Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/44

 "What use is your word? Didn't you deny this a month ago?"

What did his father mean, Jay wondered.

In a moment, he returned to the question. "How old is she?"

"Old? She's just nineteen."

Why didn't Ellen Powell go?

His father turned to her. "He wrote me a letter on his twenty-third birthday, last month," he said to her. "Find me that letter."

Ellen went to the personal files against the wall and bent over; she dropped to her knees and knelt, as she searched, she was shaking so.

Looking about, she saw Mr. Rountree watching her as he waited for the letter.

Jay, watching her, remembered that on his birthday he had made one of his periodical attempts to clear up quarrels with his father; he had made a special effort of reconciliation, writing to his father honestly of what he had and had not done. In reply, his father had been conciliatory, expressing a certain amount of faith in him and a willingness to take him on trust for the future. But now his father believed, and must believe, that he had written that letter after—Lida.

He burned with flaming shame at this realization; and his father swung about and caught him.

"You now recollect your letter?"

Jay nodded.

Ellen drew it from the files and brought it slowly to the desk.