The Grain of Dust Part 11

"I never thought of that," replied she unembarra.s.sed. "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 n.o.body 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 a.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 d.a.m.ned if I know, Norman," said the head clerk, a.s.suming 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 s.e.x 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, pa.s.sed 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--d.a.m.n 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 partners.h.i.+p next year? When you marry, you must marry in the cla.s.s 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, a.s.suming 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 n.o.body 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 s.h.i.+fted, looked embarra.s.sed.

"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."