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Linked Data Visualization
Techniques, Tools, and Big Data
 Synthesis Lectures on Data,
Semantics, and Knowledge
Editors
Ying Ding, University of Texas at Austin
Paul Groth, University of Amsterdam

Founding Editor Emeritus

James Hendler, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Synthesis Lectures on Data, Semantics, and Knowledge is edited by

Ying Ding of the University of Texas at Austin and Paul Groth of the
University of Amsterdam. The series focuses on the pivotal role that
data on the web and the emergent technologies that surround it play
both in the evolution of the World Wide Web as well as applications
in domains requiring data integration and semantic analysis. The
large-scale availability of both structured and unstructured data on
the Web has enabled radically new technologies to develop. It has
impacted developments in a variety of areas including machine
learning, deep learning, semantic search, and natural language
processing. Knowledge and semantics are a critical foundation for
the sharing, utilization, and organization of this data. The series aims
both to provide pathways into the field of research and an
understanding of the principles underlying these technologies for an
audience of scientists, engineers, and practitioners.
Topics to be included:
• Knowledge graphs, both public and private
• Linked Data
• Knowledge graph and automated knowledge base construction
• Knowledge engineering for large-scale data
 • Machine reading
• Uses of Semantic Web technologies
• Information and knowledge integration, data fusion
• Various forms of semantics on the web (e.g., ontologies,
language models, and distributional semantics)
• Terminology, Thesaurus, & Ontology Management
• Query languages

Linked Data Visualization: Techniques, Tools, and Big Data

Laura Po, Nikos Bikakis, Federico Desimoni, and George
Papastefanatos
2019

Ontology Engineering
Elisa F. Kendall and Deborah L. McGuinness
2019

Demistifying OWL for the Enterprise

Michael Uschold
2018

Validating RDF Data

Jose Emilio Labra Gayo, Eric Prud’hommeaux, Iovka Boneva, and
Dimitris Kontokostas
2017

Natural Language Processing for the Semantic Web

Diana Maynard, Kalina Bontcheva, and Isabelle Augenstein
2016

The Epistemology of Intelligent Semantic Web Systems

Mathieu d’Aquin and Enrico Motta
2016

Entity Resolution in the Web of Data

Vassilis Christophides, Vasilis Efthymiou, and Kostas Stefanidis
2015

Library Linked Data in the Cloud: OCLC’s Experiments with New

Models of Resource Description
Carol Jean Godby, Shenghui Wang, and Jeffrey K. Mixter
2015

Semantic Mining of Social Networks

Jie Tang and Juanzi Li
2015

Social Semantic Web Mining

Tope Omitola, Sebastián A. Ríos, and John G. Breslin
2015

Semantic Breakthrough in Drug Discovery

Bin Chen, Huijun Wang, Ying Ding, and David Wild
2014

Semantics in Mobile Sensing

Zhixian Yan and Dipanjan Chakraborty
2014

Provenance: An Introduction to PROV

Luc Moreau and Paul Groth
2013

Resource-Oriented Architecture Patterns for Webs of Data

Brian Sletten
2013

Aaron Swartz’s A Programmable Web: An Unfinished Work

Aaron Swartz
2013

Incentive-Centric Semantic Web Application Engineering

Elena Simperl, Roberta Cuel, and Martin Stein
2013

Publishing and Using Cultural Heritage Linked Data on the Semantic

Web
Eero Hyvönen
2012

VIVO: A Semantic Approach to Scholarly Networking and Discovery

Katy Börner, Michael Conlon, Jon Corson-Rikert, and Ying Ding
2012

Linked Data: Evolving the Web into a Global Data Space

Tom Heath and Christian Bizer
2011
Copyright © 2020 by Morgan & Claypool

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic,
mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in
printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Linked Data Visualization: Techniques, Tools, and Big Data

Laura Po, Nikos Bikakis, Federico Desimoni, and George Papastefanatos
www.morganclaypool.com

ISBN: 9781681737256 paperback

ISBN: 9781681737263 ebook
ISBN: 9781681738345 epub
ISBN: 9781681737270 hardcover

DOI 10.2200/S00967ED1V01Y201911WBE019

A Publication in the Morgan & Claypool Publishers series

SYNTHESIS LECTURES ON DATA, SEMANTICS, AND KNOWLEDGE

Lecture #19
Series Editors: Ying Ding, University of Texas at Austin
Paul Groth, University of Amsterdam
Founding Editor Emeritus: James Hendler, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Series ISSN
Print 2160-4711 Electronic 2160-472X
Linked Data Visualization
Techniques, Tools, and Big Data

Laura Po
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

Nikos Bikakis
University of Ioannina, Greece

Federico Desimoni
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

George Papastefanatos
ATHENA Research Center, Greece

SYNTHESIS LECTURES ON DATA, SEMANTICS, AND KNOWLEDGE

#19
ABSTRACT
Linked Data (LD) is a well-established standard for publishing and
managing structured information on the Web, gathering and bridging
together knowledge from different scientific and commercial
domains. The development of Linked Data Visualization techniques
and tools has been adopted as the established practice for the
analysis of this vast amount of information by data scientists,
domain experts, business users, and citizens.
This book covers a wide spectrum of visualization topics,
providing an overview of the recent advances in this area, focusing
on techniques, tools, and use cases of visualization and visual
analysis of LD. It presents core concepts related to data visualization
and LD technologies, techniques employed for data visualization
based on the characteristics of data, techniques for Big Data
visualization, tools and use cases in the LD context, and, finally, a
thorough assessment of the usability of these tools under different
scenarios.
The purpose of this book is to offer a complete guide to the
evolution of LD visualization for interested readers from any
background and to empower them to get started with the visual
analysis of such data. This book can serve as a course textbook or
as a primer for all those interested in LD and data visualization.

KEYWORDS
linked data, data visualization, visual analytics, big data, visualization
tools, web of data, semantic web, data exploration, information
visualization, usability evaluation, human-computer interaction
 Contents
Preface

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction
1.1 The Power of Visualization on Linked Data
1.2 The Web of Linked, Open, and Semantic Data
1.3 Principles of Linked Data
1.4 The Linked Open Data Cloud
1.5 Web of Data in Numbers
1.6 The Value and Impact of Linked and Open Data
1.7 Semantic Web Technologies
1.8 Conclusions

2 Principles of Data Visualization

2.1 Data Visualization Design Process
2.2 Data Visualization Types
2.2.1 Visualizing Patterns over Time
2.2.2 Visualizing Proportions
2.2.3 Visualizing Graph Relationships
2.2.4 Visualizing Data on Maps
2.3 Interactive Visualization
2.4 Visualization in Big Data Era
2.4.1 How Does the Visualization of Big Data Differ from Traditional
Ones?
2.4.2 Visualization Systems and Techniques
2.5 Conclusions

3 Linked Data Visualization Tools

3.1 Evolution Over Time
3.2 Browsers and Exploratory Tools
3.3 Tools Using Multiple Visualization Types
3.4 Graph-Based Visualization Tools
3.5 Domain, Vocabulary-Specific, and Device-Oriented Visualization Tools
3.6 Ontology Visualization Tools
3.7 Conclusions
4 Visualization Use Cases
4.1 User Needs on LD Visual Exploration
4.2 Use Cases
4.3 Modeling Use Cases
4.3.1 T-Box Related Use Cases
4.3.2 A-Box Related Use Cases
4.3.3 T-Box and A-Box Related Use Cases
4.4 Conclusions

5 Empirical Evaluation of Linked Data Visualization Tools

5.1 Basic Characteristics of the Tools
5.2 Evaluation
5.2.1 Evaluation of T-Box Use Cases
5.2.2 Evaluation of A-Box Use Cases
5.2.3 Evaluation of A-Box and T-Box Uses Cases
5.2.4 Evaluation Summary
5.3 Different Tools for Different Tasks
5.4 Conclusions

6 Conclusions and Future Challenges

6.1 Future Challenges

Bibliography

Authors’ Biographies
 Preface
The Linked Data Principles defined by Tim Berners-Lee promise that
a large portion of Web Data will be usable as one big interlinked RDF
database. Today, we are assisting the staggering growth in both the
production and consumption of Linked Data (LD) coming from
diverse domains such as health and biology, humanities and social
sciences, or open government. In the early phases of LD adoption,
most efforts focused on the representation and publication of large
volumes of privately held data in the form of Linked Open Data
(LOD), contributing to the generation of the Linked Open Data
Cloud.
Nowadays, given the wide adoption and availability of a very
large number of LD sources, it is crucial to provide intuitive tools for
researchers, data scientists, and domain experts as well as business
users and citizens to visualize and interact with increasingly large
datasets. Visual analytics integrates the analytic capabilities of the
computer and the abilities of the human analyst, allowing novel
discoveries and empowering individuals to take control of the
analytical process. LD visualization aims to provide graphical
representations of datasets or of some information of interest
selected by a user, with the aim of facilitating their analysis and
generating insights into complex interconnected information.
Visualization techniques can vary according to the domain, the type
of data, the task that the user is trying to perform, as well as the
characteristics of the user (e.g., skills).
This book presents the principles of LD visualization, as well as
demonstrates and evaluates state-of-the-art LD visualization tools.
Moreover, future challenges and opportunities in the field of Big
(Linked) Data visualization are presented.
The book is written for everyone who wants to explore and
exploit LD, whether undergraduate and post-graduate students, data
scientists, semantic technology developers, or UI & UX designers
who wish to gain some practical experience with LD tools. Previous
knowledge of Semantic Web technologies such as RDF, OWL,
SPARQL, or programming skills is not required. The purpose of this
book is to empower readers of any background to get started with
their own experiments on the LOD Cloud, select the most
appropriate LD tool for each scenario, and be aware of the
challenges and techniques related to Big Linked Data exploration.
Since readers are likely to have a wide variety of different
backgrounds, each chapter presents an overview of its content at
the beginning. A reader who wishes to have a quick overview can
start with the first page of each chapter. When the material in any
section becomes more advanced, the reader can skip to the
beginning of the next section without losing continuity. Chapter 1
introduces the Web of Linked Data, describing the phenomenon of
the production and consumption of LD, the social and economic
impact that this data has, and the effect that visualization tools can
have in facilitating the understanding and exploitation of such data.
Moreover, it presents the principles of LD and the technologies of the
Semantic Web Stack. Chapter 2 addresses how data can be
presented in visual form, focusing on interactive and specialized
visualizations of proportions, relationships, and spatial data. Further,
it introduces the new challenges and methods related to Big Data
Visualization. Chapter 3 surveys the variety of linked data
visualization tools. Chapter 4 defines and models a set of
visualization use cases based on the users’ requirements in LD
exploration. Chapter 5 describes a wide empirical evaluation of the
tools introduced in Chapter 3. Here, a practical evaluation of the
tools will be shown in order to describe their characteristics and
limitations as well as formalize how the tools handle the use cases
described in Chapter 4. Chapter 6 reports some conclusions and
open issues and suggests research challenges and promising trends
for the future.

Laura Po, Nikos Bikakis, Federico Desimoni, and George

Papastefanatos
March 2020
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
drawing-board in one corner and scattered among the casts on the
wall were crayon sketches, merely notes, she explained, tacked up
to preserve her impressions of faces that had interested her.
He was struck by her freedom from pretense; when he touched on
something of which she was ignorant or about which she was
indifferent, she did not scruple to say so. Her imaginative, poetical
side expressed itself with healthy candor and frequent flashes of
girlish enthusiasm. She was wholly natural, refreshingly spontaneous
in speech, with no traces of pedantry or conceit even in discussing
music, in which her training had gone beyond the usual amateur’s
bounds.
“You haven’t been to see Leila yet? She asked you to call, and if you
don’t go she’ll think it’s because of that little unpleasantness on the
river. Leila’s altogether worth while.”
Bruce muttered something about having been very busy. He had
determined never to enter Franklin Mills’s house, and he was
embarrassed by Millicent’s intimation that Leila might take it amiss
that he ignored her invitation.
“Leila’s a real person,” Millicent was saying. “Her great trouble is in
trying to adjust herself to a way of life that doesn’t suit her a little bit.”
“You mean——” he began and paused because he didn’t know at all
what she meant.
“I mean that living in a big house and going to teas and upholding
the dignity of a prominent and wealthy family bores her to distraction.
Her chief trouble is her way of protesting against the kind of life she’s
born to. It’s screamingly funny, but Leila just hates being rich, and
she’s terribly bored at having so much expected of her as her
father’s daughter.”
“His standard, then, is so high?” Bruce ventured, curious as to what
further she might say of her neighbor.
“Oh, Mr. Mills is an interesting man, and he worships Leila; but she
worries and puzzles him. It isn’t just the difference between age and
youth——” She paused, conscious perhaps of the impropriety of
discussing her neighbor with a comparative stranger, but Bruce’s
gravely attentive face prompted her to go on. “He’s one of those
people we meet sometimes who don’t seem—how can one put it?—
they don’t seem quite at ease in the world.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “but—where all the conditions of happiness are
given—money, position, leisure to do as you please—what excuse
has anyone for not finding happiness? You’d conclude that there was
some fundamental defect——”
“And when you reach that conclusion you’re not a bit better off!” she
interrupted. “You’re back where you started. Oh, well!” she said,
satisfied now that she had said quite enough about her neighbor and
regretting that she had mentioned him at all, “it’s too bad happiness
can’t be bought as you buy records to play on a machine and have
nothing to do but wind it up and listen. You have to do a little work
yourself.”
“We’ve all got to play in the band—that’s the idea!” he laughed, and
to escape from the thought of Mills, asked her whether she ever
played for an ignorant heathen like himself.
“You’re probably a stern critic,” she replied, “but I’ll take a chance. If
you don’t mind I’ll try the organ. Papa and Mamma always like me to
play some old pieces for them before they go to bed. Afterwards I’ll
do some other things.”
In a moment she was in the balcony with the knight towering above
her, but he faded into the shadows as she turned off the lights in the
studio below. Bruce’s eyes at once became attentive to her golden
head and clearly limned profile defined by the lamp over the music
rack. She seemed suddenly infinitely remote, caught away into a
world of legendary and elusive things. The first reedy notes of the
organ stole eerily through the room as though they too were evoked
from an unseen world.
The first things she played were a concession to her parents’ taste,
but she threw into them all the sentiment they demanded—the
familiar airs of “Annie Laurie,” “Ben Bolt,” and “Auld Lang Syne.” She
played them without flourishes, probably in deference to the
preferences of the father and mother who were somewhere listening.
To these she added old revival songs—“Beulah Land,” and “Pull for
the Shore”—these also presumably favorites of the unseen auditors.
He watched her aureoled head, the graceful movement of her arms
and shoulders as she gave herself to her task with complete
absorption. She was kind to these parents of hers; possibly it was
through her music that she really communicated with them, met
them on ground of their simpler knowledge and aspirations.
He was conscious presently of the faint ring of a bell, followed by the
murmur of voices in the hall. Someone entered the room and sat
down quietly behind him. Millicent, who had paid no heed to him
since mounting to the organ, was just beginning the Tannhäuser
overture. She followed this with passages from Lohengrin and
Parsifal and classical liturgical music touched with a haunting
mystery....
She came down slowly into the room as though the spell of the
music still held her.
“I shan’t say anything—it might be the wrong word,” he said as he
went to meet her. “But it was beautiful—very beautiful!”
“You were a good listener; I felt that,” she replied.
He had forgotten that there had been another listener until she
smilingly waved her hand to someone behind him.
“So I had two victims—and didn’t know it! Patient sufferers! Mr. Mills,
you and Mr. Storrs have met—I needn’t introduce you a second
time.”
It was Franklin Mills, then, exercising a neighbor’s privilege, who had
arrived in the middle of the recital and taken a seat by the door.
“Mr. Storrs is a perfect listener,” Mills was saying as he shook hands
with Bruce. “He didn’t budge all the time you were playing.”
Mills’s easy, gracious manners, the intimacy implied in his chaffing
tone as he complained that she played better when she didn’t know
he was in the house, irritated Bruce. He had been enjoying himself
so keenly, the girl’s talk had so interested him and he had been so
thrilled and lifted by her music that Mills’s appearance was like a
profanation.
They were all seated now, and Millicent spoke of a book Mills had
sent her which it happened Bruce had read, and she asked his
opinion of it before expressing her own. Very likely Mills was in the
habit of sending her books. She said that she hadn’t cared greatly for
the book—a novel that discussed the labor question. The author
evidently had no solution of his own problem and left the reader in
the air as to his purpose.
“Maybe he only meant to arouse interest—stir people up and leave
the solution to others,” Bruce suggested.
“That was the way I took it,” said Mills. “The fact is, nobody has any
solution short of a complete tearing down of everything. And that,” he
added with a smile and a shrug, “would be very uncomfortable.”
“For us—yes,” Millicent replied quickly. “But a good many of our
millions would probably welcome a chance to begin over again.”
“What with,” Mills demanded, “when everything had been smashed?”
“Oh, they’d be sure to save something out of the wreck!” Millicent
replied.
“Well,” Mills remarked, “I’m hoping the smash won’t come in my day.
I’m too old to go out with a club to fight for food against the mob.”
“You want us to say that you’re not too old,” laughed Millicent; “but
we’re not going to fall into that trap!”
“But—what is going to happen?” asked Bruce.
“Other civilizations!” Mills replied, regarding the young man with an
intent look. “We’ve had a succession of them, and the world’s about
due to slip back into chaos and perhaps emerge again. It’s only the
barbarians who never change; they know they’ll be on top again if
they just wait.”
“What an optimist you are!” cried Millicent. “But you don’t really
believe such things.”
“Of course I do,” Mills answered with a broad smile.
She made it necessary for Bruce to assist her in combating Mills’s
hopeless view of the future, though she bore the main burden of the
opposition herself. Mills’s manner was one of good-natured
indulgence; but Bruce was wondering whether there was not a deep
vein of cynicism in the man. Mills was clever at fencing, and some of
the things he said lightly no doubt expressed real convictions.
Bruce was about to take his leave when Mills with assumed
petulance declared that the fire had been neglected and began
poking the embers. Carefully putting the poker and tongs back in the
rack, he lounged toward the door, paused halfway and said good-
night formally, bowing first to one and then the other.
“Come in again sometime!” Millicent called after him.
“Is that impudence?” Mills replied, reappearing from the hall with his
coat and hat. In a moment the door closed and they heard the sound
of his stick on the walk outside.
“He’s always like that,” Millicent remarked after a moment of silence.
“It’s understood that he may come in when I’m playing and leave
when he pleases. Sometimes when I’m at the organ he sits for an
hour without my knowing he’s here. It made me nervous at first—just
remembering that he might be here; but I got over that when I found
that he really enjoyed the playing. I’m sorry he didn’t stay longer and
really talk; he wasn’t at his best tonight.”
Bruce made the merest murmur of assent, but something in Mills’s
quizzical, mocking tone, the very manner of his entrance into the
house, affected him disagreeably.
He realized that he was staying too long for a first call, but he
lingered until they had regained the cheery note with which the
evening began, and said good night.

II
When he reached the street Bruce decided to walk the mile that lay
between the Hardens’ and his apartment. His second meeting with
Franklin Mills had left his mind in tumult. He was again beset by an
impulse to flee from the town, but this he fought and vanquished.
Happiness and peace were not to be won by flight. In his soldiering
he had never feared bodily injury, and at times when he had
speculated as to the existence of a soul he had decided that if he
possessed such a thing he would not suffer it to play the coward. But
this unexpected meeting at the Hardens’, which was likely to be
repeated if he continued his visits to the house, had shaken his
nerve more than he liked to believe possible. Millicent evidently
admired Mills, sympathized with him in his loneliness, was flattered
perhaps by his visits to her home in search of solace and cheer, or
whatever it was Mills sought.
The sky was overcast and a keen autumn wind whipped the
overhanging maples as Bruce strode homeward with head bent, his
hands thrust deep into the pockets of his overcoat. He hummed and
whistled phrases of the Parsifal, with his thoughts playing about
Millicent’s head as she had sat at the organ with the knight keeping
watch above her. After all, it was through beautiful things, man-made
and God-made, as his mother had taught him, that life found its
highest realizations. In this idea there was an infinite stimulus.
Millicent had found for herself this clue to happiness and was a
radiant proof of its efficacy. It had been a privilege to see her in her
own house, to enjoy contact with her questioning, meditative mind,
and to lose himself in her entrancing music.
The street was deserted and only a few of the houses he passed
showed lights. Bruce experienced again, as often in his night tramps
during the year of his exile, a happy sense of isolation. He was so
completely absorbed in his thoughts that he was unaware of the
propinquity of another pedestrian who was slowly approaching as
though as unheedful as he of the driving wind and the first fitful
patter of rain. They passed so close that their arms touched. Both
turned, staring blankly in the light of the street lamps, and muttered
confused apologies.
“Oh, Storrs!” Franklin Mills exclaimed, bending his head against the
wind.
“Sorry to have bumped into you, sir,” Bruce replied, and feeling that
nothing more was required of him, he was about to go on, but Mills
said quickly:
“We’re in for a hard rain. Come back to my house—it’s only half a
dozen blocks—and I’ll send you home.”
There was something of kindly peremptoriness in his tone, and
Bruce, at a loss for words with which to refuse, followed, thinking that
he would walk a block to meet the demands of courtesy and turn
back. Mills, forging ahead rapidly, complained good-naturedly of the
weather.
“I frequently prowl around at night,” he explained; “I sleep better
afterwards.”
“I like a night walk myself,” Bruce replied.
“Not afraid of hold-ups? I was relieved to find it was you I ran into.
My daughter says I’m bound to get sandbagged some night.”
At the end of the first block both were obliged to battle against the
wind, which now drove the rain in furious gusts through the
intersecting streets. In grasping his hat, Mills dropped his stick, and
after picking it up, Bruce took hold of his arm for their greater ease in
keeping together. It would, he decided, be an ungenerous desertion
to leave him now, and so they arrived after much buffeting at Mills’s
door.
“That’s a young hurricane,” said Mills as he let himself in. “When
you’ve dried out a bit I’ll send you on in my car.”
In response to his ring a manservant appeared and carried away
their hats and overcoats to be dried. Mills at once led the way
upstairs to the library, where a fire had been kindled, probably
against the master’s return in the storm.
“Sit close and put your feet to the blaze. I think a hot drink would be
a help.”
Hot water and Scotch were brought and Mills laughingly assured
Bruce that he needn’t be afraid of the liquor.
“I had it long before Prohibition. Of course, everybody has to say
that!”
In his wildest speculations as to possible meetings with his father,
Bruce had imagined nothing like this. He was not only in Franklin
Mills’s house, but the man was graciously ministering to his comfort.
And Bruce, with every desire to resist, to refuse these courteous
offices, was meekly submitting. Mills, talking easily, with legs
stretched to the fire, sipped his drink contentedly while the storm
beat with mounting fury round the house.
“I think my son said you had been in the army; I should say that the
experience hadn’t done you any harm,” Mills remarked in his
pleasant voice.
“Quite the contrary, sir. The knocking about I got did me good.”
“I envy you young fellows the experience; it was a ghastly business,
but it must mean a lot in a man’s life to have gone through it.”
In response to a direct question Bruce stated concisely the nature of
his service. His colorless recital of the bare record brought a smile to
Mills’s face.
“You’re like all the young fellows I’ve talked with—modest, even a
little indifferent about it. I think if I’d been over there I should do some
bragging!”
Still bewildered to find himself at Mills’s fireside, Bruce was
wondering how soon he could leave; but Mills talked on in leisurely
fashion of the phenomenal growth of the town and the opportunities
it offered to young men. Bruce was ashamed of himself for not being
more responsive; but Mills seemed content to ramble on, though
carefully attentive to the occasional remarks Bruce roused himself to
make. Bruce, with ample opportunity, observed Mills’s ways—little
tricks of speech, the manner in which he smoked—lazily blowing
rings at intervals and watching them waver and break—an
occasional quick lifting of his well-kept hand to his forehead.
It was after they had been together for half an hour that Bruce noted
that Mills, after meeting his gaze, would lift his eyes and look intently
at something on the wall over the bookcases—something
immediately behind Bruce and out of the range of his vision. It
seemed not to be the unseeing stare of inattention; but whatever it
was, it brought a look of deepening perplexity—almost of alarm—to
Mills’s face. Bruce began to find this upward glance disconcerting,
and evidently aware that his visitor was conscious of it, Mills got up
and, with the pretence of offering his guest another cigarette,
reseated himself in a different position.
“I must run along,” said Bruce presently. “The storm is letting up. I
can easily foot it home.”
“Not at all! After keeping you till midnight I’ll certainly not send you
out to get another wetting. There’s still quite a splash on the
windows.”
He rang for the car before going downstairs, and while he was
waiting for the chauffeur to answer on the garage extension of the
house telephone, Bruce, from the fireplace, saw that it must have
been a portrait—one of a number ranged along the wall—that had
invited Mills’s gaze so frequently. It was the portrait of a young man,
the work of a painstaking if not a brilliant artist. The clean-shaven
face, the long, thick, curly brown hair, and the flowing scarf knotted
under a high turn-over collar combined in an effect of quaintness.
There was something oddly familiar in the young man’s
countenance. In the few seconds that Mills’s back was turned Bruce
found himself studying it, wondering what there was about it that
teased his memory—what other brow and eyes and clean-cut, firm
mouth he had ever seen were like those of the young man who was
looking down at him from Franklin Mills’s wall. And then it dawned
upon him that the face was like his own—might, indeed, with a
different arrangement of the hair, a softening of certain lines, pass for
a portrait of himself.
Mills, turning from the telephone, remarked that the car was on the
way.
“Ah!” he added quickly, seeing Bruce’s attention fixed on the portrait,
“my father, at about thirty-five. There’s nothing of me there; I take
after my mother’s side of the house. Father was taller than I and his
features were cleaner cut. He died twenty years ago. I’ve always
thought him a fine American type. Those other——”
Bruce lent polite attention to Mills’s comments on the other portraits,
one representing his maternal grandfather and another a great-uncle
who had been killed in the Civil War. When they reached the lower
floor Mills opened the door of a reception room and turned on the
frame lights about a full-length portrait of a lady in evening dress.
“That is Mrs. Mills,” he said, “and an excellent likeness.”
He spoke in sophisticated terms of American portraiture as they went
to the hall where the servant was waiting with Bruce’s hat and coat.
A limousine was in the porte-cochère, and Mills stood on the steps
until Bruce got in.
“I thank you very much, Mr. Mills,” Bruce said, taking the hand Mills
extended.
“Oh, I owe you the thanks! I hope to see you again very soon!”
Mills on his way to his room found himself clinging to the stair rail.
When he had closed the door he drew his hand slowly across his
eyes. He had spoken with Marian Storrs’s son and the young man by
an irony of nature had the countenance, the high-bred air of Franklin
Mills III. It was astounding, this skipping for a generation of a type! It
seemed to Mills, after he had turned off the lights, that his father’s
eyes—the eyes of young Storrs—were still fixed upon him with a
disconcerting gravity.
 CHAPTER SEVEN
I
In the fortnight following his encounter with Mills at the Hardens’, and
the later meeting that same night in the storm, Bruce had thrown
himself with fierce determination into his work. There must be no
repetitions of such meetings; they added to his self-consciousness,
made him ill at ease even when walking the streets in which at a turn
of any corner he might run into Mills.
He had never known that he had a nerve in his body, but now he
was aware of disturbing sensations, inability to concentrate on his
work, even a tremor of the hands as he bent over his drawing-board.
His abrupt change from the open road to an office in some measure
accounted for this and he began going to a public golf links on
Saturday afternoons and Sundays, and against the coming of winter
he had his name proposed for membership in an athletic club.
He avoided going anywhere that might bring him again in contact
with the man he believed to be his father. Shepherd Mills he ran into
at the University Club now and then, and he was not a little ashamed
of himself for repelling the young man’s friendly overtures. Shepherd,
evidently feeling that he must in some way explain his silence about
the clubhouse, for which Bruce had made tentative sketches, spoke
of the scheme one day as a matter he was obliged to defer for the
present.
“It’s a little late in the season to begin; and father’s doubtful about it
—thinks it might cause feeling among the men in other concerns. I
hadn’t thought of that aspect of the matter——”
Shepherd paused and frowned as he waited for Bruce to offer some
comment on the abandonment of the project. It was none of Bruce’s
affair, but he surmised that the young man had been keenly
disappointed by his father’s refusal.
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter!” Bruce remarked as though it were
merely a professional matter of no great importance. But as he left
Shepherd he thought intently about the relations of the father and
son. They were utterly irreconcilable natures. Having met Franklin
Mills, sat at his fireside, noted with full understanding the man’s
enjoyment of ease and luxury, it was not difficult to understand his
lack of sympathy with Shepherd’s radical tendencies. Piecing
together what he had heard about Mills from Henderson and
Millicent Harden with his own estimate, Bruce was confident that
whatever else Franklin Mills might be he was no altruist.
After he left Shepherd Bruce was sorry that he had been so brusque.
He might at least have expressed his sympathy with the young
man’s wish to do something to promote the happiness of his
workmen. The vitality so evident in Franklin Mills’s vigorous figure,
and his perfect poise, made Shepherd appear almost ridiculous in
contrast.
Bruce noted that the other young men about the club did not treat
Shepherd quite as one of themselves. When Shepherd sat at the big
round table in the grill he would listen to the ironic give and take of
the others with a pathetic eagerness to share in their good
fellowship, but unable to make himself quite one of them. This might
have been due, Bruce thought, to the anxiety of Shepherd’s
contemporaries—young fellows he had grown up with—to show their
indifference to the fact that he was the son of the richest man in
town. Or they felt, perhaps, that Shepherd was not equal to his
opportunities. Clearly, however, no one ever had occasion to refer to
Shepherd Mills as the typical young scion of a wealthy family whose
evil ways were bound to land him in the poorhouse or the gutter.
In other circumstances Bruce would have felt moved to make a
friend of Shepherd, but the fact that they were of the same blood
haunted him like a nightmare.

II
As the days went by, Bruce fell prey to a mood common to sensitive
men in which he craved talk with a woman—a woman of
understanding. It was Saturday and the office closed at noon. He
would ask Millicent to share his freedom in a drive into the country;
and without giving himself time to debate the matter, he made haste
to call her on the telephone.
Her voice responded cheerily. Leila had just broken an engagement
with her for golf and wouldn’t he play? When he explained that he
wasn’t a member of a club and the best he could do for her would be
to take her to a public course, she declared that he must be her
guest. The point was too trivial for discussion; the sooner they
started the better, and so two o’clock found them both with a good
initial drive on the Faraway course.
“Long drives mean long talks,” she said. “We begin at least with the
respect of our caddies. You’ll never guess what I was doing when
you called up!”
“At the organ, or in the studio putting a nose on somebody?”
“Wrong! I was planting tulip bulbs. This was a day when I couldn’t
have played a note or touched clay to save my life. Ever have such
fits?”
“I certainly do,” replied Bruce.
Each time he saw her she was a little different—today he was finding
her different indeed from the girl who had played for him, and yet not
the girl of his adventure on the river or the Millicent he had met at the
Country Club party. There was a charm in her variableness, perhaps
because of her habitual sincerity and instinctive kindness. He waited
for her to putt and rolled his own ball into the cup.
“Sometimes I see things black; and then again there does appear to
be blue sky,” he said.
“Yes; but that’s not a serious symptom. If we didn’t have those little
mental experiences we wouldn’t be interesting to ourselves!”
“Great Scott! Must we be interesting to ourselves?”
“Absolutely!”
“But when I’m down in the mouth I don’t care whether I’m interesting
or not!”
“Nothing in it! Life’s full of things to do—you know that! I believe
you’re just trying to psychoanalyze me!”
“I swear I’m not! I was in the depths this morning; that’s why I called
you up!”
“Now——” She carefully measured a short approach and played it
neatly. “Oh, you didn’t want to see me socially, so to speak; you just
wanted someone to tell your troubles to! Is that a back-handed
compliment?”
“Rather a confession—do you hate it?”
“No—I rather like that.”
With an artistic eye she watched him drive a long low ball with his
brassie. His tall figure, the free play of arms and shoulders, his
boyish smile when she praised the shot, contributed to a new
impression of him. He appeared younger than the night he called on
her, when she had thought him diffident, old-fashioned and stiffly
formal.
As they walked over the turf with a misty drizzle wetting their faces
fitfully it seemed to both that their acquaintance had just begun.
When he asked if she didn’t want to quit she protested that she was
dressed for any weather. It was unnecessary to accommodate
himself to her in any way; she walked as rapidly as he; when she
sliced her ball into the rough she bade him not follow her, and when
she had gotten into the course again she ran to join him, as though
eager not to break the thread of their talk. The thing she was doing
at a given moment was, he judged, the one thing in the world that
interested her. The wind rose presently and blew the mist away and
there was promise of a clearing sky.
“You’ve brought the sun back!” he exclaimed. “Something told me
you had influence with the weather.”
“I haven’t invoked any of my gods today; so it’s just happened.”
“Your gods! You speak as though you had a list!”
“Good gracious! You promised me once not to pick me up and make
me explain myself.”
“Then I apologize. I can see that it isn’t fair to make a goddess
explain her own divinity.”
“Oh-o-o-o,” she mocked him. “You get zero for that!”
She was walking along with her hands thrust into the pockets of her
sweater, the brim of her small sport hat turned up above her face.
“But seriously,” she went on, “out of doors is the best place to think
of God. The churches make religion seem so complicated. We can’t
believe in a God we can’t imagine. Where there’s sky and grass it’s
all so much simpler. The only God I can feel is a spirit hovering all
about, watching and loving us—the God of the Blue Horizons. I can’t
think of Him as a being whose name must be whispered as children
whisper of terrifying things in the dark.”
“The God of the Blue Horizons?” He repeated the phrase slowly.
“Yes; the world has had its day of fear—anything that lifts our eyes to
the blue sky is good—really gives us, I suppose, a sense of the
reality of God....”
They had encountered few other players, but a foursome was now
approaching them where the lines of the course paralleled.
“Constance Mills and George Whitford; I don’t know the others,” said
Millicent.
Mrs. Mills waved her hand and started toward them, looking very fit
in a smart sport suit. Idly twirling her driver, she had hardly the air of
a zealous golfer.
“Ah!” she exclaimed. “Aren’t we the brave ones? Scotch blood! Not
afraid of a little moisture. Mr. Storrs! I know now why you’ve never
been to see me—you’re better occupied. It’s dreadful to be an old
married woman. You see what happens, Millicent! I warn you
solemnly against marriage. Yes, George—I’m coming. Nice to meet
you, even by chance, Mr. Storrs. By-by, Millie.”
“You’ve displeased her ladyship,” Millicent remarked. “You ought to
go to see her.”
“I haven’t felt strongly moved,” Bruce replied.
“She doesn’t like being ignored. Of course nobody does, but Mrs.
Mills demands to be amused.”
“Is she being amused now?” Bruce asked.
“I wish Leila could have heard that!”
“Doesn’t Leila like her sister-in-law?”
“Yes, of course she does, but Constance is called the most beautiful
and the best dressed woman in town and the admiration she gets
goes to her head a little bit. George Whitford seems to admire her
tremendously. Leila has a sense of humor that sees right through
Constance’s poses.”
“Doesn’t Leila pose just a little herself?”
“You might say that she does. Just now she’s affecting the fast
young person pose; but I think she’s about through with it. She’s
really the finest girl alive, but she kids herself with the idea that she’s
an awful devil. Her whole crowd are affected by the same bug.”
“I rather guessed that,” said Bruce. “Let me see—was that five for
you?”

III
When they reached the clubhouse Millicent proposed that they go
home for the tea which alone could fittingly conclude the afternoon.
The moment they entered the Harden hall she lifted her arms
dramatically.
“Jumbles!” she cried in a mockery of delight. “Mother has been
making jumbles! Come straight to the kitchen!”
In the kitchen they found Mrs. Harden, her ample figure enveloped in
a gingham apron of bright yellow checks that seemed to fill the
immaculate white kitchen with color. Bruce was a little dismayed by
his sudden precipitation into the culinary department of the
establishment. Millicent began piling a plate with warm jumbles; a
maid appeared and began getting the tea things ready. Mrs. Harden,
her face aglow from its recent proximity to the gas range, explained
to Bruce that it was the cook’s afternoon out and at such times she
always liked to cook something just to keep her hand in. She was
proud of the kitchen with its white-tiled walls and flooring and
glittering utensils. The library and the organ belonged to Millie, she
said, but Doctor Harden had given her free swing to satisfy her own
craving for an up-to-date kitchen.
Bruce’s heart warmed under these revelations of the domestic
sanctuary. Mrs. Harden’s motherliness seemed to embrace the world
and her humor and sturdy common sense were strongly evident.
She regaled Bruce with a story of a combat she had lately enjoyed
with a plumber. She warned him that if he would succeed as an
architect he must be firm with plumbers.
Alone in the living-room with their tea, Millicent and Bruce continued
to find much to discuss. She was gay and serious by turns, made
him talk of himself, and finding that this evidently was distasteful to
him, she led the way back to impersonal things again.
“Why go when there will be dinner here pretty soon?” she asked
when he rose.
“Because I want to come back sometime! I want some more jumbles!
It’s been a great afternoon for me. I do like the atmosphere of this
house—kitchen and everything. And the outdoors was fine—and you
——”
“I hoped you’d remember I was part of the scenery!”
“I couldn’t forget it if I wanted to—and I don’t! Do you suppose we
could do it all over again—sometime when you’re not terribly busy?”
“Oh, I’ll try to bear another afternoon with you!”
“Or we might do a theater or a movie?”
“Even that is possible.”
He didn’t know that she was exerting herself to send him away
cheerful. When he said soberly, his hand on the door, “You don’t
know how much you’ve helped me,” she held up her finger
warningly.
“Not so serious! Always cheerful!—that’s the watchword!”
“All right! You may have to say that pretty often.”
Her light laugh, charged with friendliness, followed him down the
steps. She had made him forget himself, lifted him several times to
heights he had never known before. He was sorry that he had not
asked her further about the faith to which she had confessed, her
God of the Blue Horizons. The young women he had known were
not given to such utterances,—certainly not while playing very
creditable golf! Her phrase added majesty to the universe, made the
invisible God intelligible and credible. He felt that he could never
again look at the heavens without recalling that phrase of hers. It
wakened in him the sense of a need that he had never known
before. It was as if she had interpreted some baffling passage in a
mysterious book and clarified it. He must see her again; yes, very
often he must see her.
But on his way home a dark thought crossed his mind: “What would
Millicent say if she knew?”
 CHAPTER EIGHT
I
Two weeks later Bud Henderson sought Bruce at Freeman’s office.
Bruce looked up from his desk with a frown that cleared as he
recognized his friend. With his cap pushed back on his head and
buttoned up in a long ulster, Henderson eyed him stolidly and
demanded to know what he was doing.
“Going over some specifications; I might say I’m at work, if you knew
what the word means.”
“Thanks for the compliment, but it’s time to quit,” Henderson replied,
taking a cigarette from a package on Bruce’s desk. “I happen to
know your boss is playing handball this moment at the Athletic and
he’ll never know you’ve skipped. I haven’t liked a certain look in your
eye lately. You’re sticking too close to your job. Bill is pleased to
death with your work, so you haven’t a thing to worry about. Get your
bonnet and we’ll go out and see what we can stir up.”
“I’m in a frame of mind to be tempted. But I ought to finish this stuff.”
“Don’t be silly,” replied Bud, who was prowling about the room
viewing the framed plans and drawings on the walls, peering into
cabinets, unrolling blue prints merely to fling them aside with a groan
of disgust.
“My God! It doesn’t seem possible that Bill Freeman would put his
name to such things!”
“Don’t forget this is a private office, Mr. Henderson. What’s agitating
your bean?”
“Thought I’d run you up to the art institute to look at some Finnish
work they’re showing. Perhaps it’s Hottentotish; or maybe it’s Eskimo
art. We’ve got to keep in touch with the world art movement.”
Henderson yawned.
“Try again; I pant for real excitement,” said Bruce, who was
wondering whether his friend really had noticed signs of his recent
worry. Henderson, apparently intent upon a volume of prints of
English country houses, swung round as Bruce, in putting on his
overcoat, knocked over a chair. He crossed the room and laid his
hands on Bruce’s broad shoulders.
“I say, old top; this will never do! You’re nervous; you’re damned
nervous. Knocking over chairs—and you with the finest body known
in modern times! I watched you the other day eating your lunch all
alone at the club—you didn’t know I was looking at you. Your
expression couldn’t be accounted for even by that bum club lunch.
Now if it’s money——”
“Nothing of the kind, Bud!” Bruce protested. “You’ll have me scared
in a minute. There’s nothing the matter with me. I’m all right; I just
have to get readjusted to a new way of living; that’s all.”
“Well, as you don’t thrill to the idea of viewing works of art, I’ll tell you
what I’m really here for. I’m luring you away to sip tea with a widow!”
“A widow! Where do you get the idea that I’m a consoler of widows?”
“This one doesn’t need consoling! Helen Torrence is the name; relict
of the late James B. deceased. She’s been away ever since you lit in
our midst and just got home. About our age and not painful to look
at. Jim Torrence was a good fifty when he met her, at White Sulphur
or some such seat of opulence, and proudly brought her home for
local inspection. The gossips forcibly removed most of her moral
character, just on suspicion, you understand—but James B.’s money
had a soothing effect and she got one foot inside our social door
before he passed hence three years ago and left her the boodle he
got from his first wife. Helen’s a good scout. It struck me all of a heap
about an hour ago that she’s just the girl to cheer you up. I was just
kidding about the art stuff. I telephoned Helen I was coming, so
we’re all set.”