The happy life manifestly was not to be won merely by going to church.
At the back of his mind, with all his agnosticism, he had entertained
a superstitious belief that in Christianity there was some secret of
happiness revealed to those who placed themselves receptively close
to the throne of grace. This was evidently a mistake; or at least it
was clear from the day’s experience that the boon was less easy of
attainment than he had believed.
He recalled what the rector of St. Barnabas had said to him the morning
he had gone in to inspect the Mills window--that walls do not make
the church, that the true edifice is within man’s own breast. Lindley
shouldn’t say things like that, to perplex the hearer, baffle him,
create a disagreeable uneasiness! This hint of a God whose tabernacle
is in every man’s heart was displeasing. Mills didn’t like the idea
of carrying God around with him. To grant any such premise would be
to open the way for doubts as to his omnipotence in his own world;
and Franklin Mills was not ready for that. He groped for a deity
who wouldn’t be a nuisance, like a disagreeable guest in the house,
upsetting the whole establishment! God should be a convenience, subject
to call like a doctor or a lawyer. But how could a man reach Lindley’s
God, who wasn’t in the church at all, but within man himself?
In his pondering he came back to his own family. He didn’t know
Shepherd; he didn’t know Leila. And this was all wrong. He knew
Millicent Harden better than he knew either of his children.
He had friends who were good pals with their children, and he wondered
how they managed it. Maybe it was the spirit of the age that was the
trouble. It was a common habit to fix responsibility for all the
disturbing moral and social phenomena of the time on the receding World
War, or the greed for gain, or the diminished zeal for religion. This
brought him again to God; uncomfortable--the reflection that thought in
all its circling and tangential excursions does somehow land at that
mysterious door.... Leila must be dealt with. She was much too facile
in dissimulation. He was confident that no other Mills had ever been
like that.
When they reached home he followed Leila into her room. He took the
cigarette she offered him and sat down in the low rocking chair she
pulled out for him--a befrilled feminine contrivance little to his
taste. Utterly at a loss as to how he could most effectively reprimand
her for her attempted deception and give her to understand that he
would never countenance a marriage with Thomas, he was relieved when
she took the initiative.
“I _was_ naughty, Dada!” she said. “But Freddy was going over to the
Burtons’ tonight and I had told him I’d be there--that’s all. I wasn’t
just crazy about going to the farm.”
She held a match for him, extinguished it with a flourish, and after
lighting her own cigarette dropped down on the chaise longue with
a weary little sigh. If she had remained standing or had sat down
properly in a chair, his rôle as the stern, aggrieved parent would have
been simpler. Leila was so confoundedly difficult, so completely what
he wished she was not!
“About this Thomas----” he began.
“Oh, pshaw! Don’t you bother a little tiny bit about him. I’m just
teasing him along.”
“I must say your talk over the telephone sounded pretty serious to me!”
“Oh, bunk! All the girls talk to men that way these days--it doesn’t
mean anything!”
“What’s that? You say the words you used don’t _mean_ anything?”
“Not a thing, Dada. If you’d tell a man you didn’t love him he’d be
sure to think you did!”
“A dangerous idea, I should think.”
“Oh, no! Everything’s different from what it was when you were young!”
“Yes; I’ve noticed that!” he replied drily. “But seriously, Leila, this
meeting a man--a man we know little about--at other people’s houses
won’t do! You ought to have more self-respect and dignity than that!”
“You’re making too much of it, Dada! It’s happened only two or three
times. I thought you were sore about Freddy’s coming here so much, and
I _have_ met him other places--always perfectly proper places!”
“I should hope so!” he exclaimed with his first display of spirit.
“But you can’t afford to go about with him. You’ve got to remember the
community has a right to expect the best of you. You should think of
your dear mother even if you don’t care for me!”
“Now, Dada!” She leveled her arm at him, the smoking cigarette in her
slim fingers. “Don’t be silly; you _know_ I adore you; I’ve always been
perfectly crazy about you!”
She spoke in much the same tone she would have used in approving of a
new suit of clothes he had submitted for inspection.
“Now, I have your promise----” he said, sitting up alertly in his chair.
“Promise, Dada?” she inquired, her thoughts far afield. “Oh, about
Freddy! Well, if you’ll be happier I promise you now never to marry
him. Frankly--_frankly_--I’m not going to marry anybody right away.
When I get ready I’ll probably marry Arthur if some widow doesn’t
snatch him first. But please don’t crowd me, Dada! If there _is_
anything I hate it’s being crowded!”
“Nobody’s crowding you!” he said, feeling that she was once more
eluding him.
“Then don’t push!” she laughed.
“Let’s not have any more nonsense,” he said. “I think you do a lot of
things just to annoy me. It isn’t fair!”
“Why, Dada!” she exclaimed in mock astonishment. “I thought you liked
being kidded. I kid all your old friends and it tickles ’em to death.”
“Go to bed!” he retorted, laughing in spite of himself.
She mussed his hair before kissing him good-night, but even as he
turned away he could see that her thoughts were elsewhere.