The Grain of Dust Part 9

"I offered her some work," continued Josephine, "but I guess you keep her too busy down there for her to do anything else."

"Probably," said Norman. "Why do you sit on the other side of the room?"

"Oh, I don't know," laughed Josephine. "I feel queer to-night. And it seems to me you're queer, too."

"I? Perhaps rather tired, dear--that's all."

"Did you and Miss Hallowell work hard to-day?"

"Oh, bother Miss Hallowell. Let's talk about ourselves." And he drew her to the sofa at one end of the big fireplace. "I wish we hadn't set the wedding so far off." And suddenly he found himself wondering whether that remark had been prompted by eagerness--a lover's eagerness--or by impatience to have the business over and settled.

"You don't act a bit natural to-night, Fred. You touch me as if I were a stranger."

"I like that!" mocked he. "A stranger hold your hand like this?--and--kiss you--like this?"

She drew away, suddenly laid her hands on his shoulders, kissed him upon the lips pa.s.sionately, then looked into his eyes. "_Do_ you love me, Fred?--_really_?"

"Why so earnest?"

"You've had a great deal of experience?"

"More or less."

"Have you ever loved any woman as you love me?"

"I've never loved any woman but you. I never before wanted to marry a woman."

"But you may be doing it because--well, you might be tired and want to settle down."

"Do you believe that?"

"No, I don't. But I want to hear you say it isn't so."

"Well--it isn't so. Are you satisfied?"

"I'm frightfully jealous of you, Fred."

"What a waste of time!"

"I've got something to confess--something I'm ashamed of."

"Don't confess," cried he, laughing but showing that he meant it.

"Just--don't be wicked again That's much better than confession."

"But I must confess," insisted she. "I had evil thoughts evil suspicions about you. I've had them all day--until you came. As soon as I saw you I felt bowed into the dust. A man like you, doing anything so vulgar as I suspected you of--oh, dearest, I'm _so_ ashamed!"

He put his arms round her and drew her to his shoulder. And the scene of mimicry in his office flashed into his mind, and the blood burned in his cheeks. But he had no such access of insanity as to entertain the idea of confession.

"It was that typewriter girl," continued Josephine. She drew away again and once more searched his face. "You told me she was homely."

"Not exactly that."

"Insignificant then."

"Isn't she?"

"Yes--in a way," said Josephine, the condescending note in her voice again--and in his mind Miss Hallowell's clever burlesque of that note.

"But, in another way--Men are different from women. Now I--a woman of my sort--couldn't stoop to a man of her cla.s.s. But men seem not to feel that way."

"No," said he, irritated. "They've the courage to take what they want wherever they find it. A man will take gold out of the dirt, because gold is always gold. But a woman waits until she can get it at a fashionable jeweler's, and makes sure it's made up in a fashionable way.

I don't like to hear _you_ say those things."

Her eyes flashed. "Then you _do_ like that Hallowell girl!" she cried--and never before had her voice jarred upon him.

"That Hallowell girl has nothing to do with this," he rejoined. "I like to feel that you really love me--that you'd have taken me wherever you happened to find me--and that you'd stick to me no matter how far I might drop."

"I would! I would!" she cried, tears in her eyes. "Oh, I didn't mean that, Fred. You know I didn't--don't you?"

She tried to put her arms round his neck, but he took her hands and held them. "Would you like to think I was marrying you for what you have?--or for any other reason whatever but for what you are?"

It being once more a question of her own s.e.x, the obstinate line appeared round her mouth. "But, Fred, I'd not be _me_, if I were--a working girl," she replied.

"You might be something even better if you were," retorted he coldly.

"The only qualities I don't like about you are the surface qualities that have been plated on in these surroundings. And if I thought it was anything but just you that I was marrying, I'd lose no time about leaving you. I'd not let myself degrade myself."

"Fred--that tone--and don't--please don't look at me like that!" she begged.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Would you like to think I was marrying you for what you have?--or for any other reason whatever but for what you are?'"]

But his powerful glance searched on. He said, "Is it possible that you and I are deceiving ourselves--and that we'll marry and wake up--and be bored and dissatisfied--like so many of our friends?"

"No--no," she cried, wildly agitated. "Fred, dear we love each other.

You know we do. I don't use words as well as you do--and my mind works in a queer way--Perhaps I didn't mean what I said. No matter. If my love were put to the test--Fred, I don't ask anything more than that your love for me would stand the tests my love for you would stand."

He caught her in his arms and kissed her with more pa.s.sion than he had ever felt for her before. "I believe you, Jo," he said. "I believe you."

"I love you so--that I could be jealous even of her--of that little girl in your office. Fred, I didn't confess all the truth. It isn't true that I thought her--a n.o.body. When she first came in here--it was in this very room--I thought she was as near nothing as any girl I'd ever seen.

Then she began to change--as you said. And--oh, dearest, I can't help hating her! And when I tried to get her away from you, and she wouldn't come----"

"Away from me!" he cried, laughing.

"I felt as if it were like that," she pleaded. "And she wouldn't come--and treated me as if she were queen and I servant--only politely, I must say, for Heaven knows I don't want to injure her----"

"Shall I have her discharged?"

"Fred!" exclaimed she indignantly. "Do you think I could do such a thing?"

"She'd easily get another job as good. Tetlow can find her one. Does that satisfy you?"