Bruce soon discovered that Freeman disliked interviews with contractors and the general routine necessary to keep in touch with the cost of labor and materials. When he was able to visualize and create he was happy, but tedious calculations left him sulky and disinclined to work. Bruce felt no such repugnance; he had a kind of instinct for such things, and was able to carry in his head a great array of facts and figures. On his first free evening after meeting Millicent Harden at the Country Club he rang the Harden doorbell, and as he waited glanced toward the Mills’ house in the lot adjoining. He vaguely wondered whether Franklin Mills was within its walls. He had tried to analyze the emotions that had beset him that night when he had taken the hand of the man he believed to be his father. There was something cheap and vulgar in the idea that blood speaks to blood and that possibly Mills had recognized him by some sort of intuition. But Bruce rejected this as preposterous, a concession to the philosophy of ignorant old women muttering scandal before a dying fire. Very likely he had been wrong in fancying that Mills had taken any special note of him. And there was always his mother’s assurance that Mills didn’t know of his existence. Mills probably had the habit of eyeing people closely; he shouldn’t have permitted himself to be troubled by that. He was a man of large affairs, with faculties trained to the quick inspection and appraisment of every stranger he met.... The middle-aged woman who opened the door was evidently a member of the household and he hastily thrust into his pocket the card he had taken out, stated his name and asked if Miss Harden was at home. “Yes, Millie’s home. Just come in, Mr. Storrs, and I’ll call her.” But Millicent came into the hall without waiting to be summoned. “I’m so glad to see you, Mr. Storrs!” she said, and introduced him to her mother, a tall, heavily built woman with reddish hair turning gray, and a friendly countenance. “I was just saying to Doctor Harden that I guessed nobody was coming in tonight when you rang. You simply can’t keep a servant in to answer the bell in the evening. You haven’t met Doctor Harden? Millie, won’t you call your papa?” Millicent opened a door that revealed a small, cozy sitting-room and summoned her father--a short, thick-set man with a close-trimmed gray beard, who came out clutching a newspaper. “Shan’t we all go into the library?” asked Millicent after the two men had been introduced and had expressed their approval of the prolonged fine weather. “You young folks make yourselves comfortable in the library,” said Mrs. Harden. “I told Millie it was too warm for a fire, but she just has to have the fireplace going when there’s any excuse, and this house does get chilly in the fall evenings even when it’s warm outside.”