XIII
When a "high life" engagement such as that of Norman and Miss Burroughs,collapses on the eve of the wedding, the gossip and the scandal, howevergreat, are but a small part of the mess. Doubtless many a marriage--andnot in high life alone, either--has been put through, although the oneparty or the other or both have discovered that disaster wasinevitable--solely because of the appalling muddle the sensible coursewould precipitate. In the case of the Norman-Burroughs fiasco, therewere--to note only a few big items--such difficulties as several carloads of presents from all parts of the earth to be returned, a housefurnished throughout and equipped to the last scullery maid and stableboy to be disposed of, the entire Burroughs domestic economy which hadbeen reconstructed to be put back upon its former basis.
It is not surprising that, as Ursula Fitzhugh was credibly informed,Josephine almost decided to send for Bob Culver and marry him on the daybefore the day appointed for her marriage to Fred. The reason given forher not doing this sounded plausible. Culver, despairing of making thematch on which his ambition--and therefore his heart was set--andseeing a chance to get suddenly rich, had embarked for a career as ablackmailer of corporations. That is, he nosed about for a bigcorporation stealthily doing or arranging to do some unlawful but highlyprofitable acts; he bought a few shares of its stock, using a fakeclient as a blind; he then proceeded to threaten it with exposure,expensive hindrances and the like, unless it bought him off at a hugeprofit to himself. This business was regarded as most disreputableand--thanks to the power of the big corporations over the courts--hadresulted in the sending of several of its practisers to jail or on hastyjourneys to foreign climes. But Culver, almost if not quite as good alawyer as Norman, was too clever to be caught in that way. However,while he was getting very rich rapidly, he was as yet far from richenough to overcome the detestation of old Burroughs, and to be eligiblefor the daughter.
So, Josephine sailed away to Europe, with the consolation that herfather was so chagrined by the fizzle that he had withdrawn his vetoupon the purchase of a foreign title--that veto having been the onlyreason she had looked at home for a husband. Strange indeed are the waysof love--never stranger than when it comes into contact with thevanities of wealth and social position and the other things that cause ahuman being to feel that he or she is lifted clear of and high above thehuman condition. Josephine had her consolation. For Norman the onlyconsolation was escape from a marriage which had become so irksome inanticipation that he did not dare think what it would be in the reality.Over against this consolation was set a long list of disasters. He foundhimself immediately shunned by all his friends. Their professed reasonwas that he had acted shabbily in the breaking of the engagement; for,while it was assumed that Josephine must have done the actual breaking,it was also assumed that he must have given her provocation and tospare. This virtuous indignation was in large part mere pretext, asvirtuous indignation in frail mortals toward frail mortals is apt to be.The real reason for shying off from Norman was his atmosphere ofimpending downfall. And certainly that atmosphere had eaten away anddissipated all his former charm. He looked dull and boresome--and hewas.
But the chief disaster was material. As has been said, old Burroughs, inhis own person and in the enterprises he controlled, gave Norman's firmabout half its income. The day Josephine sailed, Lockyer, senior partnerof the firm, got an intimation that unless Norman left, Burroughs wouldtake his law business elsewhere, and would "advise" others of theirclients to follow his example. Lockyer no sooner heard than he began tobestir himself. He called into consultation the learned Benchley and theastute Sanders and the soft and sly Lockyer junior. There could be noquestion that Norman must be got rid of. The only point was, who shouldinform the lion that he had been deposed?
After several hours of anxious discussion, Lockyer, his inwardperturbations hid beneath that mask of smug and statesmanlikerespectability, entered the lion's den--a sick lion, sick unto deathprobably, but not a dead lion. "When you're ready to go uptown,Frederick," said he in his gentlest, most patriarchal manner, "let meknow. I want to have a little talk with you."
Norman, heavy eyed and listless, looked at the handsome old fraud. As helooked something of the piercing quality and something of the humorouscame back into his eyes. "Sit down and say it now," said he.
"I'd prefer to talk where we can be quiet."
Norman rang his bell and when an office boy appeared, said "No one is todisturb me until I ring again." Then as the boy withdrew he said toLockyer: "Now, sir, what is it?"
Lockyer strolled to the window, looked out as if searching for somethinghe failed to find, came back to the chair on the opposite side of thedesk from Norman, seated himself. "I don't know how to begin," said he."It is hard to say painful things to anyone I have such an affection foras I have for you."
Norman pushed a sheet of letter paper across the desk toward hispartner. "Perhaps that will help you," observed he carelessly.
Lockyer put on his nose glasses with the gesture of grace and intellectthat was famous. He read--a brief demand for a release from thepartnership and a request for an immediate settlement. Lockyer blinkedoff his glasses with the gesture that was as famous and as admiringlyimitated by lesser legal lights as was his gesture of be-spectaclinghimself. "This is most astounding, my boy," said he. "It ismost--most----"
"Gratifying?" suggested Norman with a sardonic grin.
"Not in the least, Frederick. The very reverse--the exact reverse."
Norman gave a shrug that said "Why do you persist in those frauds--andwith _me_?" But he did not speak.
"I know," pursued Lockyer, "that you would not have taken this stepwithout conclusive reasons. And I shall not venture the impertinence ofprying or of urging."
"Thanks," said Norman drily. "Now, as to the terms of settlement."
Lockyer, from observation and from gossip, had a pretty shrewd notion ofthe state of his young partner's mind, and drew the not unwarrantedconclusion that he would be indifferent about terms--would be "easy."With the suavity of Mr. Great-and-Good-Heart he said: "My dear boy,there can't be any question of money with us. We'll do the generouslyfair thing--for, we're not hucksterers but gentlemen."
"That sounds terrifying," observed the young man, with a faint ironicsmile. "I feel my shirt going and the cold winds whistling about my barebody. To save time, let _me_ state the terms. You want to be rid of me. Iwant to go. It's a whim with me. It's a necessity for you."
Lockyer shifted uneasily at these evidences of unimpaired mentality andundaunted spirit.
"Here are my terms," proceeded Norman. "You are to pay me forty thousanda year for five years--unless I open an office or join another firm. Inthat case, payments are to cease from the date of my re-enteringpractice."
Lockyer leaned back and laughed benignantly. "My dear Norman," he saidwith a gently remonstrant shake of the head, "those terms areimpossible. Forty thousand a year! Why that is within ten thousand ofthe present share of any of us but you. It is the income of nearly threequarters of a million at six per cent--of a million at four per cent!"
"Very well," said Norman, settling back in his chair. "Then I standpat."
"Now, my dear Norman, permit me to propose terms that are fair toall----"
"When I said I stood pat I meant that I would stay on." His eyes laughedat Lockyer. "I guess we can live without Burroughs and his dependents.Maybe they will find they can't live without us." He slowly leanedforward until, with his forearms against the edge of his desk, he wasconcentrating a memorable gaze upon Lockyer. "Mr. Lockyer," said he, "Ihave been exercising my privilege as a free man to make a damn fool ofmyself. I shall continue to exercise it so long as I feel disposed thatway. But let me tell you something. I can afford to do it. If a man'sasset is money, or character or position or relatives and friends orpopular favor or any other perishable article, he must take care how hetrifles with it. He may find himself irretrievably ruined. But my assethappens to be none of those things. It is one that can be lost ordam
aged only by insanity or death. Do you follow me?"
The old man looked at him with the sincere and most flattering tributeof compelled admiration. "What a mind you've got, Frederick--and whatcourage!"
"You accept my terms?"
"If the others agree--and I think they will."
"They will," said Norman.
The old man was regarding him with eyes that had genuine anxiety inthem. "Why _do_ you do it, Fred?" he said.
"Because I wish to be free," replied Norman. He would never have toldthe full truth to that incredulous old cynic of a time-server--the truththat he was resigning at the dictation of a pride which forbade him toinvolve others in the ruin he, in his madness, was bent upon.
"I don't mean, why do you resign," said Lockyer. "I mean theother--the--woman."
Norman laughed harshly.
"I've seen too much of the world not to understand," continued Lockyer."The measureless power of woman over man--especially--pardon me, my dearNorman--especially a bad woman!"
"The measureless power of a man's imagination over himself," rejoinedNorman. "Did you ever see or hear of a man without imagination beingupset by a woman? It's in here, Mr. Lockyer"--he rapped hisforehead--"altogether in here."
"You realize that. Yet you go on--and for such a--pardon me, my boy,for saying it--for such a trifling object."
"What does 'trifling' mean, sir?" replied the young man. "What istrifling and what is important? It depends upon the point of view. WhatI want--that is vital. What I do not want--that is paltry. It's mynature to go for what I happen to want--to go for it with all there isin me. I will take nothing else--nothing else."
There was in his eyes the glitter called insanity--the glitter thatreflects the state of mind of any strong man when possessed of one ofthose fixed ideas that are the idiosyncrasy of the strong. It would havebeen impossible for Lockyer to be possessed in that way; he had not thecourage nor the concentration nor the independence of soul; like mostmen, even able men, he dealt only in the conventional. Not in hiswildest youth could he have wrecked or injured himself for a woman;women, for him, occupied their conventional place in the scheme ofthings, and had no allure beyond the conventionally proper and theconventionally improper--for, be it remembered, vice has its beatentrack no less than virtue and most of the vicious are as tame andunimaginative as the plodders in the high roads of propriety. Still,Lockyer had associated with strong men, men of boundless desires; thus,he could in a measure sympathize with his young associate. What a pitythat these splendid powers should be perverted from the ordinary desiresof strong men!
Norman rose, to end the interview. "My address is my house. They willforward--if I go away."
Lockyer gave him a hearty handclasp, made a few phrases about goodwishes and the like, left him alone. The general opinion was that Normanwas done for. But Lockyer could not see it. He had seen too many menfall only to rise out of lowest depths to greater heights than they hadfallen from. And Norman was only thirty-seven. Perhaps this would proveto be merely a dip in a securely brilliant career and not a fall at all.In that case--with such a brain, such a genius for the lawlessness ofthe law, what a laughing on the other side of the mouth there might yetbe among young Norman's enemies--and friends!
He spent most of the next few days--the lunch time, the late afternoon,finally the early morning hours--lurking about the Equitable Building,in which were the offices of Pytchley and Culver. As that building hadentrances on four streets, the best he could do was to walk round andround, with an occasional excursion through the corridors and past theelevators. He had written her, asking to see her; he had got no answer.He ceased to wait at the elevators after he had twice narrowly escapedbeing seen by Tetlow. He was indifferent to Tetlow, except as meetinghim might make it harder to see Dorothy. He drank hard. But drink neveraffected him except to make him more grimly tenacious in whatever he haddeliberately and soberly resolved. Drink did not explain--neither whollynor in any part--this conduct of his. It, and the more erratic vagariesto follow, will seem incredible conduct for a man of Norman's characterand position to feeble folk with their feeble desires, their dread ofcriticism and ridicule, their exaggerated and adoring notions of themaster men. In fact, it was the natural outcome of the man'snature--arrogant, contemptuous of his fellowmen and of their opinions,and, like all the master men, capable of such concentration upon adesire that he would adopt any means, high or low, dignified or thereverse, if only it promised to further his end. Fred Norman, at thesevulgar vigils, took the measure of his own self-abasement to a hair'sbreadth. But he kept on, with the fever of his infatuation burning likea delirium, burning higher and deeper with each baffled day.
At noon, one day, as he swung into Broadway from Cedar street, he ranstraight into Tetlow. It was raining and his umbrella caught inTetlow's. It was a ludicrous situation, but there was no answering smilein his former friend's eyes. Tetlow glowered.
"I've heard you were hanging about," he said. "How low you have sunk!"
Norman laughed in his face. "Poor Tetlow," he said. "I never expected tosee you develop into a crusader. And what a Don Quixote you look. Cheerup, old man. Don't take it so hard."
"I warn you to keep away from her," said Tetlow in subdued, tense tones,his fat face quivering with emotion. "Hasn't she shown you plainly thatshe'll have nothing to do with you?"
"I want only five minutes' talk with her, Tetlow," said Norman, droppinginto an almost pleading tone. "And I guarantee I'll say nothing youwouldn't approve, if you heard. You are advising her badly. You aredoing her an injury."
"I am protecting her from a scoundrel," retorted Tetlow.
"She'll not thank you for it, when she finds out the truth."
"You can write to her. What a shallow liar you are!"
"I cannot write what I must say," said Norman. It had never beendifficult for him, however provoked, to keep his temper--outwardly.Tetlow's insults were to him no more than the barkings of a watch dog,and one not at all dangerous, but only amusing. "I must see her. If youare her friend, and not merely a jealous, disappointed lover, you'lladvise her to see me."
"You shall not see her, if I can help it," cried his former friend. "Andif you persist in annoying her----"
"Don't make futile threats, Tetlow," Norman interrupted. "You've done meall the mischief you can do. I see you hate me for the injuries you'vedone me. That's the way it always is. But I don't hate you. It was at mysuggestion that the Lockyer firm is trying to get you back as apartner." Then, as Tetlow colored--"Oh, I see you're accepting theiroffer."
"If I had thought----"
"Nonsense. You're not a fool. How does it matter whose the hand, if onlyit's a helping hand? And you may be sure they'd never have made you theoffer if they didn't need you badly. All the credit I claim is havingthe intelligence to enlighten their stupidity with the rightsuggestion."
In spite of himself Tetlow was falling under the spell of Norman'spersonality, of the old and deep admiration the lesser man had for thegreater.
"Norman," he said, "how can you be such a combination of bigness andpetty deviltry? You are a monster of self-indulgence. It's a God's mercythere aren't more men with your selfishness and your desires."
Norman laughed sardonically. "The difference between me and most men,"said he, "isn't in selfishness or in desires, but in courage. Courage,Billy--there's what most of you lack. And even in courage I'm not alone.My sort fill most of the high places."
Tetlow looked dismal confession of a fear that Norman was right.
"Yes," pursued Norman, "in this country there are enough wolves toattend to pretty nearly all the sheep--though it's amazing how muchmutton there is." With an abrupt shift from raillery, "You'll help mewith her, Billy?"
"Why don't you let her alone, Fred?" pleaded Tetlow. "It isn't worthy ofyou--a big man like you. Let her alone, Fred!--the poor child, trying toearn her own living in an honest way."
"Let her alone? Tetlow, I shall never let her alone--as long as she andI are both alive."
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The fat man, with his premature wrinkles and his solemn air of law booksthat look venerable though fresh from the press, took on an addedpastiness. "Fred--for God's sake, can't you love her in a noble way--away worthy of you?"
Norman gave him a penetrating glance. "Is love--such love as mine--_and_yours--" There Tetlow flushed guiltily--"is it ever noble?--whateverthat means. No, it's human--human. But I'm not trying to harm her. Igive you my word. . . . Will you help me--and her?"
Tetlow hesitated. His heavy cheeks quivered. "I don't trust you," hecried violently--the violence of a man fighting against an enemy within."Don't ever speak to me again." And he rushed away through the rain,knocking umbrellas this way and that.
About noon two days later, as Norman was making one of his excursionspast the Equitable elevators, he saw Bob Culver at the news stand. It sohappened that as he recognized Culver, Culver cast in the direction ofthe elevators the sort of look that betrays a man waiting for a woman.Unseen by Culver, Norman stopped short. Into his face blazed the fury ofsuspicion, jealousy, and hate--one of the cyclones of passion that swepthim from time to time and revealed to his own appalled self the fullintensity of his feeling, the full power of the demon that possessedhim. Culver was of those glossy, black men who are beloved of women. Hewas much handsomer than Norman, who, indeed, was not handsome at all,but was regarded as handsome because he had the air of greatdistinction. Many times these two young men had been pitted against eachother in legal battles. Every time Norman had won. Twice they hadcontended for the favor of the same lady. Each had scored once. But asCulver's victory was merely for a very light and empty-headed lady ofthe stage while he had won Josephine Burroughs away from Culver, thebalance was certainly not against him.
As Norman slipped back and into the cross corridor to avoid meetingCulver, Dorothy Hallowell hurried from a just descended elevator and,with a quick, frightened glance toward Culver, in profile, almost rantoward Norman. It was evident that she had only one thought--to escapebeing seen by her new employer. When she realized that some one wasstanding before her and moved to one side to pass, she looked up. "Oh!"she gasped, starting back. And then she stood there white and shaking.
"Is that beast Culver hounding you?" demanded Norman.
She recovered herself quickly. With flashing eyes, she cried: "How dareyou! How dare you!"
Norman, possessed by his rage against Culver, paid no attention. "If hedon't let you alone," he said, "I'll thrash him into a hospital for sixmonths. You must leave his office at once. You'll not go back there."
"You must be crazy," replied she, calm again. "I've no complaint to makeof the way I'm being treated. I never was so well off in my life. AndMr. Culver is very kind and polite."
"You know what that means," said Norman harshly.
"Everyone isn't like you," retorted she.
He was examining her from head to foot, as if to make sure that it wasshe with no charm missing. He noted that she was much less poorlydressed than when she worked for his firm. In those days she oftenlooked dowdy, showed plainly the girl who has to make a hasty toilet ina small bedroom, with tiny wash-stand and looking-glass, in the early,coldest hours of a cold morning. Now she looked well taken care ofphysically, not so well, not anything like so well as the womenuptown--the ladies with nothing to do but make toilettes; still,unusually well looked after for a working girl. At first glance afterthose famished and ravening days of longing for her and seeking her, shebefore him in rather dim reality of the obvious office-girl, seemeddisappointing. It could not be that this insignificance was the cause ofall his fever and turmoil. He began to hope that he was recovering, thatthe cloud of insane desire was clearing from his sky. But a secondglance killed that hope. For, once more he saw her mystery, her beautiesthat revealed their perfection and splendor only to the observant.
While he looked she was regaining her balance, as the fading color inher white skin and the subsidence of the excitement in her eyesevidenced. "Let me pass, please," she said coldly--for, she was againstthe wall with him standing before her in such a way that she could notgo until he moved aside.
"We'll lunch together," he said. "I want to talk with you. Did thatwell-meaning ass--Tetlow--tell you?"
"There is nothing you can say that I wish to hear," was her quiet reply.
"Your eyes--the edges of the lids are red. You have been crying?"
She lifted her glance to his and he had the sense of a veil drawingaside to reveal a desolation. "For my father," she said.
His face flushed. He looked steadily at her. "Now that he is gone, youhave no one to protect you. I am----"
"I need no one," said she with a faintly contemptuous smile.
"You do need some one--and I am going to undertake it."
Her face lighted up. He thought it was because of what he had said. Butshe immediately undeceived him. She said in a tone of delighted relief,"Here comes Mr. Tetlow. You must excuse me."
"Dorothy--listen!" he cried. "We are going to be married at once."
The words exploded dizzily in his ears. He assumed they would have a farmore powerful effect upon her. But her expression did not change. "No,"she said hastily. "I must go with Mr. Tetlow." Tetlow was now at hand,his heavy face almost formidable in its dark ferocity. She said to him:"I was waiting for you. Come on"
Norman turned eagerly to his former friend. He said: "Tetlow, I havejust asked Miss Hallowell to be my wife."
Tetlow stared. Then pain and despair seemed to flood and ravage hiswhole body.
"I told you the other day," Norman went on, "that I was ready to do thefair thing. I have just been saying to Miss Hallowell that she must havesome one to protect her. You agree with me, don't you?"
Tetlow, fumbling vaguely with his watch chain, gazed straight ahead."Yes," he said with an effort. "Yes, you are right, Norman. An office isno place for an attractive girl as young as she is."
"Has Culver been annoying her?" inquired Norman.
Tetlow started. "Ah--she's told you--has she? I rather hoped she hadn'tnoticed or understood."
Both men now looked at the girl. She had shrunk into herself until shewas almost as dim and unimpressive, as cipher-like as when Norman firstbeheld her. Also she seemed at least five years less than her twenty."Dorothy," said Norman, "you will let me take care of you--won't you?"
"No," she said--and the word carried all the quiet force she was somehowable to put into her short, direct answers.
Tetlow's pasty sallowness took on a dark red tinge. He looked at her insurprise. "You don't understand, Miss Dorothy," he said. "He wants tomarry you."
"I understand perfectly," replied she, with the far-away look in herblue eyes. "But I'll not marry him. I despise him. He frightens me. Hesickens me."
Norman clinched his hands and the muscles of his jaw in the effort tocontrol himself. "Dorothy," he said, "I've not acted as I should. Tetlowwill tell you that there is good excuse for me. I know you don'tunderstand about those things--about the ways of the world----"
"I understand perfectly," she interrupted. "It's you that don'tunderstand. I never saw anyone so conceited. Haven't I told you I don'tlove you, and don't want anything to do with you?"
Tetlow, lover though he was--or perhaps because he was lover, of thehopeless kind that loves generously--could not refrain from protest.The girl was flinging away a dazzling future. It wasn't fair to her tolet her do it when if she appreciated she would be overwhelmed with joyand gratitude. "I believe you ought to listen to Norman, Miss Dorothy,"he said pleadingly. "At any rate, think it over--don't answer rightaway. He is making you an honorable proposal--one that's advantageous inevery way----"
Dorothy regarded him with innocent eyes, wide and wondering. "I didn'tthink you could talk like that, Mr. Tetlow!" she exclaimed. "You heardwhat I said to him--about the way I felt. How could I be his wife? Hetried everything else--and, now, though he's ashamed of it, he's tryingto get me by marriage. Oh, I understand. I wish I didn't. I'd not feelso low." She looked at Norman
. "Can't you realize _ever_ that I don't wantany of the grand things you're so crazy about--that I want somethingvery different--something you could never give me--or get for me?"
"Isn't there anything I can do, Dorothy, to make you forget andforgive?" he cried, like a boy, an infatuated boy. "For God's sake,Tetlow, help me! Tell her I'm not so rotten as she thinks. I'll beanything you like, my darling--_anything_--if only you'll take me. For Imust have you. You're the only thing in the world I care for--and,without you, I've no interest in life--none--none!"
He was so impassioned that passersby began to observe them curiously.Tetlow became uneasy. But Norman and Dorothy were unconscious of whatwas going on around them. The energy of his passion compelled her,though the passion itself was unwelcome. "I'm sorry," she said gently."Though you would have hurt me, if you could, I don't want to hurtyou. . . . I'm sorry. I can't love you. . . . I'm sorry. Come on, Mr.Tetlow."
Norman stood aside. She and Tetlow went on out of the building. Heremained in the same place, oblivious of the crowd streaming by, eachman or woman with a glance at his vacant stare.