ester looked at Letty, wondering at her eagerness. She was
beautiful, magnetic, immensely worth while.

"Not so fast," he repeated. "I want to think about this. I have
some time yet."

She paused, a little crestfallen but determined.

"This is the time to act," she repeated, her whole soul in her
eyes. She wanted this man, and she was not ashamed to let him see that
she wanted him.

"Well, I'll think of it," he said uneasily, then, rather hastily,
he bade her good-by and went away.

CHAPTER LI

Lester had thought of his predicament earnestly enough, and he
would have been satisfied to act soon if it had not been that one of
those disrupting influences which sometimes complicate our affairs
entered into his Hyde Park domicile. Gerhardt's health began rapidly
to fail.

Little by little he had been obliged to give up his various duties
about the place; finally he was obliged to take to his bed. He lay in
his room, devotedly attended by Jennie and visited constantly by
Vesta, and occasionally by Lester. There was a window not far from his
bed, which commanded a charming view of the lawn and one of the
surrounding streets, and through this he would gaze by the hour,
wondering how the world was getting on without him. He suspected that
Woods, the coachman, was not looking after the horses and harnesses as
well as he should, that the newspaper carrier was getting negligent in
his delivery of the papers, that the furnace man was wasting coal, or
was not giving them enough heat. A score of little petty worries,
which were nevertheless real enough to him. He knew how a house should
be kept. He was always rigid in his performance of his self-appointed
duties, and he was so afraid that things would not go right. Jennie
made for him a most imposing and sumptuous dressing-gown of basted
wool, covered with dark-blue silk, and bought him a pair of soft,
thick, wool slippers to match, but he did not wear them often. He
preferred to lie in bed, read his Bible and the Lutheran papers, and
ask Jennie how things were getting along.

"I want you should go down in the basement and see what that feller
is doing. He's not giving us any heat," he would complain. "I bet I
know what he does. He sits down there and reads, and then he forgets
what the fire is doing until it is almost out. The beer is right there
where he can take it. You should lock it up. You don't know what kind
of a man he is. He may be no good."

Jennie woul