d
far aloft there was a shout of "Coming!" and, six steps at a bound, that
exuberant specimen of Young America came thundering down the broad
spiral of the stairway. The portentous butler, too, hove suddenly in
sight. Elmendorf dropped the subject--and her wrist, whisked his hat off
the hall table, and was out of the house and into his cab before the
wrathful brother could reach him.

Not until cabby had driven blindly for six blocks did Elmendorf poke his
cane through the trap and bid him speed for the Lambert. A carriage
stood at the private entrance, and the driver said it was Mr. Allison's.
The anteroom was open; the glazed doors to the private office were
closed, but excited voices arose from within. He recognized Allison's,
Wells's, and that of the chairman of the board of trustees, in hot
altercation. The chairman seemed siding with Wells, which added to
Allison's wrath, and he wound up with an explosion:

"I've given you more than reason enough. She has been shut up here alone
with him time and again at night; she has been seen going to his rooms
long after dark; she has been seen walking or driving with him as late
as midnight; and the very evening he is due at a gentleman's house at
dinner he sends 'urgent business' as his plea, and is found supping
alone with her at the Belmont. If she stays, I resign."

"And I answer," thundered Wells, "that that girl's as pure-hearted a
woman as ever lived. She has been shut up here with me time and again,
working at my letters until late at night; she has been to my rooms a
dozen times to leave her finished work on her homeward way; she has been
seen, or could have been seen, walking or driving with me late at night,
for I'm proud to say I've taken her home instead of letting her go it
alone in the rain; and as for the Belmont, it's the nearest and neatest
restaurant I know of, and a dozen times when we had work to be finished
in a hurry have I taken her, as Mr. Forrest did, to have her cup of tea
there, instead of letting her tramp two miles to get it at home. I'm a
married man, and he isn't; that's the only difference. You say if she
stays, you resign. All right, Mr. Allison. If she goes, I go."

And then upon this stormy scene entered Elmendorf, the blessed, the
peacemaker.

"It would be idle to assume ignorance of the subject of this
conference," he began, before any one had sufficiently recovered from
surprise to head him off, "and, as it is audible throughout th