The Grain of Dust Part 18

She laughed. "n.o.body has influence over you," she said.

"Not even myself," replied he morosely.

"Well--that talking-to you gave me has had its effect," proceeded Mrs.

Fitzhugh. "It set me to thinking. There are other things besides love--man and woman love. I've decided to--to behave myself and give poor Clayton a chance to rest." She smiled, a little maliciously. "He's had a horrible fright. But it's over now. What a fine thing it is for a woman to have a sensible brother!"

Norman grunted, took another liberal draught of the champagne.

"If I had a mind like yours!" pursued Ursula. "Now, you simply couldn't make a fool of yourself."

He looked at her sharply. He felt as if she had somehow got wind of his eccentric doings.

"I've always resented your rather contemptuous att.i.tude toward women,"

she went on. "But you are right--really you are. We're none of us worth the excitement men make about us."

"It isn't the woman who makes a fool of the man," said Norman. "It's the man who makes a fool of himself. A match can cause a terrific explosion if it's in the right place--but not if it isn't."

She nodded. "That's it. We're simply matches--and most of us of the poor sputtering kind that burns with a bad odor and goes out right away.

A very inferior quality of matches."

"Yes," repeated Norman, "it's the man who does the whole business."

A mocking smile curled her lips. "I knew you weren't in love with Josephine."

He stared gloomily at his cigar.

"But you're going to marry her?"

"I'm in love with her," he said angrily. "And I'm going to marry her."

She eyed him shrewdly. "Fred--are you in love with some one else?"

He did not answer immediately. When he did it was with a "No" that seemed the more emphatic for the delay.

"Oh, just one of your little affairs." And she began to poke fun at him.

"I thought you had dropped that sort of thing for good and all. I hope Josie won't hear of it. She'd not understand. Women never do--unless they don't care a rap about the man. . . . Is she on the stage? I know you'll not tell me, but I like to ask."

Her brother looked at her rather wildly. "Let's go home," he said. He was astounded and alarmed by the discovery that his infatuation had whirled him to the lunacy of longing to confide--and he feared lest, if he should stay on, he would blurt out his disgraceful secret. "Waiter, the bill."

"Don't let's go yet," urged his sister. "The most interesting people are beginning to come. Besides, I want more champagne."

He yielded. While she gazed round with the air of a visitor to a Zoo that is affected by fas.h.i.+onable people, and commented on the faces, figures, and clothes of the women, he stared at his plate and smoked and drank. Finally she said, "I'd give anything to see you make a fool of yourself, just once."

He grinned. "Things are in the way to having your wish gratified," he said. "It looks to me as if my time had come."

She tried to conceal her anxiety. "Are you serious?" she asked. Then added: "Of course not. You simply couldn't. Especially now--when Josephine might hear. I suppose you've noticed how Joe Culver is hanging round her?"

He nodded.

"There's no danger--unless----"

"I shall marry Josephine."

"Not if she hears."

"She's not going to hear."

"Don't be too sure. Women love to boast. It tickles their vanity to have a man. Yes, they pretend to be madly in love simply to give themselves the excuse for tattling."

"She'll not hear."

"You can't be sure."

"I want you to help me out. I'm going to tell her I'm tremendously busy these few next days--or weeks."

"Weeks!" Ursula Fitzhugh laughed. "My, it must be serious!"

"Weeks," repeated her brother. "And I want you to say things that'll help out--and to see a good deal of her." He flung down his cigar. "You women don't understand how it is with a man."

"Don't we though! Why, it's a very ordinary occurrence for a woman to be really in love with several men at once."

His eyes gleamed jealously. "I don't believe it," he cried.

"Not Josephine," she said rea.s.suringly. "She's one of those single-hearted, untemperamental women. They concentrate. They have no imagination."

"I wasn't thinking of Josephine," said he sullenly. "To go back to what I was saying, I am in love with Josephine and with no one else. I can't explain to you how or why I'm entangled. But I'll get myself untangled all right--and very shortly."

"I know that, Fred. You aren't the permanent d.a.m.n-fool sort."

"I should say not!" exclaimed he. "It's a hopeful sign that I know exactly how big a fool I am."

She shook her head in strong dissent. "On the contrary," said she, "it's a bad sign. I didn't realize I was making a fool of myself until you pointed it out to me. That stopped me. If I had been doing it with my eyes open, your jacking me up would only have made me go ahead."

"A woman's different. It doesn't take much to stop a woman. She's about half stopped when she begins."

Ursula was thoroughly alarmed. "Fred," she said earnestly, "you're running bang into danger. The time to stop is right now."

"Can't do it," he said. "Let's not talk about it."

"Can't? That word from _you_?"

"From me," replied he. "Don't forget helping out with Josephine. Let's go."

And he refused to be persuaded to stay on--or to be cajoled or baited into talking further of this secret his sister saw was weighing heavily.

He was down town half an hour earlier than usual the next morning. But no one noted it because his habit had always been to arrive among the first--not to set an example but to give his prodigious industry the fullest swing. There was in Turkey a great poet of whom it is said that he must have written twenty-five hours a day. Norman's accomplishment bulked in that same way before his a.s.sociates. He had not slept the whole night. But, thanks to his enormous vitality, no trace of this serious dissipation showed. The huge supper he had eaten--and drunk--the sleepless night and the giant breakfast of fruit and cereal and chops and wheat cakes and coffee he had laid in to stay him until lunch time, would together have given pause to any but such a physical organization as his. The only evidence of it was a certain slight irritability--but this may have been due to his state of intense self-dissatisfaction.