say, Dada, what do we get for going to church?”
“You’ll get what you need from Doctor Lindley,” Mills replied, frowning
at the butler, who was stupidly oblivious of the fact that the flame
under the percolator was threatening a general conflagration. Shepherd,
in trying to clap on the extinguisher, burned his fingers and emitted
a shrill cry of pain. All things considered, the breakfast was hardly
conducive to spiritual uplift.
It was ten minutes after eleven when the Millses reached St. Barnabas
and the party went down the aisle pursued by an usher to the chanting
of the _Venite, exultemus Domino_. The usher, caught off guard, was
guiltily conscious of having a few minutes before filled the Mills
pew with strangers in accordance with the rule that reserved seats
for their owners only until the processional. Mills, his silk hat on
his arm, had not foreseen such a predicament. He paused in perplexity
beside the ancestral pew in which five strangers were devoutly
reinforcing the chanting of the choir, happily unaware that they were
trespassers upon the property of Franklin Mills.
The courteous usher lifted his hand to indicate his mastery of the
situation and guided the Mills party in front of the chancel to seats
in the south transept. This maneuver had the effect of publishing to
the congregation the fact that Franklin Mills, his son, daughter-in-law
and daughter, were today breaking an abstinence from divine worship
which regular attendants knew to have been prolonged.
Constance, Leila and Shepherd knelt at once; Mills remained standing. A
lady behind him thrust a prayer book into his hand. In trying to find
his glasses he dropped the book, which Leila, much diverted, recovered
as she rose. This was annoying and added to Mills’s discomfiture
at being planted in the front seat of the transept where the whole
congregation could observe him at leisure.
However, by the time the proper psalms for the day had been read he had
recovered his composure and listened attentively to Doctor Lindley’s
sonorous reading of the lessons. His seat enabled him to contemplate
the Mills memorial window in the north transept, a fact which mitigated
his discomfort at being deprived of the Mills pew.
Leila stifled a yawn as the rector introduced as the preacher for the
day a missionary bishop who had spent many years in the Orient. Mills
had always been impatient of missionary work among peoples who, as
he viewed the matter, were entitled to live their lives and worship
their gods without interference by meddlesome foreigners. But the
discourse appealed strongly to his practical sense. He saw in the
schools and hospitals established by the church in China a splendid
advertisement of American good will and enterprise. Such philanthropies
were calculated to broaden the market for American trade. When Doctor
Lindley announced that the offerings for the day would go to the
visitor to assist in the building of a new hospital in his far-away
diocese, Mills found a hundred dollar bill to lay on the plate....