girl; she was a nice-looking girl. I'd been wondering about her and . . ." he told Jay all about it.
After he had heard it, Jay was obliged to go into the conference, but Ralph arrived to bear the burden of negotiation.
Ralph was elated when Jay and he left. He clapped Jay on the back: "Got 'em. We got 'em! Got 'em from Slengel, b'God. I'd as soon have L. K. Howarth Sr., look at me and say, 'I'm satisfied. We will arrange it' as see his name on a signed order. It's done, with him. He's sold."
Jay did not jubilate. He did not doubt that Ralph and he had Howarth; he knew it. Lyman, privately, had just told him so. Knowing it, he did not know what to do with the knowledge.
He could not yet telegraph it to his father. When the order was signed, he would; that would be some satisfaction; some . . . but the rest was run from him. He could not take his trophy to Ellen Powell. He could not return to her at all. Gone again, and this time forever, his end of day with her. Gone—gone, end of day with her in Chicago; gone his incomparable day—that day begun with cock-crow and wood smoke, gray eyes and brown hands on a blue bowl of berries; brown arms and legs in the sun of the lake and the swim to the little boat; gone the delight of talk together on the hill; gone the joy and reluctance of parting at the roadside under the dance of the dead. She had accompanied Lew Alban to the party last night. Upon the evening of Lew's return, she had gone out with him. She must—miserably, Jay thought—have resumed a friendship with Lew developed before.
So Jay could not return to the office; but he could find
