Part 19

He listened to his own words in astonishment. What new freak of madness was this? Instead of clearing himself of this uncanny girl, he was proposing things to her that would mean closer relations. And what reason had he to think she was fitted for anything but just what she was now doing--doing indifferently well?

"Thank you," she said, so quietly that it seemed coldly, "but I'm satisfied as I am."

Her manner seemed to say with polite and restrained plainness that she was not in the least appreciative of his interest or of himself. But this could not be. No girl in her position could fail to be grateful for his interest. No woman, in all his life, had ever failed to respond to his slightest advance. No, it simply could not be. She was merely shy, and had a peculiar way of showing it. He said:

"You have no ambition?"

"That's not for a woman."

She was making her replies as brief as civility permitted. He observed her narrowly. She was not shy, not embarrassed. What kind of game was this? It could not be in sincere nature for a person in her position thus to treat overtures, friendly and courteous overtures, from one in his position. And never before--never--had a woman been thus unresponsive. Instead of feeling relief that she had disentangled him from the plight into which his impulsive offer had flung him, he was piqued--angered--and his curiosity was inflamed as never before about any woman.

The relations of the sexes are for the most part governed by traditions of sex allurements and sex tricks so ancient that they have ceased to be conscious and have become instinctive. One of these venerable first principles is that mystery is the arch provoker. Norman, an old and expert student of the great game--the only game for which the staidest and most serious will abandon all else to follow its merry call--Norman knew this trick of mystery. The woman veils herself and makes believe to fly--an excellent trick, as good to-day as ever after five thousand years of service. And he knew that in it lay the explanation for the sudden and high upflaming of his interest in this girl. "What an ass I'm making of myself!" reflected he. "When I care nothing about the girl, why should I care about the mystery of her? Of course, it's some poor little affair, a puzzle not worth puzzling out."

All true and clear enough. Yet seeing it did not abate his interest a particle. She had veiled herself; she was pretending--perhaps honestly--to fly. He rose and went to the window, stood with his back to her, resumed dictating. But the sentences would not come. He whirled abruptly. "I'm not ready to do the thing yet," he said. "I'll send for you later."

Without a word or a glance she stood, took her book and went toward the door. He gazed after her. He could not refrain from speaking again. "I'm afraid you misunderstood my offer a while ago," said he, neither curt nor friendly. "I forgot how such things from a man to a young woman might be misinterpreted."

"I never thought of that," replied she unembarrassed. "It was simply that I can't put myself under obligation to anyone."

As she stood there, her full beauty flashed upon him--the exquisite form, the subtly graceful poise of her body, of her head--the loveliness of that golden-hued white skin--the charm of her small rosy mouth--the delicate, sensitive, slightly tilted nose--and her eyes--above all, her eyes!--so clear, so sweet. Her voice had seemed thin and faint to him; its fineness now seemed the rarest delicacy--the exactly fitting kind for so evasive and delicate a beauty as hers. He made a slight bow of dismissal, turned abruptly away. Never in all his life, strewn with gallant experiences--never had a woman thus treated him, and never had a woman thus affected him. "I am mad--stark mad!" he muttered. "A ten-dollar-a-week typewriter, whom nobody on earth but myself would look at a second time!" But something within him hurled back this scornful fling. Though no one else on earth saw or appreciated--what of it? She affected him thus--and that was enough. "I want her! . . . I want her! I have never wanted a woman before."

He rushed into the dressing room attached to his office, plunged his face into ice-cold water. This somewhat eased the burning sensation that was becoming intolerable. Many were the unaccountable incidents in his acquaintance with this strange creature; the most preposterous was this sudden seizure. He realized now that his feeling for her had been like the quiet, steady, imperceptible filling of a reservoir that suddenly announces itself by the thunder and roar of a mighty cascade over the dam. "This is madness--sheer madness! I am still master within myself. I will make short work of this rebellion." And with an air of calmness so convincing that he believed in it he addressed himself to the task of sanity and wisdom lying plain before him. "A man of my position caught by a girl like that! A man such as I am, caught by any woman whatever!" It was grotesque. He opened his door to summon Tetlow.

The gate in the outside railing was directly opposite, and about thirty feet away. Tetlow and Miss Hallowell were going out--evidently to lunch together. She was looking up at the chief clerk with laughing eyes--they seemed coquettish to the infuriated Norman. And Tetlow--the serious and squab young ass was gazing at her with the expression men of the stupid squab sort put on when they wish to impress a woman. At this spectacle, at the vision of that slim young loveliness, that perfect form and deliciously smooth soft skin, white beyond belief beneath its faintly golden tint--the hot blood steamed up into Norman's brain, blinded his sight, reddened it with desire and jealousy. He drew back, closed his door with a bang.

"This is not I," he muttered. "What has happened? Am I insane?"

* * * * *

When Tetlow returned from lunch the office boy on duty at the gate told him that Mr. Norman wished to see him at once. Like all men trying to advance along ways where their fellow men can help or hinder, the head clerk was full of more or less clever little tricks thought out with a view to making a good impression. One of them was to stamp upon all minds his virtue of promptness--of what use to be prompt unless you forced every one to feel how prompt you were? He went in to see Norman, with hat in hand and overcoat on his back and one glove off, the other still on. Norman was standing at a window, smoking a cigarette. His appearance--dress quite as much as manner--was the envy of his subordinate--as, indeed, it was of hundreds of the young men struggling to rise down town. It was so exactly what the appearance of a man of vigor and power and high position should be. Tetlow practiced it by the quarter hour before his glass at home--not without progress in the direction of a not unimpressive manner of his own.

As Tetlow stood at attention, Norman turned and advanced toward him. "Mr. Tetlow," he began, in his good-humored voice with the never wholly submerged under-note of sharpness, "is it your habit to go out to lunch with the young ladies employed here? If so, I wish to suggest--simply to suggest--that it may be bad for discipline."

Tetlow's jaw dropped a little. He looked at Norman, was astonished to discover beneath a thin veneer of calm signs of greater agitation than he had ever seen in him. "To-day was the first time, sir," he said. "And I can't quite account for my doing it. Miss Hallowell has been here several months. I never specially noticed her until the last few days--when the question of discharging her came up. You may remember it was settled by you." Norman flung his cigarette away and stalked to the window.

"Mr. Norman," pursued Tetlow, "you and I have been together many years. I esteem it my greatest honor that I am able--that you permit me--to class you as my friend. So I'm going to give you a confidence--one that really startles me. I called on Miss Hallowell last night."

Norman's back stiffened.

"She is even more charming in her own home. And--" Tetlow blushed and trembled--"I am going to make her my wife if I can."

Norman turned, a mocking satirical smile unpleasantly sparkling in his eyes and curling his mouth "Old man," he said, "I think you've gone crazy."

Tetlow made a helpless gesture. "I think so myself. I didn't intend to marry for ten years--and then--I had quite a different match in mind."

"What's the matter with you, Billy?" inquired Norman, inspecting him with smiling, cruelly unfriendly eyes.

"I'm damned if I know, Norman," said the head clerk, assuming that his friend was sympathetic and dropping into the informality of the old days when they were clerks together in a small firm. "I'd have proposed to her last night if I hadn't been afraid I'd lose her by being in such a hurry. . . . You're in love yourself."

Norman startled violently.

"You're going to get married. Probably you can sympathize. You know how it is to meet the woman you want and must have."

Norman turned away.