The Grain of Dust Part 28

"You mean, am I having an affair with her?"

She hung her head, but managed to make a slight nod of a.s.sent.

He laughed. "No." He laughed again. "No--not thus far, my dear." He laughed a third time, with still stronger and stranger mockery. "She congratulated me on my engagement with a sincerity that would have piqued a man who was interested in her."

"Will you forgive me?" Josephine said. "What I've just been feeling and saying and putting you through--it's beneath both of us. I suppose a woman--no woman--can help being nasty where another woman is concerned."

With his satirical good-humored smile, "I don't in the least blame you."

"And you'll not think less of me for giving way to a thing so vulgar?"

He kissed her with a carelessness that made her wince But she felt that she deserved it--and was grateful. He said: "Why don't you go over and see for yourself? No doubt Tetlow gave you the address--and no doubt you have remembered it."

She colored and hastily turned her head. "Don't punish me," she pleaded.

"Punish you? What nonsense! . . . Do you want me to take you over? The laboratory would interest you--and Miss Hallowell is lovelier than ever.

She has an easier life now. Office work wears on women terribly."

Josephine looked at him with a beautiful smile of love and trust. "You wish to be sure I'm cured. Well, can't you see that I am?"

"I don't see why you should be. I've said nothing one way or the other."

She laughed gayly. "You can't tempt me. I'm really cured. I think the only reason I had the attack was because Mr. Tetlow so evidently believed he was speaking the truth."

"No doubt he did think he was. I'm sure, in the same circ.u.mstances, I'd think of anyone else just what he thinks of me."

"Then why do you do it, Fred?" urged she with ill-concealed eagerness.

"It isn't fair to the girl, is it?"

"No one but you and Tetlow knows I'm doing it."

"You're mistaken there, dear. Tetlow says a great many people down town are talking about it--that they say you go almost every day to Jersey City to see her. He accuses you of having ruined her reputation. He says she is quite innocent. He blames the whole thing upon you."

Norman, standing with arms folded upon his broad chest, was gazing thoughtfully into the fire.

"You don't mind my telling you these things?" she said anxiously. "Of course, I know they are lies----"

"So everyone is talking about it," interrupted he, so absorbed that he had not heard her.

"You don't realize how conspicuous you are."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it can't be helped."

"You can't afford to be mixed up in a scandal," she ventured, "or to injure a poor little creature--I'm afraid you'll have to--to stop it."

"Stop it." His eyes gleamed with mirth and something else. "It isn't my habit to heed gossip."

"But think of _her_, Fred!"

He smiled ironically. "What a generous, thoughtful dear you are!" said he.

She blushed. "I'll admit I don't like it. I'm not jealous--but I wish you weren't doing it."

"So do I!" he exclaimed, with sudden energy that astonished and disquieted her. "So do I! But since it can't be helped I shall go on."

Never had she respected him so profoundly. For the first time she had measured strength with him and had been beaten and routed. She fancied herself enormously proud; for she labored under the common delusion which mistakes for pride the silly vanity of cla.s.s, or birth, or wealth, or position. She had imagined she would never lower that cherished pride of hers to any man. And she had lowered it into the dust. No wonder women had loved him, she said to herself; couldn't he do with them, even the haughtiest of them, precisely as he pleased? He had not tried to calm, much less to end her jealousy; on the contrary, he had let it flame as high as it would, had urged it higher. And she did not dare ask him, even as a loving concession to her weakness, to give up an affair upon which everybody was putting the natural worst possible construction! On the contrary, she had given him leave to go on--because she feared--yes, knew--that if she tried to interfere he would take it as evidence that they could not get on together. What a man!

But there was more to come that day. As he was finishing dressing for dinner his sister Ursula knocked. "May I come, Frederick?" she said.

"Sure," he cried. "I'm fixing my tie."

Ursula, in a gown that displayed the last possible--many of the homelier women said impossible--inch of her beautiful shoulders, came strolling sinuously in and seated herself on the arm of the divan. She watched him, in his evening shirt, as he with much struggling did his tie. "How young you do look, Fred!" said she. "Especially in just that much clothes. Not a day over thirty."

"I'm not exactly a nonogenarian," retorted he.

"But usually your face--in spite of its smoothness and no wrinkles--has a kind of an old young--or do I mean young old?--look. You've led such a serious life."

"Um. That's the devil of it."

"You're looking particularly young to-night."

"Same to you, Urse."

"No, I'm not bad for thirty-four. People half believe me when I say I'm twenty-nine." She glanced complacently down at her softly glistening shoulders. "I've still got my skin."

"And a mighty good one it is. Best I ever saw--except one."

She reflected a moment, then smiled. "I know it isn't Josephine's. Hers is good but not notable. Eyes and teeth are her strongholds. I suppose it's--the other lady's."

"Exactly."

"I mean the one in Jersey City."

He went on brushing his hair with not a glance at the bomb she had exploded under his very nose.

"You're a cool one," she said admiringly.

"Cool?"

"I thought you'd jump. I'm sure you never dreamed I knew."

He slid into his white waistcoat and began to b.u.t.ton it.

"Though you might know I'd find out," she went on, "when everyone's talking."

"Everyone's always talking," said he indifferently.