Bruce was finding his association with Freeman increasingly agreeable. The architect, amusingly indifferent and careless as to small things, was delighted to find that his new subordinate was not afraid to assume responsibility and grateful that Bruce was shielding him from the constant pecking of persons who called or telephoned about trivial matters.
“By the way, Storrs, can you run into the country this afternoon?” Freeman asked. “I promised Franklin Mills I’d meet him at his farm to look at the superintendent’s house. I’ve put him off several times and now that Brookville man’s coming in to talk house and I’ve got to see him. There’s not much to do but get data and make my apologies to Mills. Mrs. Freeman just called up to say she’s going out there to ride. Mills is having a party, so he’ll get through with you quickly. I don’t want him to think me indifferent about his work. He’s been a loyal client.”
“Yes, certainly,” Bruce replied, reluctant to trouble Freeman by refusing, but not relishing another meeting with Mills.
“Everybody knows where Deer Trail is—you’ll have no trouble finding it. I think he said he’d be there by two-thirty. Listen carefully to what he says, and I’ll take the matter up with him tomorrow. Now about the specifications for that Sterling house——”
It was thus that Bruce found himself at Deer Trail Farm on the afternoon of the day that Mills was giving his riding party. Mills, with whom punctuality was a prime virtue, came down the steps in his riding clothes and good-naturedly accepted Bruce’s excuses in Freeman’s behalf.
“Freeman’s a busy man, of course, and a job like this is a good deal of a nuisance. You can get the idea just as well. Can you ride a horse?”
Bruce, whose eyes had noted with appreciation the horses that had been assembled in the driveway, said that he could.
“All right, then; we’ll ride over. It’s nearly a mile and we’ll save time.”
He let Bruce choose a horse for himself from a dozen or more thoroughbreds, watched him mount with critical but approving eyes, and they set off over a road that led back through the fields. Mills sat a horse well; he had always ridden, he explained as they traversed the well-made gravel road at a trot. Finding that Bruce knew something of the American saddle stocks, he compared various breeds, calling attention to the good points of the horses they were riding.
When they reached the superintendent’s house Bruce found that what was required was an extension that would provide the family with additional sleeping rooms. He took measurements, made notes, suggested a few difficulties, and in reply to Mills’s questions expressed his belief that the addition could be made without spoiling the appearance of the house.
“I suppose I really ought to tear it down and build a new house, but this hundred acres right here has been in my family a long time and the place has associations. I hate to destroy it.”
“I can understand that,” said Bruce, busy with his notebook. “I think I have all the data Mr. Freeman will need, sir.”
As they rode back Mills talked affably of the country; spoke of the history and traditions of the neighborhood, and the sturdy character of the pioneers who had settled the region.
“I used to think sometimes of moving East—settling somewhere around New York. But I’ve never been able to bring myself to it. This is my own country right here. Over there—you notice that timber?—well, I’ll never cut that. This whole region was forest in the early days. I’ve kept that strip of woodland as a reminder of the men who broke through the wilderness with nothing but their rifles and axes.”
“They were a great race,” Bruce remarked....
Mills called attention to a young orchard he had lately planted, and to his conservatories, where he amused himself, he said, trying to produce a new rose.
“Won’t you stay and join in the ride?” he asked as they dismounted. “I can fit you out with breeches and puttees. I’d be delighted to have you.”
“Thanks, but I must get into town,” Bruce replied.
“Well, if you must! Please don’t let Freeman go to sleep on this job!”
Bruce, glad that his duty had been performed so easily, was starting toward his car when a familiar voice hailed him from the broad pillared veranda.
“Why the hurry? Aren’t you in this party?”
He swung round to find Millicent Harden, dressed for the saddle, standing at the edge of the veranda a little apart from the animated group of Mills’s other guests. As he walked toward her she came down the steps to meet him. The towering white pillars made a fitting frame for her. Here, as in the library of her own house, the ample background served to emphasize her pictorial effectiveness. Her eyes shone with happy expectancy.
“I don’t care if you are here on business, you shouldn’t be running away! On a day like this nobody should be in town.”
“Somebody has to work in this world. How are the organ and the noble knight?”
“Both would be glad to welcome you. Leila’s growing superstitious about you; she says you’re always saving her life. Oh, she confessed everything about last night!—how you ministered to her and set her on her father’s doorstep in fine shape. And she’s going to be a good girl now. We must see that she is!”
At this moment Leila detached herself from the company on the veranda and called his attention to the fact that Mrs. Freeman was trying to bow to him. Mills, who had been discussing the fitness of one of the horses with his superintendent, announced that he was ready to start.
“I wish you were coming along,” said Leila; “there’s scads of horses. We’d all adore having you!”
“I’d adore coming!” Bruce answered. “But I’ve really got to skip.”
“I’ll tell Dada to ask you another time. Dada isn’t at all bad when you know him, is he, Millie?”
“Oh, one learns to tolerate him!” said Millicent teasingly.
“You might like driving through the farm—good road all the way from that tall elm down there,” suggested Leila, “and it takes you through our woods. The maples are putting on their pink bonnets. There’s a winding stretch over yonder that’s a little wild, but it’s interesting, and you can’t get lost. It would be a shame to dash back to town without seeing something of this gorgeous day!”
“All right, thanks; I’ll try it,” said Bruce.
With his roadster in motion he wondered dejectedly whether there was any way of remaining in the town and yet avoiding Franklin Mills and his family. But the sight of Millicent had heartened him. The glowing woodlands were brighter for his words with her. He wished he might have taken her away from Mills and his party and ridden alone with her in the golden haze of the loveliest of autumn afternoons....
Suddenly when he was beyond the Deer Trail boundaries and running along slowly he came upon a car drawn up close to the stake-and-rider fence that enclosed a strip of woodland. His quiet approach over the soft winding road had not been noted by the two occupants of the car, a man and a woman.
Two lovers, presumably, who had sought a lonely spot where they were unlikely to be observed, and Bruce was about to speed his car past them when the woman lifted her head with an involuntary cry of surprise that caused him, quite as involuntarily, to turn his gaze upon her. It was Constance Mills; her companion was George Whitford.
“Hello, there!” Whitford cried, and Bruce stopped his car and got out. “Mrs. Mills and I are out looking at the scenery. We started for the Faraway Club, but lost interest.”
“Isn’t this a heavenly day?” remarked Mrs. Mills with entire serenity. “George and I have been talking poetry—an ideal time for it!” She held up a book. “Yeats—he’s so marvelous! Where on earth are you wandering to?”
“I’ve been to Deer Trail—a little errand with Mr. Mills for my boss.”
“Oh, is Mr. Mills at the farm? What is it—a party?” she asked carelessly.
“Yes, Miss Mills, Miss Harden, Mrs. Torrence and Mrs. Freeman are there to ride—I didn’t make them all out.”
“It sounds quite gay,” she said languidly. “I’ve thought a lot about our talk yesterday. You evidently delivered Leila home without trouble. It was awfully sweet of you, I’m sure. I don’t believe we’ll go in to the farm, George. I think a crowd of people would bore me today, and we must get back to town.”
Whitford started his car, and as they moved away Constance leaned out and smiled and waved her hand. Bruce stood for a moment gazing after them, deep in thought. Constance Mills, he decided, was really a very clever woman.
After his visit to Deer Trail Farm Bruce found himself in a cynical humor with reference to his own life and the lives of the people with whom he had lately come in contact. Nothing was substantial or definite. He read prodigiously—poetry and philosophy, and the latest discussions of the problems of the time; caught in these an occasional gleam. It seemed centuries ago that he had walked in the Valley of the Shadow in France. The tragedy of war seemed as nothing weighed against the tragedy of his own life.
Why had she told him? was a question he despairingly asked himself. His mother had had no right to go out of the world leaving him to carry the burden her confession had laid upon him. Then again, with a quickening of his old affection for her, he felt that some motive, too fine and high for his understanding, had impelled her to the revelation....
He had settled himself to read one evening when Henderson, always unexpected in his manifestations of sociability, dropped in at his apartment.
“Maybelle’s at Shep Mills’s rehearsing in a new Dramatic Club show, so I romped up here hoping to catch you in. I guessed you’d be here laughing heartily all to yourself. I’ve cut the booze; honest I have. My bootlegger strolled in today, but I kissed him good-bye forever. So don’t offer me any licker; my noble resolution isn’t so strong that I mightn’t yield to a whisper from the devil.”
“You’re safe! There’s nothing stronger on the premises than a tooth wash warranted not to remove the enamel.”
Henderson picked up the book Bruce had been reading, “A World in Need of God,” and ran his eye over the chapter headings.
“‘The Unlit Lamp,’ ‘The Descent Perilous,’ ‘Untended Altars’—so you’ve got it too, have you?”
“I’ve got the book, if that’s what you mean,” Bruce replied. “I paid two dollars for it. It’s a gloomy work; no wonder the author put it out anonymously.”
“It’s a best seller,” Henderson replied mournfully as he seated himself and drew out his pipe. “The world is nervous about itself—doesn’t know whether to repent and be good or stroll right along to the fiery pit. Under my stoical exterior, Bruce, old boy, I trouble a good deal about the silly human race. That phrase, ‘The Descent Perilous,’ gives me a chill. If I’d edited that book I’d have made it ‘The Road to Hell is Easy’ and drawn a stirring picture of the universe returning to chaos to the music of jazzy bands. People seem anxious to be caught all lit up when our little planet jumps the track and runs amuck. But there really are a few imbeciles, like the chap who produced that book, who’re troubled about the whole business. We all think we’re playing comedy rôles, but if we’d just take a good square look at ourselves in the mirror we’d see that we’re made up for tragedy.”
“Lordy! Hear the boy talk! If I’d known you were coming I’d have hidden the book.”
“There’s a joke! I’ve been in several prosperous homes lately where I got a glimpse of that joyous work stuck under the sofa pillows. Everybody’s afraid to be caught with it—afraid it points to a state of panic in the purchaser. It’s the kind of thing folks read and know it’s all true, and get so low in their minds they pull the old black bottle from its hiding place and seek alcoholic oblivion.”
“I bought the thing as a matter of business. If all creation’s going to shoot the chutes I want to be prepared. It’s silly for me to get all set to build houses for people if the world’s coming to an end.”
“By Jove, when the crash comes I’m going to be stuck with a lot of Plantagenets!”
“But this chap thinks the world can be saved! He says in the mad rush to find some joy in life we’re forgetting God. The spiritual spark growing dim—all that sort of thing.”
“Um-m.” Henderson took the pipe from his mouth and peered into the bowl. “Now on this spiritual dope, I’m a sinner—chock full of sin, original and acquired. I haven’t been to church since my wedding except to a couple of funerals—relations where I couldn’t dodge the last sad rites. Cheerless, this death stuff; sort o’ brings you up with a jerk when you think of it. Most of us these days are frantically trying to forget man’s inevitable destiny by running as wild as we dare—blindfolded. It isn’t fashionable to be serious about anything. I tell you, my boy, I could count on the fingers of one hand all the people I know who ever take a good square look at life.”
“Oh, not as bad as that!” said Bruce, surprised at Henderson’s unwonted earnestness. “There must be a lot of people who are troubled about the state of their souls—who have some sort of ideals but are ashamed to haul them out!”
“Ashamed is the word!” Henderson affirmed. “We’re afraid of being kidded if anybody sneaks up on us and catches us admiring the Ten Commandments or practicing the Christian virtues! Now I know the rattle of all the skeletons in all the closets in this town. If they all took a notion to trot up and down our main thoroughfares some moonlit evening they’d make quite a parade. You understand I’m not sitting in judgment on my fellow man; I merely view him at times like this, when I’m addressing a man of intellect like you, with a certain cheerful detachment. And I see things going on—and I take part in them—that I deplore. I swear I deplore them; particularly,” he went on with a grim smile, “on days when I’m suffering from a severe case of hang-overitis.”
“You must have been on a roaring tear last night. You have all the depressing symptoms.”
“A cruel injustice! I’m never terribly wicked. I drink more than I need at times and I flirt occasionally to keep my hand in. Maybelle doesn’t mind if I wander a little, but when she whistles I’m right back at my own fireside pretending nothing happened.”
“I’ll wager you do!” laughed Bruce.
“Right now,” Henderson went on, “I can see a few people we both know who are bound to come a cropper if they don’t mind their steps. There’s Connie Mills. Not a bad sort, Connie, but a little bit too afraid she isn’t having as much fun as she’s entitled to. And Shep—the most high-minded, unselfish fellow I know—he, poor nut, just perishing for somebody to love him!”
“What sort of a chap’s George Whitford?” Bruce asked.
“First class,” Bud answered promptly. “A real fellow; about the best we’ve got. Something of the soldier of fortune about him. A variety of talents; brilliant streak in him. Why do you ask? George getting on your preserves?”
“Lord, no! I was just wondering whether you’d knock him. I like him myself.”
“Well, nearly everyone does. He appeals to the imagination. Just a little too keen about women, however, for his own good.”
A buzzer sounded and Bruce went to the telephone by which visitors announced themselves from the hall below.
“Mr. Carroll? Certainly; come right up!”
“Carroll? Didn’t know you were so chummy with him,” Henderson grumbled, not pleased by the interruption.
“I run into him at the club occasionally. He’s been threatening to drop in some evening. Seems to be a nice chap.”
“Oh, yes, Carroll’s all right!” Bud grinned. “We might proceed with our discussion of the Millses. Arthur ought to know a few merry facts not disclosed to the general public. He wears the mask of meekness, but that’s purely secretarial, so to speak.”
Carroll, having reached the apartment, at once began bantering Henderson about the Plantagenet Bud had lately sold him.
“I’m another Plantag victim,” said Bruce. “Bud’s conscience is hurting him; he’s moaning over the general depravity of the world.”
“He should worry!” said Carroll. “The Plantagenet’s shaken my faith in Heaven.”
Carroll, Bruce knew, was a popular man in town, no doubt deriving special consideration from his association with Mills. His name was written into local history almost as far back as that of the Mills family. In giving up the law to become Mills’s right-hand man it was assumed that he had done so merely for the benefit to be derived from contact with a man of Mills’s importance. He dabbled somewhat in politics, possibly, it was said, that he might be in a position to serve Mills when necessary in frustrating any evil designs of the State or the municipal government upon Mills’s interests.
Bruce had wondered a little when Carroll intimated his purpose to look him up; he had even speculated as to whether Mills might not have prompted this demonstration of friendliness for some purpose of his own. But Carroll bore all the marks of a gentleman; he was socially in demand and it was grossly ungenerous to think that his call had any motive beyond a wish to be courteous to a new member of the community.
Carroll was tall and slender, with light brown hair and deep-set blue eyes. His clean-shaven face was rather deeply lined for a man of his years; there was something of the air of a student about him. But when he spoke it was in the crisp, incisive tones of an executive. A second glance at his eyes discovered hints of reserve strength. Serving an exacting man had not destroyed his independence and self-respect. On the whole a person who knew what he was about, endowed with brains and not easily to be trampled upon or driven.
“You mustn’t let Bud fool you about our home town. Most anything he says is bound to be wrong; it’s temperamental with him. But you know him of old; I needn’t tell you what a scoundrel he is.”
“Certainly not! You can’t room with a man for four years without knowing all his weaknesses.”
“Yes, I certainly know all yours,” Henderson retorted. “But he isn’t a bad fellow, Arthur. We must marry him off and settle him in life. I already see several good chances to plant him.”
“You’d better let Maybelle do that,” replied Carroll. “Your judgment in such delicate matters can’t be trusted.”
“Perhaps I’d better leave the room while you make a choice for me,” said Bruce.
“What would you think of Leila Mills as a fitting mate for him?” asked Henderson.
“Excellent,” Carroll affirmed. “It’s about time Leila was married. You’ve met Miss Mills, haven’t you, Storrs?”
“Yes; several times,” said Bruce. He suspected Bud of turning the conversation upon Leila merely to gratify his passion for gossip.
“Of course you’ve got the first call, Arthur,” said Henderson with cheerful impudence. “The town is getting impatient waiting for you to show your hand.”
“I’m sorry to keep my fellow citizens waiting,” Carroll replied. “Of course there are always Miss Mills’s wishes to consider.”
“Oh, well, there is that! Bruce, with his known affection for the arts, may prefer the lovely Millicent. He’s not worth troubling about as a competitor. Well, I must skip back to Maybelle! Wait till I get downstairs before you begin knocking me!”
“Don’t be in a rush,” said Bruce.
“Oh, I’ll go now!” said Bud as he lounged out. “I want you to have plenty of time to skin me properly!”
“Bud’s a mighty good fellow,” said Carroll when they were alone. “He and Maybelle give a real tang to our social affairs. I suppose we have Bud to thank for bringing you here.”
“Oh, not altogether!” Bruce replied. “I was alone in the world and my home town hadn’t much to offer an architect.”
“Your profession does need room. I was born right here and expect to be buried among my ancestors. Let me see—did I hear that you’re from the East?”
The question on its face was courteously perfunctory; Mills would certainly not have done anything so clumsy, Bruce reflected, as to send Carroll to probe into his history.
“I’m an Ohioan—born in Laconia,” he replied.
“Not really! I have an uncle and some cousins there. Just today we had a letter at the office from Laconia, an inquiry about a snarl in the title to some property. Mr. Mills’s father—of the same name—once had some interests there—a stave factory, I think it was. Long before your day, of course. He bought some land near the plant—the Millses have always gone in strong for real estate—thinking he might need it if the business developed. Mr. Mills was there for a while as a young man. Suppose he didn’t like the business, and his father sold out. I was there a year ago visiting my relations and I met some Bruces—Miss Carolyn Bruce—awfully jolly girl—related to you?”
“My cousin. Bruce was my mother’s name.”
“The old saying about the smallness of the world! Splendid girl—not married yet?”
“Not when I heard from her last week.”
“We might drive over there sometime next spring and see her.”
“Fine. Carolyn was always a great pal of mine. Laconia’s a sociable town. Everybody knows everybody else; it’s like a big family. We can’t laugh so gaily at the small towns; they’ve got a lot that’s mighty fine. I sometimes think our social and political regeneration has got to begin with the small units.”
“I say that sometimes to Mr. Mills,” Carroll continued. “But he’s of the old ultra-conservative school; a pessimist as to the future, or pretends to be. He really sees most things pretty straight. But men of his sort hate the idea of change. They prefer things as they are.”
“I think we all want the changes to come slowly—gradual evolution socially and politically,” Bruce ventured. “That’s the only safe way. The great business of the world is to find happiness—get rid of misery and violence and hatred. I’m for everything that moves toward that end.”
“I’m with you there,” Carroll replied quickly.
Bruce’s liking for Carroll increased. Mills’s secretary was not only an agreeable companion but he expressed views on many questions that showed knowledge and sound reasoning. He referred to Mills now and then, always with respect but never with any trace of subserviency. Bruce, now that his fear had passed, was deriving a degree of courage merely from talking with Carroll. Carroll, in daily contact with Mills, evidently was not afraid of him. And what had he, Bruce Storrs, to fear from Franklin Mills? There could not have been any scandal about Mills’s affair with his mother or she herself would probably have mentioned it; or more likely she would never have told him her story. Carroll’s visit was reassuring every way that Bruce considered it.
“I got a glimpse of you at Deer Trail the other day,” Carroll was saying. “You were there about the superintendent’s house—Mr. Mills spoke of you afterward—said you seemed to know your business. He’s not so hard to please as many people think—only”—Carroll smiled—“it’s always safer to do things his way.”
“I imagine it is!” Bruce assented.
Carroll remained until the clock on the mantel chimed twelve.
“I hope you’ve enjoyed this as much as I have!” he said. “If there’s anything I can do for you, give me a ring. Mr. Mills is a regular client of Freeman’s. We’ll doubtless meet in a business way from time to time.”