of their handclasp beside the northern road? Did he recollect his leap from the sloop to her little boat, when he had seen her? He inquired about her mother and about the rest, by name—of Ted and Ann, especially—and she replied to him steadily enough, almost as usual. He went out, leaving her to her work with his father.
Jay had heard from Lida. It was a note in pencil and so brief that he had memorized it.
"I'm all right. It's all right. The stars are not so stale, Jay. Do you ever look at them? Later, I'll send for you."
So Lida had not been among the dead who had danced in the sky of that northern night. Instead, the stars had become, for her, not stale! How and why? He thought of her often as he went about; and he returned to Ellen at the end of the day, as he used to do.
"Ken Howarth and I had lunch together," he related. "Lyman Howarth's gone back east. We talked race."
"What's Lew Alban doing?" Ellen asked.
"Staying in Stanley for a while. There's probate proceedings, of course, and a lot of legal stuff. Then he returns to New York. He's offered for sale everything he has in Stanley, except the factory; even the old house."
"His home," repeated Ellen, offended at the idea; and she asked: "Did you see Mr. Slengel there?"
"He was not at the funeral. That was rather a Rountree affair," said Jay wryly. "But he came down before we left; in fact, we left him with Lew."
He glanced at her smooth, brown throat and her brown little hands and her bare forearm; he dwelt, for the instant, in the delight of his day with her; he dwelt with the longing for her which had seized him under the stars—
