"To-morrow, I think."
"Oh," said Beedy, retreating a little, and reported: "Your father's come in."
"Any one with him?" asked Jay.
Habitually, indeed almost invariably, his father brought home a guest; a member of some missionary board, a bishop, a field worker in the Near East Relief, a man from China Inland Missions or some one of the same kind. If he had not a guest, he would come home only to go out to a dinner of some board of relief or well-doings.
"No one is with him," said Beedy; and Jay knew that this was intentional to-night and that his father would not go out.
He found his father in the alcove where the piano was playing. It performed electrically and was rendering Chopin's A-fiat Polonaise while his father stood ten feet away watching the ghostly miracle of the keys moving without fingers.
"Hello, father," said Jay.
His father looked at him, stepped to the piano and stopped it. "Where have you been?"
"Oh, club and here."
"I expected you again at the office. I have talked with Mrs. Lytle. I have told her you are returning to New York. I have made a reservation for you."
"Century to-morrow?" asked Jay.
"Miss Powell has your ticket."
"I'll need more than tickets—marrying," said Jay.
