The Grain of Dust Part 6

"But she might have been a lady."

"I'm sure I don't know."

"Don't you know _anything_ about her?"

"Except that she's trustworthy--and insignificant and not too good at her business."

"I shouldn't think you could afford to keep incompetent people," said the girl shrewdly.

"Perhaps they won't keep her," parried Norman gracefully. "The head clerk looks after those things."

"He probably likes her."

"No," said Norman, too indifferent to be cautious. "She has no 'gentlemen friends.'"

"How do you know that?" said the girl, and she could not keep a certain sharpness out of her voice.

"Tetlow, the head clerk, told me. I asked him a few questions about her.

I had some confidential work to do and didn't want to trust her without being sure."

He saw that she was now prey to her jealous suspicion. He was uncertain whether to be amused or irritated. She had to pause long and with visible effort collect herself before venturing:

"Oh, she does confidential work for you? I thought you said she was incompetent."

He, the expert cross-examiner, had to admire her skill at that high science and art. "I felt sorry for her," he said. "She seemed such a forlorn little creature."

She laughed with a constrained attempt at raillery. "I never should have suspected you of such weakness. To give confidential things to a forlorn little incompetent, out of pity."

He was irritated, distinctly. The whole thing was preposterous. It reminded him of feats of his own before a jury. By clever questioning, Josephine had made about as trifling an incident as could be imagined take on really quite imposing proportions. There was annoyance in his smile as he said:

"Shall I send her up to see you? You might find it amusing, and maybe you could do something for her."

Josephine debated. "Yes," she finally said. "I wish you would send her--" with a little sarcasm--"if you can spare her for an hour or so."

"Don't make it longer than that," laughed he. "Everything will stop while she's gone."

It pleased him, in a way, this discovery that Josephine had such a common, commonplace weakness as jealousy. But it also took away something from his high esteem for her--an esteem born of the lover's idealizings; for, while he was not of the kind of men who are on their knees before women, he did have a deep respect for Josephine, incarnation of all the material things that dazzled him--a respect with something of the reverential in it, and something of awe--more than he would have admitted to himself. To-day, as of old, the image-makers are as sincere worshipers as visit the shrines. In our prostrations and genuflections in the temple we do not discriminate against the idols we ourselves have manufactured; on the contrary, them we worship with peculiar gusto. Norman knew his G.o.ds were frauds, that their divine qualities were of the earth earthy. But he served them, and what most appealed to him in Josephine was that she incorporated about all their divine qualities.

He and his sister went home together. Her first remark in the auto was: "What were you and Josie quarreling about?"

"Quarreling?" inquired he in honest surprise.

"I looked at her through my gla.s.ses and saw that the was all upset--and you, too."

"This is too ridiculous," cried he.

"She looked--jealous."

"Nonsense! What an imagination you have!"

"I saw what I saw," Ursula maintained. "Well, I suppose she has heard something--something recent. I thought you had sworn off, Fred. But I might have known."

Norman was angry. He wondered at his own exasperation, out of all proportion to any apparent provoking cause. And it was most unusual for him to feel temper, all but unprecedented for him to show it, no matter how strong the temptation.

"It's a good idea, to make her jealous," pursued his sister. "Nothing like jealousy to stimulate interest."

"Josephine is not that sort of woman."

"You know better. All women are that sort. All men, too. Of course, some men and women grow angry and go away when they get jealous while others stick closer. So one has to be judicious."

"Josephine and I understand each other far too well for such pettiness."

"Try her. No, you needn't. You have."

"Didn't I tell you----"

"Then what was she questioning you about?"

"Just to show you how wrong you were, I'll tell you. She was asking me about a poor little girl down at the office--one she wants to help."

Ursula laughed. "To help out of your office, I guess. I thought you'd lived long enough, Fred, to learn that no woman trusts _any_ man about _any_ woman. Who is this 'poor little girl'?"

"I don't even know her name. One of the typewriters."

"What made Josephine jealous of her?"

"Haven't I told you Josephine was not----"

"But I saw. Who is this girl?--pretty?"

Norman pretended to stifle a yawn. "Josephine bored me half to death talking about her. Now it's you. I never heard so much about so little."

"Is there something up between you and the girl?" teased Ursula.

"Now, that's an outrage!" cried Norman. "She's got nothing but her reputation, poor child. Do leave her that."

"Is she very young?"

"How should I know?"

"Youth is a charm in itself."

"What sort of rot is this!" exclaimed he. "Do you think I'd drop down to anything of that kind--in _any_ circ.u.mstances? A little working girl--and in my own office?"

"Why do you heat so, Fred?" teased the sister. "Really, I don't wonder Josephine was torn up."

An auto almost ran into them--one of those innumerable hairbreadth escapes that make the streets of New York as exciting as a battle--and as dangerous. For a few minutes Ursula's mind was deflected. But a fatality seemed to pursue the subject of the pale obscurity whose very name he was uncertain whether he remembered aright.

Said Ursula, as they entered the house, "A girl working in the office with a man has a magnificent chance at him. It's lucky for the men that women don't know their business, but are amateurs and too stuck on themselves to set and bait their traps properly. Is that girl trying to get round you?"