He got into New York to find he hadn't made as good time as he'd thought--a couple of traffic blocks had kept him back for valuable minutes--though of course the minutes couldn't be valuable exactly when it was all bosh about his having to get in so quickly after all. He went first to 252A Madison Avenue, hoping most heartily that Ted would be there on the fifth floor with his eyeshade over his eyes and large law-books crowding his desk, but the door was locked and knockings brought no response except a peevish voice from the other side of the narrow hall requesting any gentleman that was a gentleman to shut up for Gawd's sake. The Yale Club next--there was just a chance that Ted might be there-- Oliver went through the Yale Club a good deal more thoroughly than most pages, from the lobby to the upstairs dining-room. He even invaded the library to the suspicious annoyance of some old uncle who was pretending to read a book held upside down in his lap in order to camouflage his pre-prandial nap. No Ted--though half-a-dozen acquaintances who insisted on saying hello and taking up time. Back to the street and a slight dispute with a policeman as regarded the place where Oliver had parked his car. He looked at his watch just before poking the self-starter--Mr. Piper's train must be halfway to New York by now. He set his lips and turned down 44th Street toward the Avenue. Fourth floor Ted had said. The elevator went much too quickly for Oliver--he was standing in front of a most non-committal door-bell before he had arranged the racing tumult of thought in his mind enough to be in any measure sure of just what the devil he was going to say. Moreover he was oppressed by a familiar and stomachless sensation--the sensation he always had when he tried to high-dive and stood looking gingerly down from a shaky platform at water that seemed a thousand miles away and as flat and hard as a blue steel plate. There wasn't any guide in any Manual of Etiquette he had ever heard of on What to Say When Interrupting a Tete-a-Tete between Your Best Friend and a Dangerous And Beautiful Woman. He wondered idly if Ted would ever speak to him again--Mrs. Severance certainly wouldn't--and he rather imagined that even if Ted and Elinor did get married he would hardly be the welcome guest he had always expected to be there. Well, that was what you get for trying to pull a Jonathan when the Saul in question was behaving a good deal more like David in the affair with Uriah the Hittite's spouse--and it wasn't safe and Biblical and all done with a couple of thousand years ago but abashingly real and now happening directly under your own astonished eyes. He licked his lips a little nervously--they seemed to be rather dry. No use standing outside the door like a wooden statue of Unwelcome Propriety anyhow--the thing had to be done, that was all--and he pushed the bell-button with all the decision he could force into his finger.