Jay, in white shirt and duck, was up the mast of a forty-foot sloop, rigging the halyards. It was a Sunday morning, warm and sunny and sleepy upon that little inlet of sheltered water which sparkles beside the green parkway and boulevard shore of the Chicago "gold coast."
It lies well north of the great, geometrical jetties and moles making the bulwarks of the harbor at the mouth of the river whereon ply the ships of commerce: the long, laden coal carriers, the white and scrubbed passenger liners and the package freighters from Buffalo, Erie, Port Arthur. It is far, far north of the Calumet and the slips at Gary for the ore-boats from Duluth. These pass so far out that often they are hull-down on the horizon; for Belmont harbor is no haven for any craft frankly launched for gain; it is anchorage for privately owned yachts only.
Jay ran the ropes carefully, leisurely; enjoying ⟨it. The⟩ sun was not an hour above the water; a steady, pleasant landward breeze was blowing; he liked the feel of it, he liked the swing and sway of the mast, the wash of the water on the hull. When he slid down and hauled, with his mates, on the hoists he had just rigged and the sail billowed out and the jib ballooned before it, the world was very good to Jay Rountree and his five mates of the Arletta's crew.
They had cast off from the buoy and singing, because they were young and it was Sunday sunrise and there was a sailing wind, they pointed into the lake, sending a rail under as they met the waves, whereat they laughed and dipped it deeper.
Off watch, at the start of this cruise, Jay lay on the deck in the sun and wind, daydreaming. The wind and the wash of the water, the furrow following free, were like Lida's image of the south sea venture for him and her—the venture which Lida herself had come to doubt. He did not dream of Lida here in place of his shipmates of the sloop's crew; his daydream turned him upon his side and he searched along the shore for the stretch of the city in which Ellen Powell lived. Asleep she was, he thought; but he liked to locate her.
He glanced astern and at the skipper at the helm and he thought of relating the doings of this day to Ellen; for the skipper was Ken Howarth, the Arletta was Ken's and so there was entwined with the sport of this day's cruise, an element of business. Jay smiled at comments which came into his head upon this element and his own ⟨situation;⟩ he thought of repeating them to the only person who could appreciate them. She was asleep ashore, he thought.
Ellen was not asleep; for he had mentioned to her, yesterday, his invitation to sail on the Arletta and he had said they would be off early. So, without having set an alarm, Ellen had awakened at sunrise and from her window she had been watching the lake, not for the smoke and the long, gray hull of the Blenmora far out, but for a little white sail which, seeing, she could not ⟨hope⟩ to identify.
He appeared at the office promptly on Monday morning, sunburned and relaxed from his long loaf in the wind. His father did not like his lassitude, but Ellen loved him, heavy-eyed and contented. She longed to lead him away under the shade of trees where he could stretch on the ground and sleep, if he would, while she sat by him.
But he went out to his round of calls and she took letters and answered phone through hours which dragged interminably. It was no day to work; it was a dogday, close and sultry; yesterday's sailing wind had died; and the hot afternoon sun hung in a halo of haze. Ellen went often to the water cooler; often she bathed her face and forehead; but Mr. Rountree, in black alpaca, shortened his stint not at all, nor did he excuse himself from a visit to the shop.
He departed; and at last the day was transformed. Jay returned. He flung his cards on the desk and himself upon a chair, stretching his legs before him.
"You're the coolest soul I've seen to-day," said Jay; and she exulted that she'd kept herself freshened. His eyes traveled from her face to her throat and to her arms bare from above the elbow.
Jay liked her rounded slenderness and the pretty tapering of her forearm to her wrist and her slim, strong little hand. She had been through the winter, or at least since he had been noticing her, white; but she had become brown with a clear, smooth tan lovely upon her.
"You've been in the sun, too," he said.
"Yes; on the beach."
"D'you ever burn?"
"No."
"I thought you didn't; you just take to the sun. I finally do, after two days beet-red."
She gazed at him, with his warm beet-redness, and longed doubly for her dream of him under shade trees.
"What luck?" she asked him.
"Blob to-day; but yesterday! D'you hear, I've signed before the mast? I'm regularly on the Arletta's starboard watch. And what d'you suppose lies before me? We're entered in the big race from Chicago to Mackinac, and Lyman Howarth comes on from the East for that. He always does; says it's the sportiest sailing race on water, fresh or salt. Place him?"
"Mr. Lyman Howarth?" said Ellen. "Isn't he?"
"The same," assured Jay. "He's the one I met at midnight in New York and introduced to my brother-in-law after he'd been trying to reach him, for two years. Lyman Howarth is young but he has a lot of say in New York; and he comes out to stand starboard watch in the race with me. A couple of days and nights steady going, with good weather; in bad—the Lord knows."
Ellen watched him. "Sometimes I've seen them start from here," she said at last. "When I'm home, I see them finish."
"Do you," said Jay, not thinking of her now, but sticking to business. "How would you make out a report on the prospect card for Howarth? 'Yesterday, sailed with Ken Howarth; joined his crew; will be in the same watch in race with Lyman Howarth.' How would that look?"
Ellen smiled at him for his little struggle with himself.
"You know I'm not with Ken Howarth just for business. You know I enjoyed that sail," he said seriously to her. "Lord, I love it! I'd rather sail than do anything of the sort—especially sail a race—but I'm certainly there for business, too.
"I was thinking, lying on my back and absorbing some of this burn, whether any of the cargo boats cleaned up as much in a month as I hope to make, for the firm, out of the Arletta? They certainly should have dropped me at some strictly commercial pier in the river; they ought never to have brought me back to Belmont Harbor.
"I made my calls to-day; but honestly I couldn't work up much interest in them. What's my record? On office calls, a washout. Fact is, I've done just one important thing—I played golf with Phil Metten at Tryston; and I've got just one good prospect—from the fact that I'm sailing, on Sundays, with Ken Howarth and his cousin comes on for the race. Isn't that it?"
"That's it," said Ellen, but she was thinking of the race.
"You know," he stirred toward her, "you know I really believe something considerable will come from Howarth; something big enough, maybe, to save us. It can't come quick or if we ask for it—nothing could kill our chance deader—but if we take time and let it come, we'll get it, I believe.
"But, by heavens, we have to have time and hold on to Lew Alban. The Howarths, however they like us, never will throw their business to a firm losing Alban after Metten and headed for the rocks. Will they?"
"No," said Ellen, suddenly flushed. "Never."
Her coolness, which he had liked and praised, was gone; but he liked her none the less, looking at her and wondering about her. What so suddenly had excited her?
Ellen was awakened from her fancy of the shade and rest with Jay. Lew Alban loomed before her; and, what of Jay's wife?
Of her, he said nothing at all; and Mr. Rountree refrained from all reference to Lida. No one mentioned her; she had vanished from the news.
Occasionally Ellen bought New York papers and searched the accounts of society for some hint of Mrs. Jay Rountree's whereabouts, but in vain; for Lida had dropped from notice in New York, quietly slipping off at a season when so many people of importance disappeared for all sorts of reasons and to all sorts of destinations. Indeed, it was a season when to remain in sight would stir comment. It was summer.
Jay knew that she had gone with her mother to Maine and he supposed that she stayed there until, wiring that he was coming on, he received a telegram from Mrs. Lytle telling him to await letters. One from Lida and one from her mother arrived together. Lida had departed, alone with a maid; she would communicate with her mother; she asked Jay not to seek her or make inquiry for her, promising him in return that she would send for him when she wanted him.
Mrs. Lytle emphasized that Lida required of him only no interference for the present and that nothing could be more tragic than an act of his which directed attention to Lida's hiding.