"Don't!" cried Mrs. Bellowes. "You'll break his heart. He adores it. You
know, servants dearly love to be treated as servants. Anyone who thinks
the world loves equality knows very little about human nature. Most
people love to look up, just as most women love to be ruled. No, you
must continue to be the master, the man of the world, Fred."
She was busy with her gorgeous and trailing wraps and with her cigarette
or she would have seen his confusion. He was recalling his scene with
the typewriter girl. Not much of the man of the world, then and there,
certainly. What a grotesque performance for a man of his position, for a
serious man of any kind! And how came he to permit such a person to
mimic Josephine Burroughs, a lady, the woman to whom he was engaged? In
these proud and pretentious surroundings he felt contemptibly
guilty--and dazed wonder at his own inexplicable folly and weakness.
Mrs. Bellowes departed before Josephine came down. So there was no
relief for his embarrassment. He saw that she too felt constrained.
Instead of meeting him half way in embrace and kiss, as she usually did,
she threw him a kiss and pretended to be busy lighting a cigarette and
arranging the shades of the table lamp. "Well, I saw your 'poor little
creature,'" she began. She was splendidly direct in all her dealings,
after the manner of people who have never had to make their own way--to
cajole or conciliate or dread the consequences of frankness.
"I told you you'd not find her interesting."
"Oh, she was a nice little girl," replied Josephine with elaborate
graciousness--and Norman, the "take off" fresh in his mind, was acutely
critical of her manner, of her mannerisms. "Of course," she went on,
"one does not expect much of people of that class. But I thought her
unusually well-mannered--and quite clean."
"Tetlow makes 'em clean up," said Norman, a gleam of sarcasm in his
careless glance and tone. And into his nostrils stole an odor of
freshness and health and youth, the pure, sweet odor that is the base of
all the natural perfumes. It startled him, his vivid memory of a feature
of her which he had not been until now aware that he had ever noted.
"I offered her some work," continued Josephine, "but I guess you keep
her too busy down there for her to do anything else."
"Probably," said Norman. "Why do you sit on the other side of the room?"
"Oh, I don't know," laughed Josephine. "I feel queer to-night. And it
seems to me you're queer, too."
"I? Perhaps rather tired, dear--that's all."
"Did you and Miss Hallowell work hard to-day?"
"Oh, bother Miss Hallowell. Let's talk about ourselves." And he drew her
to the sofa at one end of the big fireplace. "I wish we hadn't set the
wedding so far off." And suddenly he found himself wondering whether
that remark had been prompted by eagerness--a lover's eagerness--or by
impatience to have the business over and settled.
"You don't act a bit natural to-night, Fred. You touch me as if I were a
stranger."
"I like that!" mocked he. "A stranger hold your hand like
this?--and--kiss you--like this?"
She drew away, suddenly laid her hands on his shoulders, kissed him upon
the lips passionately, then looked into his eyes. "_Do_ you love me,
Fred?--_really_?"
"Why so earnest?"
"You've had a great deal of experience?"
"More or less."
"Have you ever loved any woman as you love me?"
"I've never loved any woman but you. I never before wanted to marry a
woman."
"But you may be doing it because--well, you might be tired and want to
settle down."
"Do you believe that?"
"No, I don't. But I want to hear you say it isn't so."
"Well--it isn't so. Are you satisfied?"
"I'm frightfully jealous of you, Fred."
"What a waste of time!"
"I've got something to confess--something I'm ashamed of."
"Don't confess," cried he, laughing but showing that he meant it.
"Just--don't be wicked again That's much better than confession."
"But I must confess," insisted she. "I had evil thoughts evil suspicions
about you. I've had them all day--until you came. As soon as I saw you I
felt bowed into the dust. A man like you, doing anything so vulgar as I
suspected you of--oh, dearest, I'm _so_ ashamed!"
He put his arms round her and drew her to his shoulder. And the scene of
mimicry in his office flashed into his mind, and the blood burned in his
cheeks. But he had no such access of insanity as to entertain the idea
of confession.
"It was that typewriter girl," continued Josephine. She drew away again
and once more searched his face. "You told me she was homely."
"Not exactly that."
"Insignificant then."
"Isn't she?"
"Yes--in a way," said Josephine, the condescending note in her voice
again--and in his mind Miss Hallowell's clever burlesque of that note.
"But, in another way--Men are different from women. Now I--a woman of
my sort--couldn't stoop to a man of her class. But men seem not to feel
that way."
"No," said he, irritated. "They've the courage to take what they want
wherever they find it. A man will take gold out of the dirt, because
gold is always gold. But a woman waits until she can get it at a
fashionable jeweler's, and makes sure it's made up in a fashionable way.
I don't like to hear _you_ say those things."
Her eyes flashed. "Then you _do_ like that Hallowell girl!" she cried--and
never before had her voice jarred upon him.
"That Hallowell girl has nothing to do with this," he rejoined. "I like
to feel that you really love me--that you'd have taken me wherever you
happened to find me--and that you'd stick to me no matter how far I
might drop."
"I would! I would!" she cried, tears in her eyes. "Oh, I didn't mean
that, Fred. You know I didn't--don't you?"
She tried to put her arms round his neck, but he took her hands and held
them. "Would you like to think I was marrying you for what you have?--or
for any other reason whatever but for what you are?"
It being once more a question of her own sex, the obstinate line
appeared round her mouth. "But, Fred, I'd not be _me_, if I were--a
working girl," she replied.
"You might be something even better if you were," retorted he coldly.
"The only qualities I don't like about you are the surface qualities
that have been plated on in these surroundings. And if I thought it was
anything but just you that I was marrying, I'd lose no time about
leaving you. I'd not let myself degrade myself."
"Fred--that tone--and don't--please don't look at me like that!" she
begged.
[Illustration: "'Would you like to think I was marrying you for what you
have?--or for any other reason whatever but for what you are?'"]
But his powerful glance searched on. He said, "Is it possible that you
and I are deceiving ourselves--and that we'll marry and wake up--and be
bored and dissatisfied--like so many of our friends?"
"No--no," she cried, wildly agitated. "Fred, dear we love each other.
You know we do. I don't use words as well as you do--and my mind works
in a queer way--Perhaps I didn't mean what I said. No matter. If my
love were put to the test--Fred, I don't ask anything more than that
your love for me would stand the tests my love for you would stand."
He caught her in his arms and kissed her with more passion than he had
ever felt for her before. "I believe you, Jo," he said. "I believe you."
"I love you so--that I could be jealous even of her--of that little girl
in your office. Fred, I didn't confess all the truth. It isn't true that
I thought her--a nobody. When she first came in here--it was in this
very room--I thought she was as near nothing as any girl I'd ever seen.
Then she began to change--as you said. And--oh, dearest, I can't help
hating her! And when I tried to get her away from you, and she wouldn't
come----"
"Away from me!" he cried, laughing.
"I felt as if it were like that," she pleaded. "And she wouldn't
come--and treated me as if she were queen and I servant--only politely,
I must say, for Heaven knows I don't want to injure her----"
"Shall I have her discharged?"
"Fred!" exclaimed she indignantly. "Do you think I could do such a
thing?"
"She'd easily get another job as good. Tetlow can find her one. Does
that satisfy you?"
"No," she confessed. "It makes me feel meaner than ever."
"Now, Jo, let's drop this foolish seriousness about nothing at all.
Let's drop it for good."
"Nothing at all--that's exactly it. I can't understand, Fred. What is
there about her that makes her haunt me? That makes me afraid she'll
haunt you?"
Norman felt a sudden thrill. He tightened his hold upon her hands
because his impulse had been to release them. "How absurd!" he said,
rather noisily.
"Isn't it, though?" echoed she. "Think of you and me almost quarreling
about such a trivial person." Her laugh died away. She shivered, cried,
"Fred, I'm superstitious about her. I'm--I'm--_afraid_!" And she flung
herself wildly into his arms.
"She _is_ somewhat uncanny," said he, with a lightness he was far from
feeling. "But, dear--it isn't complimentary to me, is it?"
"Forgive me, dearest--I don't mean that. I couldn't mean that. But--I
_love_ you so. Ever since I began to love you I've been looking round for
something to be afraid of. And this is the first chance you've given
me."
"_I've_ given you!" mocked he.
She laughed hysterically. "I mean the first chance I've had. And I'm
doing the best I can with it."
They were in good spirits now, and for the rest of the evening were as
loverlike as always, the nearer together for the bit of rough sea they
had weathered so nicely. Neither spoke of Miss Hallowell. Each had
privately resolved never to speak of her to the other again. Josephine
was already regretting the frankness that had led her to expose a not
too attractive part of herself--and to exaggerate in his eyes the
importance of a really insignificant chit of a typewriter. When he went
to bed that night he was resolved to have Tetlow find Miss Hallowell a
job in another office.
"She certainly _is_ uncanny," he said to himself. "I wonder why--I wonder
what the secret of her is. She's the first woman I ever ran across who
had a real secret. _Is_ it real? I wonder."
V
Toward noon the following day Norman, suddenly in need of a
stenographer, sent out for Miss Purdy, one of the three experts at
eighteen dollars a week who did most of the important and very
confidential work for the heads of the firm. When his door opened again
he saw not Miss Purdy but Miss Hallowell.
"Miss Purdy is sick to-day," said she. "Mr. Tetlow wishes to know if I
would do."
Norman shifted uneasily in his chair. "Just as
well--perfectly--certainly," he stammered. He was not looking at
her--seemed wholly occupied with the business he was preparing to
dispatch.
She seated herself in the usual place, at the opposite side of the broad
table. With pencil poised she fixed her gaze upon the unmarred page of
her open notebook. Instead of abating, his confusion increased. He could
not think of the subject about which he wished to dictate. First, he
noted how long her lashes were--and darker than her hair, as were her
well-drawn eyebrows also. Never had he seen so white a skin or one so
smooth. She happened to be wearing a blouse with a Dutch neck that day.
What a superb throat! What a line of beauty its gently swelling curve
made. Then his glance fell upon her lips, rosy-red, slightly pouted. And
what masses of dead gold hair--no, not gold, but of the white-gray of
wood ashes, and tinted with gold! No wonder it was difficult to tell
just what color her hair was. Hair like that was ready to be of any
color. And there were her arms, so symmetrical in her rather tight
sleeves, and emerging into view in the most delicate wrists. What a
marvelous skin!
"Have you ever posed?"
She startled and the color flamed in her cheeks. Her eyes shot a glance
of terror at him. "I--I," she stammered. Then almost defiantly, "Yes, I
did--for a while. But I didn't suppose anyone knew. At the time we
needed the money badly."
Norman felt deep disgust with himself for bursting out with such a
question, and for having surprised her secret. "There's nothing to be
ashamed of," he said gently.
"Oh, I'm not ashamed," she returned. Her agitation had subsided. "The
only reason I quit was because the work was terribly hard and the pay
small and uncertain. I was confused because they discharged me at the
last place I had, when they found out I had been a model. It was a
church paper office."
Again she poised her pencil and lowered her eyes. But he did not take
the hint. "Is there anything you would rather do than this sort of
work?" he asked.
"Nothing I could afford," replied she.
"If you had been kind to Miss Burroughs yesterday she would have helped
you."
"I couldn't afford to do that," said the girl in her quiet, reticent
way.
"To do what?"
"To be nice to anyone for what I could get out of it."
Norman smiled somewhat cynically. Probably the girl fancied she was
truthful; but human beings rarely knew anything about their real selves.
"What would you like to do?"
She did not answer his question until she had shrunk completely within
herself and was again thickly veiled with the expression which made
everyone think her insignificant. "Nothing I could afford to do," said
she. It was plain that she did not wish to be questioned further along
that line.
"The stage?" he persisted.
"I hadn't thought of it," was her answer.
"What then?"
"I don't think about things I can't have. I never made any definite
plans."
"But isn't it a good idea always to look ahead? As long as one has to be
moving, one might as well move in a definite direction."
She was waiting with pencil poised.
"There isn't much of a future at this business."
She shrank slightly. He felt that she regarded his remark as preparation
for a kindly hint that she was not giving satisfaction. . . . Well, why not
leave it that way? Perhaps she would quit of her own accord--would spare
him the trouble--and embarrassment--of arranging with Tetlow for another
place for her. He began to dictate--gave her a few sentences mockingly
different from his usual terse and clear statements--interrupted himself
with:
"You misunderstood me a while ago. I didn't mean you weren't doing your
work well. On the contrary, I think you'll soon be expert. But I thought
perhaps I might be able to help you to something you'd like better."
He listened to his own words in astonishment. What new freak of madness
was this? Instead of clearing himself of this uncanny girl, he was
proposing things to her that would mean closer relations. And what
reason had he to think she was fitted for anything but just what she was
now doing--doing indifferently well?
"Thank you," she said, so quietly that it seemed coldly, "but I'm
satisfied as I am."
Her manner seemed to say with polite and restrained plainness that she
was not in the least appreciative of his interest or of himself. But
this could not be. No girl in her position could fail to be grateful for
his interest. No woman, in all his life, had ever failed to respond to
his slightest advance. No, it simply could not be. She was merely shy,
and had a peculiar way of showing it. He said:
"You have no ambition?"
"That's not for a woman."
She was making her replies as brief as civility permitted. He observed
her narrowly. She was not shy, not embarrassed. What kind of game was
this? It could not be in sincere nature for a person in her position
thus to treat overtures, friendly and courteous overtures, from one in
his position. And never before--never--had a woman been thus
unresponsive. Instead of feeling relief that she had disentangled him
from the plight into which his impulsive offer had flung him, he was
piqued--angered--and his curiosity was inflamed as never before about
any woman.
The relations of the sexes are for the most part governed by traditions
of sex allurements and sex tricks so ancient that they have ceased to be
conscious and have become instinctive. One of these venerable first
principles is that mystery is the arch provoker. Norman, an old and
expert student of the great game--the only game for which the staidest
and most serious will abandon all else to follow its merry call--Norman
knew this trick of mystery. The woman veils herself and makes believe to
fly--an excellent trick, as good to-day as ever after five thousand
years of service. And he knew that in it lay the explanation for the
sudden and high upflaming of his interest in this girl. "What an ass I'm
making of myself!" reflected he. "When I care nothing about the girl,
why should I care about the mystery of her? Of course, it's some poor
little affair, a puzzle not worth puzzling out."
All true and clear enough. Yet seeing it did not abate his interest a
particle. She had veiled herself; she was pretending--perhaps
honestly--to fly. He rose and went to the window, stood with his back to
her, resumed dictating. But the sentences would not come. He whirled
abruptly. "I'm not ready to do the thing yet," he said. "I'll send for
you later."
Without a word or a glance she stood, took her book and went toward the
door. He gazed after her. He could not refrain from speaking again. "I'm
afraid you misunderstood my offer a while ago," said he, neither curt
nor friendly. "I forgot how such things from a man to a young woman
might be misinterpreted."
"I never thought of that," replied she unembarrassed. "It was simply
that I can't put myself under obligation to anyone."
As she stood there, her full beauty flashed upon him--the exquisite
form, the subtly graceful poise of her body, of her head--the loveliness
of that golden-hued white skin--the charm of her small rosy mouth--the
delicate, sensitive, slightly tilted nose--and her eyes--above all, her
eyes!--so clear, so sweet. Her voice had seemed thin and faint to him;
its fineness now seemed the rarest delicacy--the exactly fitting kind
for so evasive and delicate a beauty as hers. He made a slight bow of
dismissal, turned abruptly away. Never in all his life, strewn with
gallant experiences--never had a woman thus treated him, and never had a
woman thus affected him. "I am mad--stark mad!" he muttered. "A
ten-dollar-a-week typewriter, whom nobody on earth but myself would look
at a second time!" But something within him hurled back this scornful
fling. Though no one else on earth saw or appreciated--what of it? She
affected _him_ thus--and that was enough. "_I_ want her! . . . I _want_
her! I have never wanted a woman before."
He rushed into the dressing room attached to his office, plunged his
face into ice-cold water. This somewhat eased the burning sensation that
was becoming intolerable. Many were the unaccountable incidents in his
acquaintance with this strange creature; the most preposterous was this
sudden seizure. He realized now that his feeling for her had been like
the quiet, steady, imperceptible filling of a reservoir that suddenly
announces itself by the thunder and roar of a mighty cascade over the
dam. "This is madness--sheer madness! I am still master within myself. I
will make short work of this rebellion." And with an air of calmness so
convincing that he believed in it he addressed himself to the task of
sanity and wisdom lying plain before him. "A man of my position caught
by a girl like that! A man such as I am, caught by _any_ woman whatever!"
It was grotesque. He opened his door to summon Tetlow.
The gate in the outside railing was directly opposite, and about thirty
feet away. Tetlow and Miss Hallowell were going out--evidently to lunch
together. She was looking up at the chief clerk with laughing eyes--they
seemed coquettish to the infuriated Norman. And Tetlow--the serious and
squab young ass was gazing at her with the expression men of the stupid
squab sort put on when they wish to impress a woman. At this spectacle,
at the vision of that slim young loveliness, that perfect form and
deliciously smooth soft skin, white beyond belief beneath its faintly
golden tint--the hot blood steamed up into Norman's brain, blinded his
sight, reddened it with desire and jealousy. He drew back, closed his
door with a bang.
"This is not I," he muttered. "What has happened? Am I insane?"
* * * * *
When Tetlow returned from lunch the office boy on duty at the gate told
him that Mr. Norman wished to see him at once. Like all men trying to
advance along ways where their fellow men can help or hinder, the head
clerk was full of more or less clever little tricks thought out with a
view to making a good impression. One of them was to stamp upon all
minds his virtue of promptness--of what use to be prompt unless you
forced every one to feel how prompt you were? He went in to see Norman,
with hat in hand and overcoat on his back and one glove off, the other
still on. Norman was standing at a window, smoking a cigarette. His
appearance--dress quite as much as manner--was the envy of his
subordinate--as, indeed, it was of hundreds of the young men struggling
to rise down town. It was so exactly what the appearance of a man of
vigor and power and high position should be. Tetlow practiced it by the
quarter hour before his glass at home--not without progress in the
direction of a not unimpressive manner of his own.
As Tetlow stood at attention, Norman turned and advanced toward him.
"Mr. Tetlow," he began, in his good-humored voice with the never wholly
submerged under-note of sharpness, "is it your habit to go out to lunch
with the young ladies employed here? If so, I wish to suggest--simply to
suggest--that it may be bad for discipline."
Tetlow's jaw dropped a little. He looked at Norman, was astonished to
discover beneath a thin veneer of calm signs of greater agitation than
he had ever seen in him. "To-day was the first time, sir," he said. "And
I can't quite account for my doing it. Miss Hallowell has been here
several months. I never specially noticed her until the last few
days--when the question of discharging her came up. You may remember it
was settled by you." Norman flung his cigarette away and stalked to the
window.
"Mr. Norman," pursued Tetlow, "you and I have been together many years.
I esteem it my greatest honor that I am able--that you permit me--to
class you as my friend. So I'm going to give you a confidence--one that
really startles me. I called on Miss Hallowell last night."
Norman's back stiffened.
"She is even more charming in her own home. And--" Tetlow blushed and
trembled--"I am going to make her my wife if I can."
Norman turned, a mocking satirical smile unpleasantly sparkling in his
eyes and curling his mouth "Old man," he said, "I think you've gone
crazy."
Tetlow made a helpless gesture. "I think so myself. I didn't intend to
marry for ten years--and then--I had quite a different match in mind."
"What's the matter with you, Billy?" inquired Norman, inspecting him
with smiling, cruelly unfriendly eyes.
"I'm damned if I know, Norman," said the head clerk, assuming that his
friend was sympathetic and dropping into the informality of the old days
when they were clerks together in a small firm. "I'd have proposed to
her last night if I hadn't been afraid I'd lose her by being in such a
hurry. . . . You're in love yourself."
Norman startled violently.
"You're going to get married. Probably you can sympathize. You know how
it is to meet the woman you want and must have."
Norman turned away.
"I've had--or thought I had--rather advanced ideas on the subject of
women. I've always had a horror of being married for a living or for a
home or as an experiment or a springboard. My notion's been that I
wouldn't trust a woman who wasn't independent. And theoretically I still
think that's sound. But it doesn't work out in practice. A man has to
have been in love to be able to speak the last word on the sex
question."
Norman dropped heavily into his desk chair and rumpled his hair into
disorder. He muttered something--the head clerk thought it was an oath.
"I'd marry her," Tetlow went on, "if I knew she was simply using me in
the coldest, most calculating way. My only fear is that I shan't be able
to get her--that she won't marry me."
Norman sneered. "That's not likely," he said.
"No, it isn't," admitted Tetlow. "They--the Hallowells--are nice
people--of as good family as there is. But they're poor--very poor.
There's only her father and herself. The old man is a scientist--spends
most of his time at things that won't pay a cent--utterly impractical. A
gentleman--an able man, if a little cracked--at least he seemed so to me
who don't know much about scientific matters. But getting poorer
steadily. So I think she will accept me."
A gloomy, angry frown, like a black shadow, passed across Norman's face
and disappeared. "You'd marry her--on those terms?" he sneered.
"Of course I _hope_ for better terms----"
Norman sprang up, strode to the window and turned his back.
"But I'm prepared for the worst. The fact is, she treats me as if she
didn't care a rap for the honor of my showing her attention."
"A trick, Billy. An old trick."
"Maybe so. But--I really believe she doesn't realize. She's queer--has
been queerly brought up. Yes, I think she doesn't appreciate. Then, too,
she's young and light--almost childish in some ways. . . . I don't blame
you for being disgusted with me, Fred. But--damn it, what's a man to
do?"
"Cure himself!" exploded Norman, wheeling violently on his friend. "You
must act like a man. Billy, such a marriage is ruin for you. How can we
take you into partnership next year? When you marry, you must marry in
the class you're moving toward, not in any of those you're leaving
behind."
"Do you suppose I haven't thought of all that?" rejoined Tetlow
bitterly. "But I can't help myself. It's useless for me to say I'll try.
I shan't try."
"Don't you want to get over this?" demanded Norman fiercely.
"Of course--No--I don't. Fred, you'd think better of me if you knew
her. You've never especially noticed her. She's beautiful."
Norman dropped to his chair again.
"Really--beautiful," protested Tetlow, assuming that the gesture was one
of disgusted denial. "Take a good look at her, Norman, before you
condemn her. I never was so astonished as when I discovered how
good-looking she is. I don't quite know how it is, but I suppose nobody
ever happened to see how--how lovely she is until I just chanced to see
it." At a rudely abrupt gesture from Norman he hurried on, eagerly
apologetic, "And if you talk with her--She's very reserved. But she's
the lady through and through--and has a good mind. . . . At least, I
think she has. I'll admit a man in love is a poor judge of a woman's
mind. But, anyhow, I _know_ she's lovely to look at. You'll see it
yourself, now that I've called your attention to it. You can't fail to
see it."
Norman threw himself back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his
head. "_Why_ do you want to marry her?" he inquired, in a tone his
sensitive ear approved as judicial.
"How can I tell?" replied the head clerk irritably. "Does a man ever
know?"
"Always--when he's sensibly in love."
"But when he's just in love? That's what ails me," retorted Tetlow, with
a sheepish look and laugh.
"Billy, you've got to get over this. I can't let you make a fool of
yourself."
Tetlow's fat, smooth, pasty face of the overfed, underexercised
professional man became a curious exhibit of alarm and obstinacy.
"You've got to promise me you'll keep away from her--except at the
office--for say, a week. Then--we'll see."
Tetlow debated.
"It's highly improbable that anyone else will discover these
irresistible charms. There's no one else hanging round?"
"No one, as I told you the other day, when you questioned me about her."
Norman shifted, looked embarrassed.
"I hope I didn't give you the impression I was ashamed of loving her or
would ever be ashamed of her anywhere?" continued Tetlow, a very
loverlike light in his usually unromantic eyes. "If I did, it wasn't
what I meant--far from it. You'll see, when I marry her, Norman. You'll
be congratulating me."
Norman sprang up again. "This is plain lunacy, Tetlow. I am amazed at
you--amazed!"
"Get acquainted with her, Mr. Norman," pleaded the subordinate. "Do it,
to oblige me. Don't condemn us----"
"I wish to hear nothing more!" cried Norman violently. "Another thing.
You must find her a place in some other office--at once."
"You're right, sir," assented Tetlow. "I can readily do that."
Norman scowled at him, made an imperious gesture of dismissal. Tetlow,
chopfallen but obdurate, got himself speedily out of sight.
Norman, with hands deep in his pockets, stared out among the skyscrapers
and gave way to a fit of remorse. It was foreign to his nature to do
petty underhanded tricks. Grand strategy--yes. At that he was an adept,
and not the shiftiest, craftiest schemes he had ever devised had given
him a moment's uneasiness. But to be driving a ten-dollar-a-week
typewriter out of her job--to be maneuvering to deprive her of a for
her brilliant marriage--to be lying to an old and loyal retainer who had
helped Norman full as much and as often as Norman had helped him--these
sneaking bits of skullduggery made him feel that he had sunk indeed. But
he ground his teeth together and his eyes gleamed wickedly. "He shan't
have her, damn him!" he muttered. "She's not for him."
He summoned Tetlow, who was obviously low in mind as the result of
revolving the things that had been said to him. "Billy," he began in a
tone so amiable that he was ashamed for himself, "you'll not forget I
have your promise?"
"What did I promise?" cried Tetlow, his voice shrill with alarm.
"Not to see her, except at the office, for a week."
"But I've promised her father I'd call this evening. He's going to show
me some experiments."
"You can easily make an excuse--business."
"But I don't want to," protested the head clerk. "What's the use? I've
got my mind made up. Norman, I'd hang on after her if you fired me out
of this office for it. And I can't rest--I'm fit for nothing--until
this matter's settled. I came very near taking her aside and proposing
to her, just after I went out of here a while ago."
"You _damn_ fool!" cried Norman, losing all control of himself. "Take the
afternoon express for Albany instead of Harcott and attend to those
registrations and arrange for those hearings. I'll do my best to save
you. I'll bring the girl in here and keep her at work until you get out
of the way."
Tetlow glanced at his friend; then the tears came into his eyes. "You're
a hell of a friend!" he ejaculated. "And I thought you'd sympathize
because you were in love."
"I do sympathize, Billy," Norman replied with an abrupt change to
shamefaced apology. "I sympathize more than you know. I feel like a dog,
doing this. But it can't result in any harm, and I want you to get a
little fresh air in that hot brain of yours before you commit yourself.
Be reasonable, old man. Suppose you rushed ahead and proposed--and she
accepted--and then, after a few days, you came to. What about her? You
must act on the level, Tetlow. Do the fair thing by yourself and by
her."
Norman had often had occasion to feel proud of the ingenuity and
resourcefulness of his brain. He had never been quite so proud as he was
when he finished that speech. It pacified Tetlow; it lightened his own
sense of guilt; it gave him a respite.
Tetlow rewarded Norman with the look that in New York is the equivalent
of the handclasp friend seeks from friend in times of stress. "You're
right, Fred. I'm much obliged to you. I haven't been considering _her_
side of it enough. A man ought always to think of that. The women--poor
things--have a hard enough time to get on, at best."
Norman's smile was characteristically cynical. Sentimentality amused
him. "I doubt if there are more female wrecks than male wrecks scattered
about the earth," rejoined he. "And I suspect the fact isn't due to the
gentleness of man with woman, either. Don't fret for the ladies, Tetlow.
They know how to take care of themselves. They know how to milk with a
sure and a steady hand. You may find it out by depressing experience
some day."
Tetlow saw the aim. His obstinate, wretched expression came back. "I
don't care. I've got----"
"You went over that ground," interrupted Norman impatiently. "You'd
better be catching the train."
As Tetlow withdrew, he rang for an office boy and sent him to summon
Miss Hallowell.
Norman had been reasoning with himself--with the aid of the self that
was both better and more worldly wise. He felt that his wrestlings had
not been wholly futile. He believed he had got the strength to face the
girl with a respectful mind, with a mind resolute in duty--if not
love--toward Josephine Burroughs. "I _love_ Josephine," he said to
himself. "My feeling for this girl is some sort of physical attraction.
I certainly shall be able to control it enough to keep it within myself.
And soon it will die out. No doubt I've felt much the same thing as
strongly before. But it didn't take hold because I was never bound
before--never had the sense of the necessity for restraint. That sense
is always highly dangerous for my sort of man."
This sounded well. He eyed the entering girl coldly, said in a voice
that struck him as excellent indifference, "Bring your machine in here,
Miss Hallowell, and recopy these papers. I've made some changes. If you
spoil any sheets, don't throw them away, but return everything to me."
"I'm always careful about the waste-paper baskets," said she, "since
they warned me that there are men who make a living searching the waste
thrown out of offices."
He made no reply. He could not have spoken if he had tried. Once more
the spell had seized him--the spell of her weird fascination for him. As
she sat typewriting, with her back almost toward him, he sat watching
her and analyzing his own folly. He knew that diagnosing a disease does
not cure it; but he found an acute pleasure in lingering upon all the
details of the effect she had upon his nerves. He did not dare move from
his desk, from the position that put a huge table and a revolving case
of reference books between them. He believed that if he went nearer he
would be unable to resist seizing her in his arms and pouring out the
passion that was playing along his nerves as the delicate, intense flame
flits back and forth along the surface of burning alcohol.
A knock at the door. He plunged into his papers. "Come!" he called.
Tetlow thrust in his head. Miss Hallowell did not look up. "I'm off,"
the head clerk said. His gaze was upon the unconscious girl--a gaze that
filled Norman with longing to strangle him.
"Telegraph me from Albany as soon as you get there," said Norman.
"Telegraph me at my club."
Tetlow was gone. The machine tapped monotonously on. The barette which
held the girl's hair at the back was so high that the full beauty of the
nape of her neck was revealed. That wonderful white skin with the golden
tint! How soft--yet how firm--her flesh looked! How slender yet how
strong was her build----
"How do you like Tetlow?" he asked, because speak to her he must.
She glanced up, turned in her chair. He quivered before the gaze from
those enchanting eyes of hers. "I beg pardon," she said. "I didn't
hear."
"Tetlow--how do you like him?"
"He is very kind to me--to everyone."
"How did your father like him?"
He confidently expected some sign of confusion, but there was no sign.
"Father was delighted with him," she said merrily. "He took an interest
in the work father's doing--and that was enough."
She was about to turn back to her task. He hastened to ask another
question. "Couldn't I meet your father some time? What Tetlow told me
interested me greatly."
"Father would be awfully pleased," replied she. "But--unless you really
care about--biology, I don't think you'd like coming."
"I'm interested in everything interesting," replied Norman dizzily. What
was he saying? What was he doing? What folly was his madness plunging
him into?
"You can come with Mr. Tetlow when he gets back."
"I'd prefer to talk with him alone," said Norman. "Perhaps I might see
some way to be of service to him."
Her expression was vividly different from what it had been when he
offered to help _her_. She became radiant with happiness. "I do hope
you'll come," she said--her voice very low and sweet, in the effort she
was making to restrain yet express her feelings.
"When? This evening?"
"He's always at home."
"You'll be there?"
"I'm always there, too. We have no friends. It's not easy to make
acquaintances in the East--congenial acquaintances."
"I'd want you to be there," he explained with great care, "because you
could help him and me in getting acquainted."
"Oh, he'll talk freely--to anyone. He talks only the one subject. He
never thinks of anything else."
She was resting her crossed arms on the back of her chair and, with her
chin upon them, was looking at him--a childlike pose and a childlike
expression. He said: "You are _sure_ you are twenty?"