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 Ellen felt he was playing upon Mr. Rountree with a more pompous and more cruel deference than ever before; and he plied Jay, overpolitely, with small, worthless presents, impossible to refuse.

Yes; Lew was letting out. At the office, he was punctilious with her; no curve of her body escaped his scrutiny but he did not delay to be alone with her. He wanted to be off; off to New York, "free as air" (as Di had said), with no parent alive to learn, by any chance, reports of him.

Again and again his eyes came to Ellen, but each time her sensation was the same. He was postponing her; he had put off his patience and willingness to wait; he was off to New York free as air. Art Slengel accompanied him.

From New York, Ralph Armiston recorded Lew's arrival.

"I am not personally popular with him, as you know," Ellen read Ralph's frank admission, in a letter to Mr. Rountree. (She remembered Jay's statement that Ralph was to Lew, as was Lew to Ralph, a pot of poison.) "I have no negotiations with him at his office. We are supposed to assume that his business stays with us. He refuses my social invitations; he goes around with Slengel."

Di, a few evenings later, confirmed this. "Art's sticking in New York," she informed Ellen. "He's certainly on the job with Lew," and she vouchsafed details, which had reached her, that demonstrated that Mr. Slengel spent little of his time, on the job, in Lew's office. The method of procedure, which had proved itself by most practical