what was his present relation with the Lytles and with his wife. She had no information, indeed, of himself except what crept into letters of his or his father's to Mr. Armiston, which it was her business to read. Ellen had not imagined how completely she was to be banished from him.
He came from the train, and, it being midmorning and New York, not Chicago, she was alone when the door opened and he was before her. He closed the door, quickly, and after they had spoken, he stood away from her. This was not, and could not be, resumption at the point of their parting; they had dropped from that, both of them, in externals; but what was within him? Anything of that which beat in her?
He asked her about her family and of Ann and Ted by name; she answered, noticing that his hair had become, again, darker than his skin. He was a bit older, a bit more than two months explained. Perhaps it was his new suit, cut differently. No; it was in his eyes and the slight set of his lips, after he smiled. He was taking more responsibility; he was less a boy. But if he flung himself, exhausted, across a best-room bed, he would sleep like a boy again! Looking at him, in this New York office, she saw him suddenly as he had slept in the shaft of light from the lamp in her hand.
"How has it been in Chicago?" she asked him.
"Rotten," he told her honestly.
"How is your father?"
Jay winced. "Spending his soul on economy. I'm glad you don't see him. He's—" Jay hesitated and made a clean breast of it—"he's lost his confidence, you see. He
