“I think I’ll go with you,” said Constance, as Leila impudently kissed her fingers to her father and turned toward her room. “Whistle for me at eight-thirty, Shep.” Both men rose as the young women left the room--Franklin Mills was punctilious in all the niceties of good manners--but before resuming his seat he closed the door. There was something ominous in this, and Shepherd nervously lighted a cigarette. He covertly glanced at his watch to fix in his mind the amount of time he must remain with his father before Constance returned. He loved and admired his wife and he envied her the ease with which she ignored or surmounted difficulties. Connie made mistakes in dealing with her father-in-law and Shepherd was aware of this, but his own errors in this respect only served to strengthen his reliance on the understanding and sympathy of his wife, who was an adept in concealing disappointment and discomfiture. When Shepherd was disposed to complain of his father, Connie was always consoling. She would say: “You’re altogether too sensitive, Shep. It’s an old trick of fathers to treat their sons as though they were still boys. Your father can’t realize that you’re grown up. But he knows you stick to your job and that you’re anxious to please him. I suppose he thought you’d grow up to be just like himself; but you’re not, so it’s up to him to take you as the pretty fine boy you are. You’re the steadiest young man in town and you needn’t think he doesn’t appreciate that.” Shepherd, fortifying himself with a swift recollection of his wife’s frequent reassurances of this sort, nevertheless wished that she had not run off to gossip with Leila. However, the interview would be brief, and he played with his cigarette while he waited for his father to begin. “There’s something I’ve wanted to talk with you about, Shep. It will take only a minute.” “Yes, father.” “It’s about Leila”--he hesitated--“a little bit about Constance, too. I’m not altogether easy about Leila. I mean”--he paused again--“as to Connie’s influence over your sister. Connie is enough older to realize that Leila needs a little curbing as to things I can’t talk to her about as a woman could. Leila doesn’t need to be encouraged in extravagance. And she likes running about well enough without being led into things she might better let alone. I’m not criticizing Connie’s friends, but you do have at your house people I’d rather Leila didn’t know--at least not to be intimate with them. As a concrete example, I don’t care for this fellow Thomas. To be frank, I’ve made some inquiries about him and he’s hardly the sort of person you’d care for your sister to run around with.” Shepherd, blinking under this succession of direct statements, felt that some comment was required.