The Grain of Dust Part 48

"Wasn't I right to bring her back--to tell her she needn't fear to come?" pleaded Tetlow.

Norman made no reply. After a brief silence he said: "Well, good night, old man. Come round to my office any time after ten." He rose and gave Tetlow his hand. "And arrange for Galloway whenever you like. Good night."

Tetlow hesitated. "Fred--you'll not be harsh to her?" he said.

Norman smiled--a satirical smile, yet exquisitely gentle. "If you _only_ wouldn't try to understand me, Bill," he said.

When he was alone he sat lost in thought. At last he rang for a bell boy. And when the boy came, he said: "That door there"--indicating one in the opposite wall of the sitting room--"what does it lead into?"

"Another bedroom, sir."

"Unlock it, and tell them at the office I wish that room added to my suite."

As soon as the additional bedroom was at his disposal, he went in and began to undress. When he had taken off coat and waistcoat he paused to telephone to the office a call for eight o'clock. As he finished and hung up the receiver, a sound from the direction of the sitting room made him glance in there. On the threshold of the other bedroom stood his wife. She was in her nightgown; her hair, done in a single thick braid, hung down across her bosom. There was in the room and upon her childish loveliness the strange commingling of lights and shadows that falls when the electricity is still on and the early morning light is pus.h.i.+ng in at the windows. They looked at each other in silence for some time. If she was frightened or in the least embarra.s.sed she did not show it. She simply looked at him, while ever so slowly a smile dawned--a gleam in the eyes, a flutter round the lips, growing merrier and merrier. He did not smile. He continued to regard her gravely.

"I heard you and Mr. Tetlow come in," she said. "Then--you talked so long--I fell asleep again. I only this minute awakened."

"Well, now you can go to sleep again," said he.

"But I'm not a bit sleepy. What are you doing in that room?"

She advanced toward his door. He stood aside. She peeped in. She was so close to him that her nightgown brushed the bosom of his s.h.i.+rt. "Another bedroom!" she exclaimed. "Just like ours."

"I didn't wish to disturb you," said he, calm and grave.

"But you wouldn't have been disturbing me," protested she, leaning against the door frame, less than two feet away and directly facing him.

"I'll stay on here," said he.

She gazed at him with great puzzled eyes. "Aren't you glad I'm back?"

she asked.

"Certainly," said he with a polite smile. "But I must get some sleep."

And he moved away.

"You must let me tell you how I happened to go and why I came----"

"Please," he interrupted, looking at her with a piercing though not in the least unfriendly expression that made her grow suddenly pale and thoughtful. "I do not wish to hear about it--not now--not ever. Tetlow told me all that it's necessary for me to know. You have come to stay, I a.s.sume?"

"Yes--if"--her lip quivered--"if you'll let me."

"There can be no question of that," said he with the same polite gravity he had maintained throughout.

"You want me to leave you alone?"

"Please. I need sleep badly--and I've only three hours."

"You are--angry with me?"

He looked placidly into her lovely, swimming eyes. "Not in the least."

"But how can you help being? I acted dreadfully."

He smiled gently. "But you are back--and the incident is closed."

She looked down at the carpet, her fingers playing with her braid, twisting and untwisting its strands. He stood waiting to close the door.

She said, without lifting her eyes--said in a quiet, expressionless way, "I have killed your love?"

"I'll not trouble you any more," evaded he. And he laid his hand significantly upon the k.n.o.b.

"I don't understand," she murmured. Then, with a quick apologetic glance at him, "But I'm very inconsiderate. You want to sleep. Good night."

"Good night," said he, beginning to close the door.

She impulsively stood close before him, lifted her small white face, as if for a kiss. "Do you forgive me?" she asked. "I was foolish. I didn't understand--till I went back. Then--nothing was the same. And I knew I wasn't fitted for that life--and didn't really care for him--and----"

He kissed her on the brow. "Don't agitate yourself," said he. "And we will never speak of this again."

She shrank as if he had struck her. Her head drooped, and her shoulders.

When she was clear of the door, he quietly closed it.

XIX

It was not many minutes after ten when Tetlow hurried into Norman's office. "Galloway's coming at eleven!" said he, with an air of triumph.

"So you mulled over what I said and decided that I was not altogether drunk?"

"I wasn't sure of that," replied Tetlow. "But I was afraid you'd be offended if I didn't try to get him. He gave me no trouble at all. As soon as I told him you'd be glad to see him at your office, he astounded me by saying he'd come."

"He and I have had dealings," said Norman. "He understood at once. I always know my way when I'm dealing with a big man. It's only the little people that are muddled and complex. I hope you'll not forget this lesson, Billy."

"I shan't," promised Tetlow.

"We are to be partners," pursued Norman. "We shall be intimately a.s.sociated for years. You'll save me a vast amount of time and energy and yourself a vast amount of fuming and fretting, if you'll simply accept what I say, without discussion. When I want discussion I'll ask your advice."

"I'm afraid you don't think it's worth much," said Tetlow humbly, "and I guess it isn't."

"On the contrary, invaluable," declared Norman with flattering emphasis.

"Where you lack and I excel is in decision and action. I'll often get you to tell me what ought to be done, and then I'll make you do it--which you'd never dare, by yourself."

At eleven sharp Galloway came, looking as nearly like a dangerous old eagle as a human being well could. Rapacious, merciless, tyrannical; a famous philanthropist. Stingy to pettiness; a giver away of millions.

Rigidly honest, yet absolutely unscrupulous; faithful to the last letter of his given word, yet so treacherous where his sly mind could nose out a way to evade the spirit of his agreements that his name was a synonym for unfaithfulness. An a.s.siduous and groveling sn.o.b, yet so militantly democratic that, unless his interest compelled, he would not employ any member of the "best families" in any important capacity. He seemed a bundle of contradictions. In fact he was profoundly consistent. That is to say, he steadily pursued in every thought and act the gratification of his two pa.s.sions--wealth and power. He lost no seen opportunity, however shameful, to add to his fortune or to amuse himself with the human race, which he regarded with the unpitying contempt characteristic of every cold nature born or risen to success.

His theory of life--and it is the theory that explains most great financial successes, however they may pretend or believe--his theory of life was that he did not need friends because the friends of a strong man weaken and rob him, but that he did need enemies because he could grow rich and powerful destroying and despoiling them. To him friends suggested the birds living in a tree. They might make the tree more romantic to the unthinking observer; but they in fact ate its budding leaves and its fruit and rotted its bough joints with their filthy nests.