As the spring days grew warmer, Miss Maggie had occasion many times to look after Mr. Smith with troubled eyes. She could not understand him at all. One day he would be the old delightful companion, genial, cheery, generously donating a box of chocolates to the center-table bonbon dish or a dozen hothouse roses to the mantel vase. The next, he would be nervous, abstracted, almost irritable. Yet she could see no possible reason for the change.

Sometimes she wondered fearfully if Mellicent could have anything to do with it. Was it possible that he had cared for Mellicent, and to see her now so happy with Donald Gray was more than he could bear? It did not seem credible. There was his own statement that he had devoted himself to her solely and only to help keep the undesirable lovers away and give Donald Gray a chance.

Besides, had he not said that he was not a marrying man, anyway? To be sure, that seemed a pity—a man so kind and thoughtful and so delightfully companionable! But then, it was nothing to her, of course—only she did hope he was not feeling unhappy over Mellicent!

Miss Maggie wished, too, that Mr. Smith would not bring flowers and candy so often. It worried her. She felt as if he were spending too much money—and she had got the impression in some way that he did not have any too much money to spend. And there were the expensive motor trips, too—she feared Mr. Smith WAS extravagant. Yet she could not tell him so, of course. He never seemed to realize the value of a dollar, anyway, and he very obviously did not know how to get the most out of it. Look at his foolish generosity in regard to the board he paid her!

Miss Maggie wondered sometimes if it might not be worry over money matters that was making him so nervous and irritable on occasions now. Plainly he was very near the end of his work there in Hillerton. He was not getting so many letters on Blaisdell matters from away, either. For a month now he had done nothing but a useless repetition of old work; and of late, a good deal of the time, he was not even making that pretense of being busy. For days at a time he would not touch his records. That could mean but one thing, of course; his work was done. Yet he seemed to be making no move toward departure. Not that she wanted him to go. She should miss him very much when he went, of course. But she did not like to feel that he was staying simply because he had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Miss Maggie did not believe in able-bodied men who had nowhere to go and nothing to do— and she wanted very much to believe in Mr. Smith.