"Back again?" asked Mrs. Harmon eagerly. "Oh, it's only you, Stephen!"
"Only me," and he turned to go, but she seized him.
"Why did you do that?" she demanded, and then not waiting for an answer asked: "You didn't tell the Blanchards he was here?"
"Not I," he replied. "Lydia, why do you hold me so?"
"Why did you startle me so?" she retorted. "But go along with you!" So he went, having by his manoeuver found out enough.
It was not wholly interest in his house, therefore, which took Ellis to Chebasset before many days. He went to the office of the mill, and as he stood before the chimney and looked up at it he mused that, metaphorically speaking, it would not take much prying at its foundations to make it fall: Wayne was a weak prop to such a structure. He opened the office door. Jim, from bending over Miss Jenks as she sat at her desk, rose up and stared at him. And the little pale stenographer grew pink.
"People usually knock," Jim was beginning. "—Oh, Mr. Ellis!"
"Down for the afternoon," said Ellis. "I hate to lunch alone at this hotel. Won't you come with me?"
"Why, I——" hesitated Jim.
"Going up on the hill afterward to see my house," added Ellis. "I won't keep you long."