Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/173



Ellen waited through the morning for Jay. Of course she did her work for Mr. Rountree but, throughout it, she was waiting. Where was Jay? Noon passed; and his father offered no comment upon his absence.

She had determined, during the night, upon the attitude which, henceforth, she must maintain toward Jay in these days when he and she would be cast inte more frequent and intimate association than ever before. She must be close to him, and work with him impersonally. She imagined that she could assume an impersonal attitude toward him. She even had practiced it, repeating to herself words she would say to him. She wanted to start with him to-day, when she was thus prepared; and he did not appear.

He entered with his father, upon the next morning, and at sight of them together, she discerned that something unknown to her had happened. Mr. Rountree's manner with Jay was changed; it had been, always, critical or censorious; now it was less so. Jay was quieter and more considering.

He struck a sort of compromise between his father's plan for his employment and his own. He was assigned, definitely, to the sales force and to the direction of Mr. Lowry, but his immediate occupation was with the files in his father's and in Ellen's own little office, where he spent hour after hour, meeting her prepared impersonal-