"I'm the prodigal son," he said to himself. "They've agreed to forgive me." And he asked, as soon as he had spoken formally to his father, "How's Mr. Alban?"
"Not at all well."
"You mean he's very bad?"
"Comfortable enough," replied his father. "He may go on as he is for a year; he may be gone to-morrow."
"Sorry," said Jay, pressing slightly his father's hand and with the offense gone from him. Sincerely old Stanley and his father were friends, he knew, though he felt no force, for himself, in the tie of emotionalism and religiosity which bound them. To pray together was simply their way of seriously deciding a question. He had wanted to ask whether his father had brought back the Alban business but he did not and, indeed, he needed not. He knew that relations remained much what they had been.
"How's Lew?" he inquired.
"How is your wife?" asked his father.
"Fine," said Jay.
"You have not yet come home."
Not moved to the house, his father meant.
"No," said Jay.
"It will welcome you," assured his father, withdrawing his hand. "You will both be over this evening."
"I want to talk business with you," said Jay, seating himself on the edge of the desk as his father resumed his chair.
"What do you mean by business?"
"Payroll," replied Jay plainly.
"I will employ you," his father offered. "Your place is with me." And Jay recognized in this an echo of discus-
