Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/187

 Jay entered and, barely noticed by Lew, he sat at one side to await the finish of Lew's business with his father.

"You'll step over to the shop with me?" Mr. Rountree invited Lew.

"I've seen a shop to-day," reminded Lew subtly taunting; and Mr. Rountree left him to Jay and her.

"I'll take you up home," offered Jay, pleasantly, for Lew was to endure a perfunctory dinner with Mr. Rountree.

"What's up at your house now?" inquired Lew and glanced at Ellen. "I've some letters."

"All right," said Jay, and arose. Ellen always did Lew's letters when he was in Chicago; she kept for him sheets of the Alban stationery, which she produced, with hands slightly unsteady.

Jay noticed this and looked up at her. What excited her? he wondered. She possessed a calmness and a quality of poise, ordinarily, beyond any other girl he knew. It was what made her so satisfactory and companionable in a talk over affairs gone wrong; but she was upset, for this moment. He wondered about it and went out.

Ellen took her seat with notebook open and waited with the disquiet, which Jay had seen, astir within her. Lew kept her waiting. She arose and, to occupy herself, set to straightening Mr. Rountree's desk. Lew Alban's eyes were on her, watching her face and her hands and looking down, as he always did, at her legs. He was blowing smoke rings at her.

"You're a mighty good business girl," he spoke to