The Grain of Dust Part 31

"If I can do anything----"

"Pat will telephone." She was already halfway upstairs.

He found Pat in the front yard, and arranged with him to get news and to send messages by way of the drug store at the corner, so that she would know nothing about it. He went to a florist's in New York and sent ma.s.ses of flowers. And then--there was nothing more to do. He stopped in at the club and drank and gambled until far into the morning. He fretted gloomily about all the next day, riding alone in the Park, driving with his sister, drinking and gambling at the club again and smiling cynically to himself at the covert glances his acquaintances exchanged.

He was growing used to those glances. He cared not the flip of a penny for them.

On the third day came the funeral, and he went. He did not let his cabman turn in behind the one carriage that followed the hea.r.s.e. At the graveyard he stood afar off, watching her in her simple new black, noting her calm. She seemed thinner, but he thought it might be simply her black dress. He could see no change in her face. As she was leaving the grave, she looked in his direction but he was uncertain whether she had seen him. Pat and Molly were in the big, gloomy looking carriage with her.

He ventured to go to the front gate an hour later. Pat came out. "It's no use to go in, Mr. Norman," he said. "She'll not see you. She's shut up in her own room."

"Hasn't she cried yet, Pat?"

"Not yet. We're waiting for it, sir. We're afraid her mind will give way. At least, Molly is. I don't think so. She's a queer young lady--as queer as she looks--though at first you'd never think it. She's always looking different. I never seen so many persons in one."

"Can't Molly _make_ her cry?--by talking about him?"

"She's tried, sir. It wasn't no use. Why, Miss Dorothy talks about him just as if he was still here." Pat wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"I've been in many a house of mourning, but never through such a strain as this. Somehow I feel as if I'd never before been round where there was anyone that'd lost somebody they _really_ cared about. Weeping and moaning don't amount to much beside what she's doing."

Norman stayed round for an hour or more, then rushed away distracted. He drank like a madman--drank himself into a daze, and so got a few hours of a kind of sleep. He was looking haggard and wild now, and everyone avoided him, though in fact there was not the least danger of an outburst of temper. His sister--Josephine--the office--several clients telephoned for him. To all he sent the same refusal--that he was too ill to see anyone. Not until the third day after the funeral did Dorothy telephone for him.

He took an ice-cold bath, got himself together as well as he could, and reached the house in Jersey City about half past three in the afternoon.

She came gliding into the room like a ghost, trailing a black negligee that made the whiteness of her skin startling. Her eyelids were heavy and dark, but unreddened. She gazed at him with calm, clear melancholy, and his heart throbbed and ached for her. She seated herself, clasped her hands loosely in her lap, and said:

"I've sent for you so that I could settle things up."

"Your father's affairs? Can't I do it better?"

"He had arranged everything. There are only the papers--his notes--and he wrote out the addresses of the men they were to be sent to. No, I mean settle things up with you."

"You mustn't bother about that," said he. "Besides, there's nothing to settle."

"I shan't pretend I'm going to try to pay you back," she went on, as if he had not spoken. "I never could do it. But you will get part at least by selling this furniture and the things at the laboratory."

"Dorothy--please," he implored. "Don't you understand you're to stay on here, just the same? What sort of man do you think I am? I did this for you, and you know it."

"But I did it for my father," replied she, "and he's gone." She was resting her melancholy gaze upon him. "I couldn't take anything from you. You didn't think I was that kind?"

He was silent.

"I cared nothing about the scandal--what people said--so long as I was doing it for him. . . . I'd have done _anything_ for him. Sometimes I thought you were going to compel me to do things I'd have hated to do. I hope I wronged you, but I feared you meant that." She sat thinking several minutes, sighed wearily. "It's all over now. It doesn't matter.

I needn't bother about it any more."

"Dorothy, let's not talk of these things now," said Norman. "There's no hurry. I want you to wait until you are calm and have thought everything over. Then I'm sure you'll see that you ought to stay on."

"How could I?" she asked wonderingly.

"Why not? Am I demanding anything of you? You know I'm not--and that I never shall."

"But there's no reason on earth why _you_ should support _me_. I can work.

Why shouldn't I? And if I didn't, if I stayed on here, what sort of woman would I be?"

He was unable to find an answer. He was trying not to see a look in her face--or was it in her soul, revealed through her eyes?--a look that made him think for the first time of a resemblance between her and her father.

"You see yourself I've got to go. Any money I could earn wouldn't more than pay for a room and board somewhere."

"You can let me advance you money while you--" He hesitated, had an idea which he welcomed eagerly--"while you study for the stage. Yes, that's the sensible thing. You can learn to act. Then you will be able to make a decent living."

She slowly shook her head. "I've no talent for it--and no liking. No, Mr. Norman, I must go back to work--and right away."

"But at least wait until you've looked into the stage business," he urged. "You may find that you like it and that you have talent for it."

"I can't take any more from you," she said.

"You think I am not to be trusted. I'm not going to say now how I feel toward you. But I can honestly say one thing. Now that you are all alone and unprotected, you needn't have the least fear of me."

She smiled faintly. "I see you don't believe me. Well, it doesn't matter. I've seen Mr. Tetlow and he has given me a place at twelve a week in his office."

Norman sank back in his chair. "He is in for himself now?"

"No. He's head clerk for Pitchley & Culver."

"Culver!" exclaimed Norman. "I don't want you to go into Culver's office. He's a scoundrel."

Again Dorothy smiled faintly. Norman colored. "I know he stands well--as well as I do. But I can't trust you with him. That sounds ridiculous but--it's true."

"I think I can trust myself," she said quietly. Her grave regard fixed his. "Don't you?" she asked.

His eyes lowered. "Yes," he replied. "But--why shouldn't you come back with us? I'll see that you get a much better position than Culver's giving you."

Over her face crept one of those mysterious transformations that made her so bafflingly fascinating to him. Behind that worldly-wise, satirical mask was she mocking at him? All she said was: "I couldn't work there. I've settled it with Mr. Tetlow. I go to work to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" he cried, starting up.

"And I've found a place to live. Pat and Molly; will take care of things for you here."

"Dorothy! You don't _mean_ this? You're not going to break off?"

"I shan't see you again--except as we may meet by accident."

"Do you realize what you're saying means to me?" he cried. "Don't you know how I love you?" He advanced toward her. She stood and waited pa.s.sively, looking at him. "Dorothy--my love--do you want to kill me?"

"When are you to be married?" she asked quietly.

"You are playing with me!" he cried. "You are tormenting me. What have I ever done that you should treat me this way?" He caught her unresisting hands and kissed them. "Dear--my dear--don't you care for me at all?"

"No," she said placidly. "I've always told you so."

He seized her in his arms, kissed her with a frenzy that was savage, ferocious. "You will drive me mad. You _have_ driven me mad!" he muttered.