The Grain of Dust Part 20

Until dinner time he stood at the club bar, drinking one c.o.c.ktail after another with that supreme indifference to consequences to health which made his fellow men gape and wonder--and cost an occasional imitator health, and perhaps life. Nor did the powerful liquor have the least effect upon him, apparently. Possibly he was in a better humor, but not noticeably so. He dined at the club and spent the evening at bridge, winning several hundred dollars. He enjoyed the consideration he received at that club, for his fellow members being men of both social and financial consequence, their conspicuous respect for him was a concentrated essence of general adulation. He lingered on, eating a great supper with real appet.i.te. He went home in high good humor with himself. He felt that he was a conqueror born, that such things of his desire as did not come could be forced to come. He no longer regarded his pa.s.sion for the nebulous girl of many personalities as a descent from dignity. Was he not king? Did not his favor give her whatever rank he pleased? Might not a king pick and choose, according to his fancy?

Let the smaller fry grow nervous about these matters of caste. They did well to take care lest they should fall. But not he! He had won thus far by haughtiness, never by cringing. His mortal day would be that in which he should abandon his natural tactics for the modes of lesser men. True, only a strong head could remain steady in these giddy alt.i.tudes of self-confidence. But was not his head strong?

And without hesitation he called up the vision that made him delirious-and detained it and reveled in it until sleep came.

VIII

The longer he thought of it the stronger grew his doubt that the little Hallowell girl could be so indifferent to him as she seemed. Not that she was a fraud--that is, a conscious fraud--even so much of a fraud as the sincerest of the other women he had known. Simply that she was carrying out a scheme of coquetry. Could it be in human nature, even in the nature of the most indiscriminating of the specimens of young feminine ignorance and folly, not to be flattered by the favor of such a man as he? Common sense answered that it could not be--but neglected to point out to him that almost any vagary might be expected of human nature, when it could produce such a deviation from the recognized types as a man of his position agitated about such an unsought obscurity as Miss Hallowell. He continued to debate the state of her mind as if it were an affair of mightiest moment--which, indeed, it was to him. And presently his doubt strengthened into conviction. She must be secretly pleased, flattered, responsive. She had been in the office long enough to be impressed by his position. Yes, there must be more or less pretense in her apparently complete indifference--more or less pretense, more or less coquetry, probably not a little timidity.

She would come down from her high horse--with help and encouragement from him. He was impatient to get to the office and see just how she would do it--what absurd, amusing attractive child's trick she would think out, imagining she could fool him, as lesser intelligences are ever fatuously imagining they can outwit greater.

He rather thought she would come in to see him on some pretext, would maneuver round like a bird pretending to flutter away from the trap it has every intention of entering. But eleven o'clock of a wasted morning came and she did not appear. He went out to see if she was there--she must be sick; she could not be there or he would have heard from her. . . .

Yes, she was at her desk, exactly as always. No, not exactly the same.

She was obviously attractive now; the air of insignificance had gone, and not the dullest eyes in that office could fail to see at least something of her beauty. And Tetlow was hanging over her, while the girls and boys grinned and whispered. Clearly, the office was "on to"

Tetlow. . . . Norman, erect and coldly infuriate, called out:

"Mr. Tetlow--one moment, please."

He went back to his den, Tetlow startling and following like one on the way to the bar for sentence. "Mr. Tetlow," he said, when they were shut in together, "you are making a fool of yourself before the whole office."

"Be a little patient with me, Mr. Norman," said the head clerk humbly.

"I've got another place for her. She's going to take it to-morrow.

Then--there'll be no more trouble."

Norman paled. "She wishes to leave?" he contrived to articulate.

"She spoke to me about leaving before I told her I had found her another job."

Norman debated--but for only a moment. "I do not wish her to leave," he said coldly. "I find her useful and most trustworthy."

Tetlow's eyes were fixed strangely upon him.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Norman, the under-note of danger but thinly covered.

"Then she was right," said Tetlow slowly. "I thought she was mistaken. I see that she is right."

"What do you mean?" said Norman--a mere inquiry, devoid of bl.u.s.ter or any other form of nervousness.

"You know very well what I mean, Fred Norman," said Tetlow. "And you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"Don't stand there scowling and grimacing like an idiot," said Norman with an amused smile. "What do you mean?"

"She told me--about your coming to see her--about your offer to do something for her father--about your acting in a way that made her uneasy."

For an instant Norman was panic-stricken. Then his estimate of her rea.s.sured him. "I took your advice," said he. "I went to see for myself.

How did I act that she was made uneasy?"

"She didn't say. But a woman can tell what a man has in the back of his head--when it concerns her. And she is a good woman--so innocent that you ought to be ashamed of yourself for even thinking of her in that way. G.o.d has given innocence instincts, and she felt what you were about."

Norman laughed--a deliberate provocation. "Love has made a fool of you, old man," he said.

"I notice you don't deny," retorted Tetlow shrewdly.

"Deny what? There's nothing to deny." He felt secure now that he knew she had been reticent with Tetlow as to the happenings in the cottage.

"Maybe I'm wronging you," said Tetlow, but not in the tone of belief.

"However that may be, I know you'll not refuse to listen to my appeal. I love her, Norman. I'm going to make her my wife if I can. And I ask you--for the sake of our old friendship--to let her alone. I've no doubt you could dazzle her. You couldn't make a bad woman of her. But you could make her very miserable."

Norman pushed about the papers before him. His face wore a cynical smile; but Tetlow, who knew him in all his moods, saw that he was deeply agitated.

"I don't know that I can win her, Fred," he pleaded. "But I feel that I might if I had a fair chance."

"You think she'd refuse _you_?" said Norman.

"Like a flash, unless I'd made her care for me. That's the kind she is."

"That sounds absurd. Why, there isn't a woman in New York who would refuse a chance to take a high jump up."

"I'd have said so, too. But since I've gotten acquainted with her I've learned better. She may be spoiled some day, but she hasn't been yet.

G.o.d knows, I wish I could tempt her. But I can't."

"You're entirely too credulous, old man. She'll make a fool of you."

"I know better," Tetlow stubbornly maintained. "Anyhow, I don't care. I love her, and I'd marry her, no matter what her reason for marrying me was."

What pitiful infatuation!--worse than his own. Poor Tetlow!--he deserved a better fate than to be drawn into this girl's trap--for, of course, she never could care for such a heavy citizen--heavy and homely--the loosely fat kind of homely that is admired by no one, not even by a woman with no eye at all for the physical points of the male. It would be a real kindness to save worthy Tetlow. What a fool she'd make of him!--how she'd squander his money--and torment him with jealousy--and unfit him for his career. Poor Tetlow! If he could get what he wanted, he'd be well punished for his imprudence in wanting it. Really, could friendship do him a greater service than to save him?

Norman gave Tetlow a friendly, humorous glance. "You're a hopeless case, Billy," he said. "But at least don't rush into trouble. Take your time.

You can always get in, you know; and you may not get in quite so deep."

"You promise to let her alone?" said Tetlow eagerly.

Again his distinguished friend laughed. "Don't be an a.s.s, old man. Why imagine that, just because you've taken a fancy to a girl, everyone wants her?" He clapped him on the shoulder, gave him a push toward the door. "I've wasted enough time on this nonsense."

Tetlow did not venture to disregard a hint so plain. He went with his doubt still unsolved--his doubt whether his jealousy was right or his high opinion of his hero friend whose series of ever-mounting successes had filled him with adoration. He knew the way of success, knew no man could tread it unless he had, or acquired, a certain hardness of heart that made him an uncomfortable not to say dangerous a.s.sociate. He regretted his own inability to acquire that indispensable hardness, and envied and admired it in Fred Norman. But, at the same time that he admired, he could not help distrusting.

Norman battled with his insanity an hour, then sent for Miss Hallowell.

The girl had lost her look of strength and vitality. She seemed frail and dim--so unimportant physically that he wondered why her charm for him persisted. Yet it did persist. If he could take her in his arms, could make her drooping beauty revive!--through love for him if possible; if not, then through anger and hate! He must make her feel, must make her acknowledge, that he had power. It seemed to him another instance of the resistless fascination which the unattainable, however unworthy, has ever had for the conqueror temperament.

"You are leaving?" he said curtly, both a question and an affirmation.

"Yes."

"You are making a mistake--a serious mistake."