Hope of Happiness — 11
I
On a Sunday afternoon a fortnight later Bruce, having been reproved by Dale Freeman for his recent neglect of her, drove to the architect’s house.
He had hoped to see Millicent there and was disappointed not to find her.
“You expected to see someone in particular!
” said Dale.
“I can tell by the roving look in your eye.
” “I was merely resenting the presence of these other people.
My eyes are for you alone!
” “What a satisfactory boy you are!
But it was Millicent, wasn’t it?
” “Lady, lady!
You’re positively psychic!
Do you also tell fortunes?
” “It’s easy to tell yours!
I see a beautiful blonde in your life!
Sorry I can’t produce Millie today.
She’s not crazy about my Sunday parties;
she hates a crowd.
I must arrange something small for you two.
You must meet that girl who just came in alone--the one in the enchanting black gown.
She’s a Miss Abrams, a Jewess, very cultivated--lovely voice.
” The rooms were soon crowded.
Bruce was still talking to Miss Abrams when he caught sight of Shepherd and Constance Mills, who had drifted in with Fred Thomas.
A young man with a flowing tie and melancholy dark eyes claimed Miss Abrams’s attention and Bruce turned to find Shepherd at his elbow.
“Just the man I wanted to see!
” Shepherd exclaimed.
“Let’s find a place where we can talk.
” “Not so easy to find!
” said Bruce.
However, he led the way to Freeman’s den, which had not been invaded, wondering what Franklin Mills’s son could have to say to him.
“Do pardon me for cornering you this way,” Shepherd began.
“I looked for you several days at the club, but you didn’t show up.
” “I’ve been too busy to go up there for luncheon,” Bruce replied.
“You could always get track of me at the office.
” “Yes, but this was--is--rather confidential for the present.
” Shepherd, clasping and unclasping his hands in an attempt to gain composure, now bent forward in his chair and addressed Bruce with a businesslike air.
“What I want to talk to you about is that clubhouse for our workmen.
You know I mentioned it some time ago?
” “Yes; I remember,” Bruce replied, surprised that Shepherd still had the matter on his mind.
“It’s troubled me a good deal,” said Shepherd, with the earnestness that always increased his stammering.
“I’ve felt that there’s a duty--a real duty and an opportunity there.
You know how it is when you get a thing in your head you can’t get rid of--can’t argue yourself out of?
” “Those perplexities are annoying.
I’d assumed that you’d given the thing up.
” “Well, I thought I had!
But I’m determined now to go on.
There’s a piece of land I can get that’s just the thing.
That neighborhood is so isolated--the people have no amusements unless they come to town.
I’d like to go ahead so they can have some use of the house this winter.
” Bruce nodded his sympathy with the idea.
“Now since I talked with you I’ve found some pictures of such houses.
I’ve got ’em here.
” He drew from his pocket some pages torn from magazines.
“I think we might spend a little more money than I thought at first would be available.
We might go thirty thousand to get about what’s in this house I’ve marked with a pencil.
” Bruce scrutinized the pictures and glanced over the explanatory text.
“The idea seems to be well worked out.
There are many such clubhouses scattered over the country.
You’d want the reading room and the play room for children and all those features?
” “Yes; and I like the idea of a comfortable sitting-room where the women can gather and do their sewing and that sort of thing.
And I’d like you to do this for me--begin getting up the plans right away.
” Shepherd’s tone was eager; his eyes were bright with excitement.
“But, Mr. Mills, I can hardly do that!
I’m really only a subordinate in Mr. Freeman’s office.
It would be hardly square for me to take the commission--at least not without his consent.
” Shepherd, who had not thought of this, frowned in his perplexity.
Since his talk with Constance he had been anxious to get the work started before his father heard of it; and he had been hoping to run into Bruce somewhere to avoid visiting Freeman’s office.
He felt that if he had an architect who sympathized with the idea everything would be simplified.
His father and Freeman met frequently, and Freeman, blunt and direct, was not a man who would connive at the construction of a building, in which presumably Franklin Mills was interested, without Mills’s knowledge.
His sensitive face so clearly indicated his disappointment that Bruce, not knowing what lay behind this unexpected revival of the clubhouse plan, said, with every wish to be kind: “Very likely Mr. Freeman would be glad to let me do the work--but I’d rather you asked him.
I’d hate to have him think I was going behind his back to take a job.
You can understand how I’d feel about it.
” “I hadn’t thought of that at all!
” said Shepherd sincerely.
“And of course I respect your feeling.
” Then with a little toss of the head and a gesture that expressed his desire to be entirely frank, he added: “You understand I’m doing this on my own hook.
I think I told you my father thought it unwise for the battery company to do it.
But I’m going ahead on my own responsibility--with my own money.
” “I see,” said Bruce.
“It’s fine of you to want to do it.
” “I’ve _got_ to do it!
” said Shepherd, slapping his hand on his knee.
“And of course my father and the company being out of it, it’s no one’s concern but my own!
” The door was open.
Connie Mills’s laugh for a moment rose above the blur of talk in the adjoining rooms.
Shepherd’s head lifted and his lips tightened as though he gained confidence from his wife’s propinquity.
Mrs. Freeman appeared at the door, demanding to know if they wanted tea, and noting their absorption withdrew without waiting for an answer.
It was clear enough that Shepherd meant to put the scheme through without his father’s consent, even in defiance of his wishes.
The idea had become an obsession with the young man; but his sincere wish to promote the comfort and happiness of his employees spoke for so kind and generous a nature that Bruce shrank from wounding him.
Seeing Bruce hesitate, Shepherd began to explain the sale of his trust stock to obtain the money, which only increased Bruce’s determination to have nothing to do with the matter.
“Why don’t you take it up with Mr. Carroll?
” Bruce suggested.
“He might win your father over to your side.
” “Oh, I couldn’t do that!
Carroll, you know, is bound to take father’s view of things.
Father will be all right about it when it’s all done.
Of course after the work starts he’ll know, so it won’t be a secret long.
I’m going ahead as a little joke on him.
I think he’ll be tickled to know I’ve got so much initiative!
” He laughed in his quick, eager way, hoping that he had made this convincing.
Bruce, from his observation of Franklin Mills, was not so sanguine as to the outcome.
Mills would undoubtedly be very angry.
On the face of it he would have a right to be.
And one instinctively felt like shielding Shepherd Mills from his own folly.
“If you really want my advice,” said Bruce after a moment’s deliberation, “I’d take a little more time to this.
Before you could get your plans we’ll be having rough weather.
I’d wait till spring, when you can develop your grounds and complete the whole thing at once.
And it would be just as well to look around a bit--visit other cities and get the newest ideas.
” “You think that?
I supposed there’d be time to get the foundations in if I started right away.
” “I wouldn’t risk it; in fact I think it would be a serious mistake.
” “Well, you are probably right,” assented Shepherd, though reluctantly, and there was a plaintive note in his voice.
“Thanks ever so much.
I
guess I’ll take your advice.
I’ll let it go till spring.
” “Damon and Pythias couldn’t look more brotherly!
” Constance Mills stood at the doorway viewing them with her languid smile.
“It peeves me a good deal, Mr. Storrs, that you prefer my husband’s society to mine.
” “This is business, Connie,” Shepherd said.
“We’ve just finished.
” “Let’s say the party is just beginning,” said Bruce.
“I was just coming out to look you up.
” “I can’t believe it!
But Leila just telephoned for us to come out to Deer Trail and bring any of Dale’s crowd who look amusing.
That includes you, of course, Mr. Storrs.
Everyone’s gone but Helen Torrence and Fred Thomas and Arthur Carroll.
Mr. Mills is at the farm; it’s a fad of his to have Sunday supper in the country.
Leila hates it and sent out an S. O.
S.
, so we can’t desert her.
No, Mr. Storrs, you can’t duck!
Millicent is there--that may add to the attractions!
” This with a meaningful glance at Bruce prompted him to say that Miss Harden’s presence hardly diminished the attractions of the farm.
There was real comedy in his inability to extricate himself from the net in which he constantly found himself enmeshed with the members of the house of Mills.
In discussing who had a car and who hadn’t, Freeman said his machine was working badly, to which Shepherd replied that there was plenty of room in his limousine for the Freemans and any others who were carless.
“Mr. Storrs will want to take his car,” said Constance.
“He oughtn’t really to drive out alone----” “Not alone, certainly not!
” Bruce replied.
“I shall be honored if you will drive with me!
” II
“You didn’t mind?
” asked Constance when Bruce got his car under way.
“You mean do I mind driving you out?
Please don’t make me say how great the pleasure is!
” “You’re poking fun at me; you always do!
” “Never!
Why, if I followed my inclinations I’d come trotting up to your house every day.
But it wouldn’t do.
You know that!
” “But I wouldn’t want you to do that--not unless you----” There was a bridge to cross and the pressure of traffic at the moment called for care in negotiating it.
“What were you saying?
” he asked as they turned off the brilliantly lighted boulevard.
The town lay behind and they moved through open country.
“You know,” she said, “I gave you the sign that I wanted to be friends.
I had a feeling you knew I needed----” “What?
” he demanded, curious as to the development of her technic.
“Oh, just a little attention!
I’ve tried in every way to tell you that I’m horribly lonely.
” “But you oughtn’t to be!
” he said, vaguely conscious that they were repeating themselves.
“Oh, I know what you think!
You think I ought to be very content and happy.
But happiness isn’t so easy!
We don’t get it just by wishing.
” “I suppose it’s the hardest thing in the world to find,” he assented.
It was now quite dark and the stars hung brilliant in the cloudless heavens.
In her fur coat, with a smart toque to match, Constance had not before seemed so beguiling.
His meeting with her in the lonely road with George Whitford and her evident wish not to be seen that day by Franklin Mills or the members of his riding party had rather shaken his first assumption that she could be classified as a harmless flirt.
Tonight he didn’t care particularly.
If Franklin Mills’s daughter-in-law wanted to flirt with him he was ready to meet her halfway.
“It’s strange, but you know I’m not a bit afraid of you.
And the other evening when the rest of us couldn’t do a thing with Leila she chose you to take her home.
You have a way of inspiring confidence.
Shep picks you out, when he hardly knows you, for confidential talks.
I’ve been trying to analyze your--fascinations.
” “Oh, come now!
Your husband thought I might help him in a small perplexity--purely professional.
Nothing to that!
And your young sister-in-law was cross at the rest of you that day at Mrs. Torrence’s and out of pique chose me to take her home.
” “But _I_ trust you!
” “Maybe you shouldn’t!
” “Well, that afternoon you caught me out here with Mr. Whitford I knew you wouldn’t tell on me.
George was a trifle nervous about it.
I told him you were the soul of discretion.
” “But--I didn’t see you!
I didn’t see you at all!
I’m blind in both eyes and I can be deaf and dumb when necessary!
” “Oh, I knew you wouldn’t rush over town telling on me!
It’s really not that!
It’s because I knew you wouldn’t that I’m wondering what--_what_--it is that makes even your acquaintances feel that they can rely on you.
You know you’re quite a wonderful person.
Leila and Millicent were talking about you only yesterday.
Not schoolgirl twaddle, but real appreciation!
” “That’s consoling!
I’m glad of their good opinion.
But you--what did _you_ say?
” “Oh, I said I thought you were disagreeable and conceited and generally unpleasant!
” She turned toward him with her indolent laugh.
“You _know_ I wouldn’t say anything unkind of you.
” This in so low a tone that it was necessary for him to bend his head to hear.
His cheek touched the furry edge of her hat thrillingly.
“It seems strange, our being together this way,” she said.
“I wish we hadn’t a destination.
I’d like to go right on--and on----” “That would be all right as long as the gas held out!
” “You refuse to take me seriously!
” “I seem doomed to say the wrong thing to you!
You’ll have to teach me how to act and what to say.
” “But I’d rather be the pupil!
There are many things you could teach me!
” “Such as----” “There’s always love!
” she replied softly, lingering upon the word; and again it was necessary to bend down to hear.
She lifted her face; he felt rather than saw her eyes meeting his.
Her breath, for a fleeting instant on his cheek, caused him to give hurried consideration to the ancient question whether a woman who is willing should be kissed or whether delicate ethical questions should outweigh the desirability of the kiss prospective.
He kissed her--first tentatively on the cheek and then more ardently on the lips.
She made no protest; he offered no apology.
Both were silent for some time.
When she spoke it was to say, with serene irrelevance: “How smoothly your car runs!
It increases my respect for the Plantagenet.
” “Oh, it’s very satisfactory; some of Bud’s claims for it are really true!
” Bruce was relieved; but he was equally perplexed.
It was an ungallant assumption that any man might, in like circumstances, kiss Constance Mills.
On the other hand it eased his conscience to find that she evidently thought so little of it.
She had been quite willing to be kissed....
She was a puzzling person, this young woman.
III
The Freemans and the others who had started with them had taken short cuts and were already at the house.
They passed through an entry hall into a big square living-room.
It was a fit residence for the owner of the encompassing acres and Bruce felt the presence of Franklin Mills before he saw him.
This was the kind of thing Mills would like.
The house was in keeping with the fertile land, the prize herds, the high-bred horses with which he amused himself.
Mills welcomed the newcomers with a bluff heartiness, as though consciously or unconsciously he adopted a different tone in the country and wished to appear the unobtrusive but hospitable lord of the manor.
Leila joined him as he talked a moment to Constance and Bruce.
“You see you can’t dodge me!
Awfully glad you came.
Millie’s here somewhere and I think old Bud Henderson will drop in later.
” “There’ll be supper pretty soon,” said Mills.
“We’re just waiting for everybody to get here.
I think you know everyone.
It’s a pleasure to see you here, Mr. Storrs.
Please make yourself at home.
Constance, see that Mr. Storrs has a cocktail.
” The members of the company gathered about the fire began twitting Constance and Bruce about the length of time it had taken them to drive out.
They demanded to know what Connie had talked to him about.
He answered them in kind, appealing to Constance to confirm his assertion that they had taken the most expeditious route.
They had discussed the political conditions in Poland, he declared.
“Come with me,” said Mrs. Torrence, drawing him away.
“I want to talk to you!
I’m sorry things happened as they did on your first call.
I
don’t want you to get the idea that my house is a place where I pull nothing but rough parties!
Please think better of me than that!
” “Heavens, woman!
Such a thought never entered my head!
I’ve been thinking seriously of coming back!
I need some more of your spiritual uplift!
” “Good!
There’s more of that Bourbon!
But I wanted to say that I was sorry Leila came to my house as she did.
That is a problem--not a serious problem, but the child needs a little curbing.
She has one good friend--Millicent Harden--that tall, lovely girl standing over there.
Do you know Millie?
” “Oh, yes; I’ve even played golf with her!
” “My!
You really have an eye!
Well, you might come to call on me!
I’m a trifle old to be a good playmate for you; but you might take me on as a sort of aunt--not too old to be unsympathetic with youth.
When nothing better offers, look me up!
” “I’d been thinking seriously of falling in love with you!
Nothing is holding me back but my natural diffidence!
” She raised her hand warningly.
“Go no further!
I can see that you’ve been well trained.
But it isn’t necessary to jolly me.
I’m not half the fool I look.
My self-respect didn’t want you to get the idea that I’m a wild woman.
I was worried that evening about Leila--she has a heart of gold, but I don’t dare take any special interest in her for the absurd reason--what do you think?
--I’ve been suspected of having designs on--our host!
” She laughed merrily.
Her mirth was of the infectious sort; Bruce laughed with her; one had to, even when the provocation was slight.
“One doesn’t talk of one’s host,” she said with a deep sigh, “but I was talked about enough when I married Mr. Torrence; I’ll never try it again.
But why am I taking you into my confidence?
Merely that I want you to know my house isn’t a booze shop all the time!
I’m going to keep my eye on you.
If I see you wandering too close to the rifle pits, I’ll warn you!
May I?
” “Of course you may!
” said Bruce, conscious of an honest friendliness in this proffer, but not at once finding words to express his appreciation.
“Tell me, do I look as though I might be gassed?
” “I don’t know whether you’re susceptible or not.
But I like you!
I’m going to prove it by doing you a favor.
Come with me!
” The supper was a buffet affair and the butler was distributing plates and napkins.
At one side of the room Franklin Mills was talking to Millicent.
Bruce had glanced at them occasionally, thinking with a twinge how young Mills looked tonight, noting how easily he seemed to be holding the girl’s interest, not as a man much older but as a contemporary.
And he had everything to offer--his unassailable social position and the wealth to support it.
As he crossed the room beside Mrs. Torrence, accommodating his long stride to her pattering step, he saw a frown write itself fleetingly on Mills’s brow.
Millicent--in a soft blue Jersey sport dress, with a felt hat of the same shade adorned with a brilliant pheasant’s wing--kept her eyes upon Mills until he had finished something he was saying.
“What’s it all about?
