Millie seemed to hesitate before answering: "He's gone back to his place. I told him Mr. Thomas was here and he wouldn't even come in to see him! He says he does not like it. I don't think it is any of his business," she added, giving Bill a hug. "Why ain't it?" Bill asked. Again Millie hesitated, then said, "Mr. Thomas is just as nice as he can be daddy, and--" "His yaller gloves is nice. So's his cane. Must take him an awful long time to dress." Millie took her arm away and looked at him. She caught the lift of his eyebrows and the peculiar expression of his half-open mouth and half-shut eyes, an expression which always decorated Bill's face when he gave vent to sentiments which Millie had come to regard as "Daddy's intuitions." Bill always used trivial words at such moments, but that did not minimize the effect. "But, daddy, it seems so hard to make you understand how good Mr. Thomas has been to me! Mother understands. He took such pains with me. I was a perfect greenhorn and didn't know the first thing about office work. No matter what mistakes I made, he was just as patient as he could be. And he says he loves this beautiful country up here! He liked to hear me tell about our wonderful waterfall." Bill puffed his cigarette, an odd gleam in his eyes, perhaps of amusement, perhaps of wisdom. Millie glanced back toward the house; then her eyes swept the shore and finally came to rest on something barely visible far up on the mountain--John Marvin's cabin. She sighed and continued to gaze in the same direction. Bill stole a look at her. "Liked to hear about our waterfall, eh?" he remarked. "I thought so." Millie started. "Thought what, daddy?" she asked, her brown eyes trying to read his face. "Nothin'. Nothin'," he replied, with a note of finality that she had long learned to know as indicating the futility of further questioning. "Well," she said, rising, "I think you'd better come up to the house, daddy. I suppose you left Mr. Thomas all alone there on the veranda, didn't you? You might have stayed and entertained him until I got back." "Guess he entertains himself pretty well," said Bill. "Besides, mother's with him." "But you ought to be there, too, daddy; you're the head of the house, you know!" He gave her an amused glance as she cuddled his arm in hers and walked him off. "All right, Millie, but I kinder keep fergettin' that part of it." Coming up the veranda steps, they found Mrs. Jones sitting there with a handsome, perfectly groomed young man of possibly twenty-seven. Raymond Thomas looked actually too good to be true in that backwoods region. He arose quickly, placed a chair for Millie, and then drew one beside his own, urging Bill to occupy it.