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 "No . . . but you've had a call."

"Father?" he asked. Ellen shook her head and her confusion fled as she warmed with excitement familiar to the moments when he and she, before he had married, banded together against his father.

"Mr. Philip Metten phoned for you," she related and delivered the message, adding, "Your father didn't ask for you, but he said something about you. He's returning to-morrow and told me to invite you and your wife to dine at home with him."

"Exactly what did he say?" demanded Jay, smiling but also reddening. "I want his own words."

"Well, he told me to see that you and your wife dined with him."

"That all?" insisted Jay.

"He asked, were you still at the hotel? He said you were to move home."

"At once, I suppose."

Ellen nodded, gazing up at him, and he considered her, half absently, half realizing her in the manner of their odd intimacy which surprised him only when, suddenly, he remembered Lida.

"Is father bringing back the Alban business?" he asked.

"I don't know; and I don't think he does. It makes Metten so mighty important, doesn't it?"

Did he think, she wondered, that she urged him to use his wife to help hold Metten? She wanted him to hold the Metten account.

"It's a rotten row," he said, "business."

She opposed him, quickly. "No, it's not!"

"Do you like it?" he challenged her.