Part 57

"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."

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 are not mistaken."

"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."