Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/41

 Ralph and Margaret. But of what use to Lida were words with them? Ralph and Margaret were as helpless as Nucast to aid Lida. Of them all, Jay alone could be of any service; so he had offered himself to her yesterday; and to-day, she had accepted him.

The cold cut him. The wind was from the east and his father's office was on Michigan Avenue, confronting the lake. He reached the building. Warm in the elevator; men crowding him and each other; business men spending their days at selling something to some one else, or buying; holding the fates of others in their important hands—like Nucast.

He wanted to think what to say to his father; he tried to; but his mind would make no proper preparation for the story he was required to tell. His mind went back and back again to the truth which he must not impart to any one, least of all to his father. For his father, told the truth, would intervene; he would simply smash up everything which Jay had promised and prepared to protect Lida. No one else must know; he must go through with it.

Fourteenth floor. Out here. John Rountree and Company. That door, beyond which was his father!

Jay opened it and faced his father at his desk, with Ellen Powell near him. She was standing, very white. What big gray eyes she had! What big, steady eyes!

"Shut that door," his father commanded. "Shut that door."