Bill glanced slyly at the girl, whose brown head was bowed thoughtfully. "What you think, Millie?" he asked.
"I don't know what to say," she replied, slowly. "I could go back to San Francisco and work as I did last year. But maybe we could pull through this winter—if only we could get boarders. I don't mind the work, and—and I'd rather stay home here."
Bill's eyes suddenly twinkled. "What's the matter?" he chuckled. "John Marvin come back from the city to stay at his cabin?"
Millie blushed. "Daddy!" she pouted.
Mrs. Jones did not seem any too pleased at her husband's remark. "John Marvin 'ain't got nothin' to do with it!" she exclaimed. "I don't see what he comes foolin' around here for, anyway—Millie 'ain't got him on her mind!"
"I should say not!" Millie echoed, though it occurred to Bill that the softness of her brown eyes belied the petulant toss of her head. "Perhaps, after all, it would be best for me to go back to Mr. Thomas's office!"
Bill turned his half-shut eyes on her quickly, but Millie did not note the expression of genuine concern in them. He sat lost in thought. The last winter had been the most difficult of all for them. Millie, feeling that it was time for her being some help, had studied typewriting and stenography and had obtained a position in the office of Raymond Thomas, a San Francisco lawyer. Presumably on a vacation, Thomas had chanced to spend a week at the Jones place the previous summer. Millie had told him of her design to help the family, and Thomas had suggested that she take the position open in his office.
But that had been a dreary and lonely winter for Bill and his wife. Millie's pretty face and youthful ways had been missed sorely; the girl had come to be all in all to the old couple, and they could not bear to see her go away again for another long winter.
Then, too, Bill had his own reasons for feeling grave and down in the mouth when Millie suggested her returning to work in the office of Raymond Thomas. Bill Jones was not one to analyze, or to voice or explain his thoughts—even to himself—unless he took a notion to, or considered that the right moment had arrived; it was all too much trouble, anyway. Certain thoughts were running through his mind now, however; running a little at random, to be sure, but they were there. His young friend, John Marvin, had worked in Thomas's office for a time—was working there when Millie entered the office. Indeed, that was how Marvin had met Millie and found, to his delight, that they were neighbors up in Nevada—that she was the pretty daughter his friend Bill Jones was always mentioning.
But Bill was thinking now especially of the fact that Marvin had left Raymond Thomas's office suddenly, and had told Bill precisely why he had left.