The next three weeks passed surprisingly quickly for both Mr. Halpert and Miss Beesly, though neither could have put a finger exactly upon why. Suffice to say that they each had their particular pastimes to engross themselves—a renewed interest in her art, on the one hand, and a languid but amused interest in the progress of Ryan Howard’s pursuit and counter-pursuit of Kelly Kapoor on the other—and other day to day events to distract them as well. But the key to their respective happinesses was, to a remarkable extent that neither of them was entirely aware of, the happy series of chances that led them to a consistent if not continual state of sociability with each other. Colonel Scott was of course the primum mobile of these pleasant circumstances, due to his intense reliance on Miss Beesly’s help and social skills and his growing affection for Jim, which led him to invite them both to practically every soiree or rout party he chose to throw—and due in addition to his near-crazed attempts to draw the attention of the Dowager Duchess, which led him to throw an ever-increasing number of these. Jim was unfailing in his attendance, which Michael attributed to their newly forged lifelong bond, Pam referred to his unfailing politeness, and Jim himself knew to be the result more of a lodged liking for a particular pair of warm, kind eyes and a head of softly curled if often somewhat unmanageable ringlets. Pam in turn, if somewhat less consciously, found her feet often treading down those streets where she most often found Jim, and welcoming gladly his company on the frequent occasions where she did in fact run across him. At first this caused some difficulties with her most frequent companion, Miss Martin, who felt that while she could not quite disapprove of Mr. Halpert she ought not to be too encouraging of his attentions towards her engaged friend. But that gentleman was a quick judge of character, and Miss Beesly needed only to drop a hint of this in his way by roundabout and happenstance for him to suddenly undertake to engage Lieutenant Schrute to accompany him on many of these daily jaunts. This entirely unexceptionable gentleman’s presence entirely dissolved Miss Martin’s qualms, despite the fact that an unbiased observer might well have noted that she was now wont to pay far less attention to her companion’s behavior with Mr. Halpert, devoting herself instead to extensive conversations with the Lieutenant.

It might well have appeared a wonder to that same observer that Lieutenant Schrute had agreed to accompany Mr. Halpert on these journeys—at least, it might have done so before the habit of accidentally encountering the Misses Beesly and Martin had been established. After that event, of course, all objection on his part, as hers, dissolved (with the exception of those objections that derived more from his own obstreperousness than from any larger reason). But such an observer would have reckoned without the deep game that Mr. Halpert was engaged in. On the surface he supplied Lieutenant Schrute with the impression, never explicitly stated, that he was as unblooded in the wars of business and trade as he was in the wars on the Continent, and that he was in awe of and in need of the Lieutenant’s experience in the former. This flattered the Lieutenant’s pride in his own accomplishments while not engaging his suspicion, for he had a decided belief that Mr. Halpert was indeed incompetent in the most basic of tasks, a condition he attributed not so much to that individual’s personal weakness as to a general issue with the nobility as a class, which he considered substantially disimproved by the removal of their direct association with their land, especially among the second and subsequent sons. At the same time, Jim managed to convey the idea into the Lieutenant’s head (without revealing himself as its source, which would have spoiled the point) that by accompanying Jim on his jaunts about the city Dwight would be doing Michael a service, either by ingratiating himself with someone suddenly grown mighty in his idol’s esteem or (more likely) by spying on a dashed interloper into Michael’s affection. As a result of this alternate laving of his pride, his attachment to Michael, and his suspicion of Jim, combined with the opportunity to converse at will with Miss Martin, there was nothing Dwight Schrute preferred to an afternoon’s stroll in Mr. Halpert’s company.

Lest it appear that the only reason for Mr. Halpert’s engagement of the Lieutenant as a sort of chaperone was to facilitate his connexion to Miss Beesly, it should also be noted that such frequent close proximity with the man permitted him substantially greater scope for his true vocation of pranking such an irresistible victim. Miss Martin’s unwitting role in distracting his target should not be discounted either, as under her forbidding spell Lieutenant Schrute might be counted on to ignore such minor distractions as Jim Halpert slipping a series of farthings into his scabbard until he was familiar with the new weight, then removing them all at once so that in his next formal salute he nearly brained himself, or nearly imperceptibly marking the back of his uniform with the emblems of a different service, causing a very different class of person to address him than he was accustomed to until he became aware of the ruse. In short, Lieutenant Schrute’s presence played many roles in Jim Halpert’s entertainment, and for all he found Dwight frustrating as an individual he would not have forgone his company for the world.

The only person discommoded by these near-daily interactions between the four was a fifth: Roy Anderson, who was beginning to be bothered in a way he could not quite explain by the number of his fiancée’s stories that included, as a matter of course, the presence of Jim or Dwight. He quickly dismissed the idea that Dwight Schrute might have been suddenly forming a tendre for his Pam, given the length of their association in the mutual service of Colonel Scott, but he had no such confidence in the disinterest of Jim Halpert. Only Pam’s innocent certainty that Jim was simply the most helpful of men to Michael as well as herself and the intelligence that Pam believed Dwight to be forming an attachment to Angela (thus explaining their constant interactions) prevented him from striding over to Halpert’s place and giving him a piece of his mind. But he was careful to avoid as much as possible giving his fiancée any hint of his worries, fearing lest the idea of Jim’s interest in her might prove too attractive for her to resist. But he was uneasy, and he began to hang about Colonel Scott’s apartments more often, a set of circumstances that outwardly brought Pam a great deal of joy but which, if she had been honest with herself, proved more frustrating and bothersome than she had anticipated when first it began.