He drew Bruce from one group to another, praising or abusing him with equal extravagance. He assured everyone that it was a great honor to meet a man destined, as he declared Bruce to be, to cut a big figure in the future of the town. He never backed a dead one, he reminded them. Bruce was the dearest friend he had in the world, and, he would ruefully add, probably the only one. It was for this reason that he had urged the young architect to establish himself in the city--a city that sorely needed men of Bruce’s splendid character and lofty ideals. A number of the guests had gone when late in the evening the depleted company was reinforced by the arrival of Shepherd Mills and his wife. “Shep and the Shepherdess!” Henderson cheerfully announced as he ushered them in. Mrs. Mills extended her hand with a gracious smile as Bruce was presented. She was tall and fair and moved with a lazy sort of grace. She spoke in a low, murmurous tone little broken by inflections. Bruce noted that she was dressed rather more smartly than the other women present. It seemed to him that the atmosphere of the room changed perceptibly on her appearance; or it might have been merely that everyone paused a minute to inspect her or to hear what she had to say. Bruce surmised from the self-conscious look in her handsome gray eyes as she crossed the room that she enjoyed being the center of attention. “Shep just would spend the day motoring to some queer place,” she was saying, “where a lot of people were killed by the Indians ages ago. Most depressing! Ruined the day for me! He’s going to set up a monument or something to mark the painful affair.” Shepherd Mills greeted Bruce in the quick, eager fashion of a diffident person anxious to appear cordial but not sure that his good intentions will be understood, and suggested that they sit down. He was not so tall as his wife; his face was long and rather delicate. His slight reddish mustache seemed out of place on his lip; it did not quite succeed in giving him a masculine air. His speech was marked by odd, abrupt pauses, as though he were trying to hide a stammer; or it might have been that he was merely waiting to note the effect of what he was saying upon the hearer. He drew out a case and offered Bruce a cigarette, lighted one himself, smoking as though it were part of a required social routine to which he conformed perforce but did not relish particularly. There was to be a tennis tournament at the country club the coming week and he mentioned this tentatively and was embarrassed to find that Bruce knew nothing about it. “Oh, I’m always forgetting that everyone doesn’t live here!” he laughed apologetically. “A little weakness of the provincial mind! I suppose we’re horribly provincial out here. Do we strike you that way, Mr. Storrs?” One might have surmised from his tone that he was used to having his serious questions ignored or answered flippantly, but hoped that the stranger would meet him on his own ground.