“I’ll tell you,” she promised in response to Mrs. Merideth’s question; “but I haven’t heard yet from the head of the house.”
“I can add little to what has been said,” declared Frank with a smile. “He is all that they pictured him. He is the king-pin, the keystone—anything you please. But, why?”
“Nothing, only I know him. He is an old friend.”
“You know him!—a friend!” The three voices were one in shocked amazement.
“Yes, long ago in Houghtonsville,” smiled Margaret. “He knew me still longer ago than that, but that part I remember only as it has been told to me. He was the little boy who found me crying in the streets of New York, and took me home to his mother.”
There was a stunned silence around the table. It was the first time the Spencers had ever heard Margaret speak voluntarily of her childhood, and it frightened them. It seemed to bring into the perfumed air of the dining-room the visible presence of poverty and misery. They feared, too, for Margaret: this was the one thing that must be guarded against—the possible return to the morbid fancies of her youth. And this man—
“Why, how strange!” murmured Mrs. Merideth, breaking the pause. “But then, after all, he’ll not annoy you, I fancy.”
“Of course not,” cut in Ned. “McGinnis is no fool, and he knows his place.”
“Most assuredly,” declared Frank, with a sudden tightening of his lips. “You’ll not see him again, I fancy. If he annoys you, let me know.”
“Oh, but ‘twon’t be an annoyance,” smiled Margaret. “I asked him to come and see me.”