Chapter XXXIII

Ned Spencer returned alone to Hilcrest about the middle of April. In spite of their able corps of managers, the Spencers did not often leave the mills for so long a time without the occasional presence of one or the other of the firm, though Ned frequently declared that the mills were like a clock that winds itself, so admirably adjusted was the intricate machinery of their management.

It was not without some little embarrassment and effort that Ned sought out the Mill House, immediately upon his return, and called on Margaret.

"I left Della and Frank to come more slowly," he said, after the greetings were over. "Frank, poor chap, isn't half strong yet, but he was impatient that some one should be here. For that matter, I found things in such fine shape that I told them I was going away again. We made more money when I wasn't 'round than when I was!"

Margaret smiled, but very faintly. She understood only too well that behind all this lay the reasons why her urgent requests and pleas regarding some of the children, had been so ignored in the office of Spencer & Spencer during the last few months. She almost said as much to Ned, but she changed her mind and questioned him about Frank's health and their trip, instead.

The call was not an unqualified success--at least it was not a success so far as Margaret was concerned. The young man was plainly displeased with the cane-seated chair in which he sat, and with his hostess's simple toilet. The reproachful look had gone from his eyes, it was true, but in its place was one of annoyed disapproval that was scarcely less unpleasant to encounter. There were long pauses in the conversation, which neither participant seemed able to fill. Once Margaret tried to tell her visitor of her work, but he was so clearly unsympathetic that she cut it short and introduced another subject. Of McGinnis she did not speak; time enough for that when Frank Spencer should return and the engagement would have to be known. She did tell him, however, of her plans to go to New York later in search of the twins.

"I shall take Patty with me," she explained, "and we shall make it a sort of vacation. We both need the change and the--well, it won't be exactly a rest, perhaps."

"No, I fear not," Ned returned grimly. "I do hope, Margaret, that when Della gets home you'll take a real rest and change at Hilcrest. Surely by that time you'll be ready to cut loose from all this sort of thing!"

Margaret laughed merrily, though her eyes were wistful.

"We'll wait and see how rested New York makes me," she said.

"But, Margaret, you surely are going to come to Hilcrest then," appealed Ned, "whether you need rest or not!"

"We'll see, Ned, we'll see," was all she would say, but this time her voice had lost its merriment.

Ned, though he did not know it, and though Margaret was loth to acknowledge it even to herself, had touched upon a tender point. She did long for Hilcrest, its rest, its quiet, and the tender care that its people had always given her. She longed for even one day in which she would have no problems to solve, no misery to try to alleviate--one day in which she might be the old care-free Margaret. She reproached herself bitterly for all this, however, and accused herself of being false to her work and her dear people; but in the next breath she would deny the accusation and say that it was only because she was worn out and "dead tired."

"When the people do get home," she said to Bobby McGinnis one day, "when the people do get home, we'll take a rest, you and I. We'll go up to Hilcrest and just play for a day or two. It will do us good."

"To Hilcrest?--I?" cried the man.

"Certainly; why not?" returned Margaret quickly, a little disturbed at the surprise in her lover's voice. "Surely you don't think that the man I'm expecting to marry can stay away from Hilcrest; do you?"

"N-no, of course not," murmured McGinnis; but his eyes were troubled, and Margaret noticed that he did not speak again for some time.

It was this, perhaps, that set her own thoughts into a new channel. When, after all, had she thought of them before together--Bobby and Hilcrest? It had always been Bobby and--the work.