The Grain of Dust Part 12

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," a.s.sented 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 skysc.r.a.pers 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 s.h.i.+ftiest, 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, d.a.m.n 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 _d.a.m.n_ 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 h.e.l.l of a friend!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "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 a.n.a.lyzing 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 pa.s.sion 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."