'She glanced complacently down at her softly glistening shoulders.'"She glanced complacently down at her softly glistening shoulders."
As she fussed with the buckles she said: "But you don't know that they say you're going to pieces—neglecting your cases—keeping away from your office—wasting about half of your day with your lady love. They say that you have gone stark mad—that you are rushing to ruin."
"A little looser. That's better. Thanks."
"And everyone's wondering when Josephine will hear and go on the rampage. She's so proud and so stuck on herself that they're betting she'll give you the bounce."
"Well—" getting into his coat—"you'd delight in that. For you don't like her."
"Oh—so—so," replied Ursula. "She's all right, as women go. You know we women don't ever think any too well of each other. We're 'on.' Now, I'm frank to admit I'm not worth the powder to blow me up. I can't do anything worth doing. I don't know anything worth knowing—except how to dress and make a fool of an occasional man. I'm not a good house-keeper, nor a good wife—and I'd as lief go to jail for two years as have a baby. But I admit I'm n. g. Most women are as poor excuses as I am, yet they think they'regrand!"
Norman, standing before his sister and smiling mysteriously, said: "My dear Urse, let me give you a great truth in a sentence. The value of anything is not its value to itself or in itself, but its value to some one else. A woman—even as incompetent a person as you——"
"Or Josephine."
"—or Josephine—may seem to some man to be pricelessly valuable. And if she happens to seem so to him, why, sheisso."
"Meaning—Jersey City?"
His eyes glittered curiously. "Meaning Jersey City," he said.
A long silence. Then Ursula: "But suppose Josephine hears?"
He stood beside the doorway, waiting for her to pass out. His face expressed nothing. "Let's go down. I'm hungry. We were talking about it this afternoon."
"You and Jo!"
"Josephine and I."
"And it's all right?"
"Why not?"
"You fooled her?"
"I don't stoop to that sort of thing."
"No, indeed," she laughed. "You rise to heights of deception that would make anyone else giddy. Oh, I'd give anything to have heard."
"There's nothing to deceive about," said he.
She shook her head. "You can't put it over me, Fred. You've never before made a fool of yourself about a woman. I'd like to see her. I suppose I'd be amazed. I've observed that the women who do the most extraordinary things with men are the most ordinary sort of women."
"Not to the men," said he bitterly. "Not while they're doing it."
"Doessheseem extraordinary toyoustill?"
He thrust his hands deep in his pockets. "What you heard is true. I'm letting everything slide—work—career—everything. I think of nothing else. Ursula, I'm mad about her—mad!"
She threw back her head, looked at him admiringly. Never had she so utterly worshiped this wonderful, powerful brother of hers. He was in love—really—madly in love—at last. So he was perfect! "How long do you think it will hold, Fred?" she said, all sympathy.
"God knows!"
"Yet—caring for her you can go on and marry another woman!"
He looked at his sister cynically. "You wouldn't have me marryher, would you?"
"Of course not," protested she hastily. Her passion for romance did not carry her to that idiocy. "You couldn't. She's a sort of working girl—isn't she?—anyhow, that class. No, you couldn't marry her. But how can you marry another woman?"
"How could I give up Josephine?—and give her up probably to Bob Culver?"
Ursula nodded understandingly. "But—what are you going to do?"
"How should I know? Perhaps break it off when I marry—if you can call it breaking off, when there's nothing to break but—me."
"You don't mean—" she cried, stopping when her tone had carried her meaning.
He laughed. "Yes—that's the kind of damn fool I've been."
"You must have let her see how crazy you were about her."
"Was anyone ever able to hide that sort of insanity?"
Ursula gazed wonderingly at him, drew a long breath. "You!" she exclaimed. "Of all men—you!"
"Let's go down."
"She must be a deep one—dangerous," said Ursula, furious against the woman who was daring to resist her matchless brother. "Fred, I'm wild to see her. Maybe I'd see something that'd help cure you."
"You keep out of it," he replied, curtly but not with ill humor.
"It can't last long."
"It'd do for me, if it did."
"The marriage will settle everything," said Ursula with confidence.
"It's got to," said he grimly.
The next day or the next but one Dorothy telephoned him. He often called her up on one pretext or another, or frankly for no reason at all beyond the overwhelming desire to hear her voice. But she had never before "disturbed" him. He had again and again assured her that he would not regard himself as "disturbed," no matter what he might be doing. She would not have it so. As he was always watching for some faint sign that she was really interested in him, this call gave him a thrill of hope—a specimen of the minor absurdities of those days of extravagant folly.
"Are you coming over to-day?" she asked.
"Right away, if you wish."
"Oh, no. Any time will do."
"I'll come at once. I'm not busy."
"No. Late this afternoon. Father asked me to call up and make sure. He wants to see you."
"Oh—not you?"
"I'm a business person," retorted she. "I know better than to annoy you, as I've often said."
He knew it was foolish, tiresome; yet he could not resist the impulse to say, "Now that I've heard your voice I can't stay away. I'll come over to lunch."
Her answering voice was irritated. "Please don't. I'm cleaning house. You'd be in the way."
He shrank and quivered like a boy who has been publicly rebuked. "I'll come when you say," he replied.
"Not a minute before four o'clock."
"That's a long time—now you've made me crazy to see you."
"Don't talk nonsense. I must go back to work."
"What are you doing?" he asked, to detain her.
"Dusting and polishing. Molly did the sweeping and is cleaning windows now."
"What have you got on?"
"How silly you are!"
"No one knows that better than I. But I want to have a picture of you to look at."
"I've got on an old white skirt and an old shirt waist, both dirty, and a pair of tennis shoes that were white once but are gray now, where they aren't black. And I've got a pink chiffon rag tied round my hair."
"Pink is wonderful when you wear it."
"I look a fright. And my face is streaked—and my arms."
"Oh, you've got your sleeves rolled up. That's an important detail."
"You're making fun of me."
"No, I'm thinking of your arms. They are—ravishing."
"That's quite enough. Good-by."
And she rang off. He was used to her treating compliment and flattery from him in that fashion. He could not—or was it would not?—understand why. He had learned that she was not at all the indifferent and unaware person in the matter of her physical charms he had at first fancied her. On the contrary, she had more than her share of physical vanity—not more than was her right, in view of her charms, but more than she could carry off well. With many a secret smile he had observed that she thought herself perfect physically. This did not repel him; it never does repel a man—when and so long as he is under the enchantment of the charms the woman more or less exaggerates. But, while he had often seen women with inordinate physical vanity, so often that he had come to regarding it as an essential part of feminine character, never before had he seen one so content with her own good opinion of herself that she was indifferent to appreciation from others.
He did not go back to the office after lunch. Several important matters were coming up; if he got within reach they might conspire to make it impossible for him to be with her on time. If his partners, his clients knew! He the important man of affairs kneeling at the feet of a nobody!—and why? Chiefly because he was unable to convince her that he amounted to anything. His folly nauseated him. He sat in a corner in the dining room of the Lawyers' Club and drank one whisky and soda after another and brooded over his follies and his unhappiness, muttering monotonously from time to time: "No wonder she makes a fool of me. I invite it, I beg for it, damned idiot that I am!" By three o'clock he had drunk enough liquor to have dispatched the average man for several days. It had produced no effect upon him beyond possibly a slight aggravation of his moodiness.
It took only twenty minutes to get from New York to her house. He set out at a few minutes after three; arrived at twenty minutes to four. As experience of her ways had taught him that she was much less friendly when he disobeyed her requests, he did not dare go to the house, but, after looking at it from a corner two blocks away, made a detour that would use up some of the time he had to waste. And as he wandered he indulged in his usual alternations between self-derision and passion. He appeared at the house at five minutes to four. Patrick, who with Molly his wife looked after the domestic affairs, was at the front gate gazing down the street in the direction from which he always came. At sight of him Pat came running. Norman quickened his pace, and every part of his nervous system was in turmoil.
"Mr. Hallowell—he's—dead," gasped Pat.
"Dead?" echoed Norman.
"Three quarters of an hour ago, sir. He came from the lobatry, walked in the sitting room where Miss Dorothy was oiling the furniture and I was oiling the floor. And he sets down—and he looks at her—as cool and calm as could be—and he says, 'Dorothy, my child, I'm dying.' And she stands up straight and looks at him curious like—just curious like. And he says, 'Dorothy, good-by.' And he shivers, and I jumps up just in time to catch him from rolling to the floor. He was dead then—so the doctor says."
"Dead!" repeated Norman, looking round vaguely.
He went on to the house, Pat walking beside him and chattering on and on—a stream of words Norman did not hear. As he entered the open front door Dorothy came down the stairs. He had thought he knew how white her skin was. But he did not know until then. And from that ghostly pallor looked the eyes of grief beyond tears. He advanced toward her. But she seemed to be wrapped in an atmosphere of aloofness. He felt himself a stranger and an alien. After a brief silence she said: "I don't realize it. I've been upstairs where Pat carried him—but I don't realize it. It simply can't be."
"Do you know what he wished to say to me?" he asked.
"No. I guess he felt this coming. Probably it came quicker than he expected. Now I can see that he hasn't been well for several days. But he would never let anything about illness be said. He thought talking of those things made them worse."
"You have relatives—somebody you wish me to telegraph?"
She shook her head. "No one. Our relatives out West are second cousins or further away. They care nothing about us. No, I'm all alone."
The tears sprang to his eyes. But there were no tears in her eyes, no forlornness in her voice. She was simply stating a fact. He said: "I'll look after everything. Don't give it a moment's thought."
"No, I'll arrange," replied she. "It'll give me something to do—something to do for him. You see, it's my last chance." And she turned to ascend the stairs. "Something to do," she repeated dully. "I wish I hadn't cleaned house this morning. That would be something more to do."
This jarred on him—then brought the tears to his eyes again. How childish she was!—and how desolate! "But you'll let me stay?" he pleaded. "You'll need me. At any rate, I want to feel that you do."
"I'd rather you didn't stay," she said, in the same calm, remote way. "I'd rather be alone with him, this last time. I'll go up and sit there until they take him away. And then—in a few days I'll see what to do—I'll send for you."
"I can't leave you at such a time," he cried. "You haven't realized yet. When you do you will need some one."
"You don't understand," she interrupted. "He and I understood each other in some ways. I know he'd not want—anyone round."
At her slight hesitation before "anyone" he winced.
"I must be alone with him," she went on. "Thank you, but I want to go now."
"Not just yet," he begged. Then, seeing the shadow of annoyance on her beautiful white face, he rose and said: "I'm going. I only want to help you." He extended his hand impulsively, drew it back before she had the chance to refuse it. For he felt that she would refuse it. He said, "You know you can rely on me."
"But I don't need anybody," replied she. "Good-by."
"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 masses 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 hearse. 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 Mollymakeher 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 theyreallycared 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 doneanythingfor 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 whyyoushould supportme. 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'tmeanthis? 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 passively, 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. Youhavedriven me mad!" he muttered. And he added, unconscious that he was speaking his thoughts, so distracted was he: "Youmustlove me—youmust! No woman has ever resisted me. You cannot."
She drew herself away from him, stood before him like snow, like ice. "One thing I have never told you. I'll tell you now," she said deliberately. "I despise you."
He fell back a step and the chill of her coldness seemed to be freezing the blood in his veins.
"I've always despised you," she went on, and he shivered before that contemptuous word—it seemed only the more contemptuous for her calmness. "Sometimes I've despised you thoroughly—again only a little—but always that feeling."
For a moment he thought she had at last stung his pride into the semblance of haughtiness. He was able to look at her with mocking eyes and to say, "I congratulate you on your cleverness in concealing your feelings."
"It wasn't my cleverness," she said wearily. "It was your blindness. I never deceived you."
"No, you never have," he replied sincerely. "Perhaps I deserve to be despised. Again, perhaps if you knew the world—the one I live in—better, you'd think less harshly of me."
"I don't think harshly of you. How could I—after all you did for my father?"
"Dorothy, if you'll stay here and study for the stage—or anything you choose—I promise you I'll never speak of my feeling for you—or show it in any way—unless you yourself give me leave."
She smiled with childlike pathos. "You ought not to tempt me. Do you want me to keep on despising you? Can't you ever be fair with me?"
The sad, frank gentleness of the appeal swung his unhinged mind to the other extreme—from the savagery of passion to a frenzy of remorse. "Fair toyou? No," he cried, "because I love you. Oh, I'm ashamed—bitterly ashamed. I'm capable of any baseness to get you. You're right. You can't trust me. In going you're saving me from myself." He hesitated, stared wildly, appalled at the words that were fighting for utterance—the words about marriage—about marrying her! He said hoarsely: "I am mad—mad! I don't know what I'm saying. Good-by—For God's sake, don't think the worst of me, Dorothy. Good-by. Iwillbe a man again—I will!"
And he wrung her hand and, talking incoherently, he rushed from the room and from the house.
He went straight home and sought his sister. She had that moment come in from tea after a matinee. She talked about the play—how badly it was acted—and about the women she had seen at tea—how badly dressed they were. "It's hard to say which is the more dreadful—the ugly, misshapen human race without clothes or in the clothes it insists on wearing. And the talk at that tea! Does no one ever say a pleasant thing about anyone? Doesn't anyone ever do a pleasant thing that can be spoken about? I read this morning Tolstoy's advice about resolving to think all day only nice thoughts and sticking to it. That sounded good to me, and I decided to try it." Ursula laughed and squirmed about in her tight-fitting dress that made an enchanting display of her figure. "What is one to do?Ican't be a fraud, for one. And if I had stuck to my resolution I'd have spent the day in lying. What's the matter, Fred?" Now that her attention was attracted she observed more closely. "Whathaveyou been doing? You look—frightful!"
"I've broken with her," replied he.
"With Jo?" she cried. "Why, Fred, you can't—you can't—with the wedding only five days away!"
"Not with Jo."
Ursula breathed noisy relief. She said cheerfully: "Oh—with the other. Well, I'm glad it's over."
"Over?" said he sardonically. "Over? It's only begun."
"But you'll stick it out, Fred. You've made a fool of yourself long enough. What was the girl playing for? Marriage?"
He nodded. "I guess so." He laughed curtly. "And she almost won."
Ursula smiled with fine mockery. "Almost, but not quite. I know you men. Women do that sort of fool thing. But men—never—at least not the ambitious, snobbish New York men."
"She almost won," he repeated. "At least, I almost did it. If I had stayed a minute longer I'd have done it."
"You like to think you would," mocked Ursula. "But if you had tried to say the words your lungs would have collapsed, your vocal chords snapped and your tongue shriveled."
"I am not so damn sure I shan't do it yet," he burst out fiercely.
"But I am," said Ursula, calm, brisk, practical. "What's she going to do?"
"Going to work."
Ursula laughed joyously. "What a joke! A woman go to work when she needn't!"
"She is going to work."
"To work another man."
"She meant it."
"How easily women fool men!—even the wise men like you."
"She meant it."
"She still hopes to marry you—or she has heard of your marriage——"
Norman lifted his head. Into his face came the cynical, suspicious expression.
"And has fastened on some other man. Or perhaps she's found some good provider who's willing to marry her."
Norman sprang up, his eyes blazing, his mouth working cruelly. "By God!" he cried. "If I thought that!"
His sister was alarmed. Such a man—in such a delirium—might commit any absurdity. He flung himself down in despair. "Urse, why can't I get rid of this thing? It's ruining me. It's killing me!"
"Your good sense tells you if you had her you'd be over it—" She snapped her fingers—"like that."
"Yes—yes—I know it! But—" He groaned—"she has broken with me."
Ursula went to him and kissed him and took his head in her arms. "What aboy-boy it is!" she said tenderly. "Oh, it must be dreadful to have always had whatever one wanted and then to find something one can't have. We women are used to it—and the usual sort of man. But not your sort, Freddy—and I'm so sorry for you."
"I want her, Urse—I want her," he groaned, and he was almost sobbing. "My God, Ican'tget on without her."
"Now, Freddy dear, listen to me. You know she's 'way, 'way beneath you—that she isn't at all what you've got in the habit of picturing her—that it's all delusion and nonsense——"
"I want her," he repeated. "I want her."
"You'd be ashamed if you had her as a wife—wouldn't you?"
He was silent.
"She isn't alady."
"I don't know," replied he.
"She hasn't any sense. A low sort of cunning, yes. But not brains—not enough to hold you."
"I don't know," replied he. "She's got enough for a woman. And—Iwanther."
"She isn't to be compared with Josephine."
"But I don't want Josephine. I wanther."
"But which do you want tomarry?—to bring forward as your wife?—to spend your life with?"
"I know. I'm a mad fool. But, Urse, I can't help it." He stood up suddenly. "I've used every weapon I've got. Even pride—and it skulked away. My sense of humor—and it weakened. My will—and it snapped."
"Is she so wonderful?"
"She is so—elusive. I can't understand her—I can't touch her. I can't find her. She keeps me going like a man chasing an echo."
"Like a man chasing an echo," repeated Ursula reflectively. "I understand. It is maddening. She must be clever—in her way."
"Or very simple. God knows which; I don't—and sometimes I think she doesn't, either." He made a gesture of dismissal. "Well, it's finished. I must pull myself together—or try to."
"You will," said his sister confidently. "A fortnight from now you'll be laughing at yourself."
"I am now. I have been all along. But—it does no good."
She had to go and dress. But she could not leave until she had tried to make him comfortable. He was drinking brandy and soda and staring at his feet which were stretched straight out toward the fire. "Where's your sense of humor?" she demanded. "Throw yourself on your sense of humor. It's a friend that sticks when all others fail."
"It's my only hope," he said with a grim smile. "I can see myself. No wonder she despises me."
"Despises you?" scoffed Ursula. "Awomandespiseyou! She's crazy about you, I'll bet anything you like. Before you're through with this you'll find out I'm right. And then—you'll have no use for her."
"She despises me."
"Well—what of it? Really, Fred, it irritates me to see you absolutely unlike yourself. Why, you're as broken-spirited as a henpecked old husband."
"Just that," he admitted, rising and looking drearily about. "I don't know what the devil to do next. Everything seems to have stopped."
"Going to see Josephine this evening?"
"I suppose so," was his indifferent reply.
"You'll have to dress after dinner. There's no time now."
"Dress?" he inquired vaguely. "Why dress? Why do anything?"
She thought he would not go to Josephine but would hide in his club and drink. But she was mistaken. Toward nine o'clock he, in evening dress, with the expression of a horse in a treadmill, rang the bell of Josephine's house and passed in at the big bronze doors. The butler must have particularly admired the way he tossed aside his coat and hat. As soon as he was in the presence of his fiancee he saw that she was again in the throes of some violent agitation.
She began at once: "I've just had the most frightful scene with father," she said. "He's been hearing a lot of stuff about you down town and it set him wild."
"Do you mind if I smoke a cigar?" said he, looking at her unseeingly with haggard, cold eyes. "And may I have some whisky?"
She rang. "I hope the servants didn't hear him," she said. Then, as a step sounded outside she put on an air of gayety, as if she were still laughing at some jest he had made. In the doorway appeared her father one of those big men who win half the battle in advance on personal appearance of unconquerable might. Burroughs was noted for his generosity and for his violent temper. As a rule men of the largeness necessary to handling large affairs are free from petty vindictiveness. They are too busy for hatred. They do not forgive; they are most careful not to forget; they simply stand ready at any moment to do whatever it is to their interest to do, regardless of friendships or animosities. Burroughs was an exception in that he got his highest pleasure out of pursuing his enemies. He enjoyed this so keenly that several times—so it was said—he had sacrificed real money to satisfy a revenge. But these rumors may have wronged him. It is hardly probable that a man who would let a weakness carry him to that pitch of folly could have escaped destruction. For of all the follies revenge is the most dangerous—as well as the most fatuous.
Burroughs had a big face. Had he looked less powerful the bigness of his features, the spread of cheek and jowl, would have been grotesque. As it was, the face was impressive, especially when one recalled how many, many millions he owned and how many more he controlled. The control was better than the ownership. The millions he owned made him a coward—he was afraid he might lose them. The millions he controlled, and of course used for his own enrichment, made him brave, for if they were lost in the daring ventures in which he freely staked them, why, the loss was not his, and he could shift the blame. Usually Norman treated him with great respect, for his business gave the firm nearly half its total income, and it was his daughter and his wealth, prestige and power, that Norman was marrying. But this evening he looked at the great man with a superciliousness that was peculiarly disrespectful from so young a man to one well advanced toward old age. Norman had been feeling relaxed, languid, exhausted. The signs of battle in that powerful face nerved him, keyed him up at once. He waited with a joyful impatience while the servant was bringing cigars and whisky. The enormous quantities of liquor he had drunk in the last few days had not been without effect. Alcohol, the general stimulant, inevitably brings out in strong relief a man's dominant qualities. The dominant quality of Norman was love of combat.
"Josephine tells me you are in a blue fury," said Norman pleasantly when the door was closed and the three were alone. "No—not a blue fury. A black fury."
At the covert insolence of his tone Josephine became violently agitated. "Father," she said, with the imperiousness of an only and indulged child, "I have asked you not to interfere between Fred and me. I thought I had your promise."
"I said I'd think about it," replied her father. He had a heavy voice that now and then awoke some string of the lower octaves of the piano in the corner to a dismal groan. "I've decided to speak out."
"That's right, sir," said Norman. "Is your quarrel with me?"
Josephine attempted an easy laugh. "It's that silly story we were talking about the other day, Fred."
"I supposed so," said he. "You are not smoking, Mr. Burroughs—" He laughed amiably—"at least not a cigar."
"The doctor only allows me one, and I've had it," replied Burroughs, his eyes sparkling viciously at this flick of the whip. "What is the truth about that business, Norman?"
Norman's amused glance encountered the savage glare mockingly. "Why do you ask?" he inquired.
"Because my daughter's happiness is at stake. Because I cannot but resent a low scandal about a man who wishes to marry my daughter."
"Very proper, sir," said Norman graciously.
"My daughter," continued Burroughs with accelerating anger, "tells me you have denied the story."
'Father ... I have asked you not to interfere between Fred and me.'"Father ... I have asked you not to interfere between Fred and me."
Norman interrupted with an astonished look at Josephine. She colored, gazed at him imploringly. His face terrified her. When body and mind are in health and at rest the fullness of the face hides the character to a great extent. But when a human being is sick or very tired the concealing roundness goes and in the clearly marked features the true character is revealed. In Norman's face, haggard by his wearing emotions, his character stood forth—the traits of strength, of tenacity, of inevitable purpose. And Josephine saw and dreaded.
"But," Burroughs went on, "I have it on the best authority that it is true."
Norman, looking into the fascinating face of danger, was thrilled. "Then you wish to break off the engagement?" he said in the gentlest, smoothest tone.
Burroughs brought his fist down on the table—and Norman recognized the gesture of the bluffer. "I wish you to break off with that woman!" he cried. "I insist upon it—upon positive assurances from you."
"Fred!" pleaded Josephine. "Don't listen to him. Remember, I have said nothing."
He had long been looking for a justifying grievance against her. It now seemed to him that he had found it. "Why should you?" he said genially but with subtle irony, "since you are getting your father to speak for you."
There was just enough truth in this to entangle her and throw her into disorder. She had been afraid of the consequences of her father's interfering with a man so spirited as Norman, but at the same time she had longed to have some one put a check upon him. Norman's suave remark made her feel that he could see into her inmost soul—could see the anger, the jealousy, the doubt, the hatred-tinged love, the love-saturated hate seething and warring there.
Burroughs was saying: "If we had not committed ourselves so deeply, I should deal very differently with this matter."
"Why should that deter you?" said Norman—and Josephine gave a piteous gasp. "If this goes much farther, I assure you I shall not be deterred."
Burroughs, firmly planted in a big leather chair, looked at the young man in puzzled amazement. "I see you think you have us in your power," he said at last. "But you are mistaken."
"On the contrary," rejoined the young man, "I see you believe you have me in your power. And in a sense you arenotmistaken."
"Father, he is right," cried Josephine agitatedly. "I shouldn't love and respect him as I do if he would submit to this hectoring."
"Hectoring!" exclaimed Burroughs. "Josephine, leave the room. I cannot discuss this matter properly before you."
"I hope you will not leave, Josephine," said Norman. "There is nothing to be said that you cannot and ought not to hear."
"I'm not an infant, father," said Josephine. "Besides, it is as Fred says. He has done nothing—improper."
"Then why does he not say so?" demanded Burroughs, seeing a chance to recede from his former too advanced position. "That's all I ask."
"But I told you all about it, father," said Josephine angrily. "They've been distorting the truth, and the truth is to his credit."
Norman avoided the glance she sent to him; it was only a glance and away, for more formidably than ever his power was enthroned in his haggard face. He stood with his back to the fire and it was plain that the muscles of his strong figure were braced to give and to receive a shock. "Mr. Burroughs," he said, "your daughter is mistaken. Perhaps it is my fault—in having helped her to mislead herself. The plain truth is, I have become infatuated with a young woman. She cares nothing about me—has repulsed me. I have been and am making a fool of myself about her. I've been hoping to cure myself. I still hope. But I am not cured."
There was absolute silence in the room. Norman stole a glance at Josephine. She was sitting erect, a greenish pallor over her ghastly face.
He said: "If she will take me, now that she knows the truth, I shall be grateful—and I shall make what effort I can to do my best."
He looked at her and she at him. And for an instant her eyes softened. There was the appeal of weak human heart to weak human heart in his gaze. Her lip quivered. A brief struggle between vanity and love—and vanity, the stronger, the strongest force in her life, dominating it since earliest babyhood and only seeming to give way to love when love came—it was vanity that won. She stiffened herself and her mouth curled with proud scorn. She laughed—a sneer of jealous rage. "Father," she said, "the lady in the case is a common typewriter in his office."
But to men—especially to practical men—differences of rank and position among women are not fundamentally impressive. Man is in the habit of taking what he wants in the way of womankind wherever he finds it, and he understands that habit in other men. He was furious with Norman, but he did not sympathize with his daughter's extreme attitude. He said to Norman sharply:
"You say you have broken with the woman?"
"She has broken with me," replied Norman.
"At any rate, everything is broken off."
"Apparently."
"Then there is no reason why the marriage should not go on." He turned to his daughter. "If you understood men, you would attach no importance to this matter. As you yourself said, the woman isn't a lady—isn't in our class. That sort of thing amounts to nothing. Norman has acted well. He has shown the highest kind of honesty—has been truthful where most men would have shifted and lied. Anyhow, things have gone too far." Not without the soundest reasons had Burroughs accepted Norman as his son-in-law; and he had no fancy for giving him up, when men of his pre-eminent fitness were so rare.
There was another profound silence. Josephine looked at Norman. Had he returned her gaze, the event might have been different; for within her there was now going on a struggle between two nearly evenly matched vanities—the vanity of her own outraged pride and the vanity of what the world would say and think, if the engagement were broken off at that time and in those circumstances. But he did not look at her. He kept his eyes fixed upon the opposite wall, and there was no sign of emotion of any kind in his stony features. Josephine rose, suppressed a sob, looked arrogant scorn from eyes shining with tears—tears of self-pity. "Send him away, father," she said. "He has tried to degrademe! I am done with him." And she rushed from the room, her father half starting from his chair to detain her.
He turned angrily on Norman. "A hell of a mess you've made!" he cried.
"A hell of a mess," replied the young man.
"Of course she'll come round. But you've got to do your part."
"It's settled," said Norman. And he threw his cigar into the fireplace. "Good night."
"Hold on!" cried Burroughs. "Before you go, you must see Josie alone and talk with her."
"It would be useless," said Norman. "You know her."
Burroughs laid his hand friendlily but heavily upon the young man's shoulder. "This outburst of nonsense might cost you two young people your happiness for life. This is no time for jealousy and false pride. Wait a moment."
"Very well," said Norman. "But it is useless." He understood Josephine now—he who had become a connoisseur of love. He knew that her vanity-founded love had vanished.
Burroughs disappeared in the direction his daughter had taken. Norman waited several minutes—long enough slowly to smoke a cigarette. Then he went into the hall and put on his coat with deliberation. No one appeared, not even a servant. He went out into the street.
In the morning papers he found the announcement of the withdrawal of the invitations—and from half a column to several columns of comment, much of it extremely unflattering to him.