"No. He's head clerk for Pitchley & Culver."
"Culver!" exclaimed Norman. "I don't want you to go into Culver's
office. He's a scoundrel."
Again Dorothy smiled faintly. Norman colored. "I know he stands well--as
well as I do. But I can't trust you with him. That sounds ridiculous
but--it's true."
"I think I can trust myself," she said quietly. Her grave regard fixed
his. "Don't you?" she asked.
His eyes lowered. "Yes," he replied. "But--why shouldn't you come back
with us? I'll see that you get a much better position than Culver's
giving you."
Over her face crept one of those mysterious transformations that made
her so bafflingly fascinating to him. Behind that worldly-wise,
satirical mask was she mocking at him? All she said was: "I couldn't
work there. I've settled it with Mr. Tetlow. I go to work to-morrow."
"To-morrow!" he cried, starting up.
"And I've found a place to live. Pat and Molly; will take care of things
for you here."
"Dorothy! You don't _mean_ this? You're not going to break off?"
"I shan't see you again--except as we may meet by accident."
"Do you realize what you're saying means to me?" he cried. "Don't you
know how I love you?" He advanced toward her. She stood and waited
passively, looking at him. "Dorothy--my love--do you want to kill me?"
"When are you to be married?" she asked quietly.
"You are playing with me!" he cried. "You are tormenting me. What have I
ever done that you should treat me this way?" He caught her unresisting
hands and kissed them. "Dear--my dear--don't you care for me at all?"
"No," she said placidly. "I've always told you so."
He seized her in his arms, kissed her with a frenzy that was savage,
ferocious. "You will drive me mad. You _have_ driven me mad!" he muttered.
And he added, unconscious that he was speaking his thoughts, so
distracted was he: "You _must_ love me--you _must_! No woman has ever
resisted me. You cannot."
She drew herself away from him, stood before him like snow, like ice.
"One thing I have never told you. I'll tell you now," she said
deliberately. "I despise you."
He fell back a step and the chill of her coldness seemed to be freezing
the blood in his veins.
"I've always despised you," she went on, and he shivered before that
contemptuous word--it seemed only the more contemptuous for her
calmness. "Sometimes I've despised you thoroughly--again only a
little--but always that feeling."
For a moment he thought she had at last stung his pride into the
semblance of haughtiness. He was able to look at her with mocking eyes
and to say, "I congratulate you on your cleverness in concealing your
feelings."
"It wasn't my cleverness," she said wearily. "It was your blindness. I
never deceived you."
"No, you never have," he replied sincerely. "Perhaps I deserve to be
despised. Again, perhaps if you knew the world--the one I live
in--better, you'd think less harshly of me."
"I don't think harshly of you. How could I--after all you did for my
father?"
"Dorothy, if you'll stay here and study for the stage--or anything you
choose--I promise you I'll never speak of my feeling for you--or show it
in any way--unless you yourself give me leave."
She smiled with childlike pathos. "You ought not to tempt me. Do you
want me to keep on despising you? Can't you ever be fair with me?"
The sad, frank gentleness of the appeal swung his unhinged mind to the
other extreme--from the savagery of passion to a frenzy of remorse.
"Fair to _you_? No," he cried, "because I love you. Oh, I'm
ashamed--bitterly ashamed. I'm capable of any baseness to get you.
You're right. You can't trust me. In going you're saving me from
myself." He hesitated, stared wildly, appalled at the words that were
fighting for utterance--the words about marriage--about marrying her! He
said hoarsely: "I am mad--mad! I don't know what I'm saying.
Good-by--For God's sake, don't think the worst of me, Dorothy. Good-by.
I _will_ be a man again--I will!"
And he wrung her hand and, talking incoherently, he rushed from the room
and from the house.