The remembrance of the young architect’s head superimposed upon the portrait of Franklin Mills III caused him an uneasiness which he was not able to dispel by a snap of the fingers. Any attempt to learn what had prompted Storrs to choose for his residence the city so long sacred to the Mills family might easily arouse suspicions. The portrait in itself was a menace. People were such fools about noting resemblances! If his sister, Alice Thornberry, met Storrs she might remark upon his resemblance to their father. And yet she was just as likely to note the removal of the picture if he relegated it to the attic.... By the time he had interviewed the house servants and driven to the office Mills had passed through various moods ranging from his habitual serenity and poise to apprehension and foreboding. This puzzled him. Why should he, the most equable of men, suddenly fall a prey to moods? He put on a pair of library glasses that he kept in his desk, though he usually employed a pince-nez at the office--a departure that puzzled Carroll, who did not know that Mills, in the deep preoccupation of the morning, had left his pocket case at home. Mills, in normal circumstances, was not given to forgetfulness. Aware that something was amiss, Carroll made such reports and suggestions as were necessary with more than his usual economy of words. “Doctor Lindley telephoned that he’d be in to see you at eleven. You have no engagements and I told him all right.” “Lindley? What does Lindley want?” Mills demanded, without looking up from a bank statement he was scanning. “He didn’t say, sir; but as you always see him----” “I don’t know that I care to see him today,” Mills mumbled. Mills rarely mumbled; his speech was always clean-cut and definite. Carroll, listening attentively to his employer’s instructions as to answering letters and sending telegraphic orders for the sale of certain stocks, speculated as to what had caused Mills’s unwonted irascibility. A few minutes after eleven word was passed from the office boy to the stenographer and thence from Carroll to Mills that the Reverend Doctor Lindley was waiting. Mills detained Carroll rather unnecessarily to discuss matters of no immediate moment. This in itself was surprising, as the rector of St. Barnabas, the oldest and richest church in town, had heretofore always been admitted without delay. The Mills family had been identified with St. Barnabas from pioneer times and Doctor Lindley was entertained frequently by Mills, not only at home but at the men’s luncheons Mills gave at his clubs for visiting notables. “Ah, Mills! Hard at it!” exclaimed the minister cheerfully. He was short, rotund and bald, with a large face that radiated good nature. A reputation for breadth of view and public spirit had made him, in the dozen years of his pastorate, one of the best liked men in town. He gave Mills a cordial handshake, asked after Leila and assured Mills that he had never seen him looking better.