The Grain of Dust: A Novel

  IX

  In no way was Norman's luck superior to most men's more splendidly thanin that his inborn tendency to arrogant and extravagant desires wasmatched by an inborn capacity to get the necessary money. His luxurioustastes were certainly not moderated by his associations--enormously richpeople who, while they could be stingy enough in some respects, at thesame time could and did fling away fortunes in gratifying selfishwhims--for silly showy houses, for retinues of wasteful servants, forgewgaws that accentuated the homeliness of their homely women andcoarsened and vulgarized their pretty women--or perhaps for a night'sgambling or entertaining, or for the forced smiles and contemptuouscaresses of some belle of the other world. Norman fortunately cared notat all for the hugely expensive pomp of the life of the rich; if he had,he would have hopelessly involved himself, as after all he was not amoney-grubber but a lawyer. But when there appeared anything for whichhe did care, he was ready to bid for it like the richest of the rich.

  Therefore the investment of a few thousand dollars seemed a small matterto him. He had many a time tossed away far more for far less. He did notdole out the sum he had agreed to provide. He paid it into the JerseyCity bank to the credit of the Chemical Research Company and informedits secretary and treasurer that she could draw freely against it. "Ifyou will read the by-laws of the company," said he, "you will see thatyou've the right to spend exactly as you see fit. When the money runslow, let me know."

  "I'll be very careful," said Dorothea Hallowell, secretary andtreasurer.

  "That's precisely what we don't want," replied he. He glanced round thetiny parlor of the cottage. "We want everything to be run in first-classshape. That's the only way to get results. First of all, you must take aproper house--a good-sized one, with large grounds--room for buildingyour father a proper laboratory."

  Her dazed and dazzled expression delighted him.

  "And you must live better. You must keep at least two servants."

  "But we can't afford it."

  "Your father has five thousand a year. You have fifteen hundred. Thatmakes sixty-five hundred. The rent of the house and the wages and keepof the servants are a charge against the corporation. So, you can wellafford to make yourselves comfortable."

  "I haven't got used to the idea as yet," said Dorothea. "Yes--we _are_better off than we were."

  "And you must live better. I want you to get some clothes--and things ofthat sort."

  She shrank within herself and sat quiet, her gaze fixed upon her handslying limp in her lap.

  "There is no reason why your father shouldn't be made absolutelycomfortable and happy. That's the way to get the best results from a manof his sort."

  She faded on toward the self-effacing blank he had first known.

  "Think it out, Dorothy," he said in his frankest, kindliest way. "You'llsee I'm right."

  "No," she said.

  "No? What does that mean?"

  "I've an instinct against it," replied she. "I'd rather father and Ikept on as we are."

  "But that's impossible. You've no right to live in this small, crampingway. You must broaden out and give _him_ room to grow. . . . Isn't thatsensible?"

  "It sounds so," she admitted. "But--" She gazed round helplessly--"I'mafraid!"

  "Afraid of what?"

  "I don't know."

  "Then don't bother about it."

  "I'll have to be very--careful," she said thoughtfully.

  "As you please," replied he. "Only, don't live and think on aten-dollar-a-week basis. That isn't the way to get on."

  He never again brought up the matter in direct form. But most of hisconversation was indirect and more or less subtle suggestions as to waysof branching out. She moved cautiously for a few days, then timidlybegan to spend money.

  There is a notion widely spread abroad that people who have little moneyknow more about the art of spending money and the science of economizingthan those who have much. It would be about as sensible to say that thebest swimmers are those who have never been near the water, or no nearerthan a bath tub. Anyone wishing to be convinced need only make anexcursion into the poor tenement district and observe the garbagebarrels overflowing with spoiled food--or the trashy goods exposed forsale in the shops and the markets. Those who have had money and havelost it are probably, as a rule, the wisest in thrift. Those who havenever had money are almost invariably prodigal--because they areignorant. When Dorothea Hallowell was a baby the family had had money.But never since she could remember had they been anything but poor.

  She did not know how to spend money. She did not know prices orvalues--being in that respect precisely like the mass of mankind--andwomankind--who imagine they are economical because they hunt so-calledbargains and haggle with merchants who have got doubly ready for them bylaying in inferior goods and by putting up prices in advance. She knewhow much ten dollars a week was, the meaning of the twenty to thirtydollars a week her father had made. But she had only a faint--andexaggeratedly mistaken--notion about sixty-five hundred a year--six anda half thousands. It seemed wealth to her, so vast that a hundredthousand a year would have seemed no more. As soon as she drifted awayfrom the known course--the thirty to forty dollars a week upon whichthey had been living--Dorothea Hallowell was in a trackless sea, with abroken compass and no chart whatever. A common enough experience inAmerica, the land of sudden changes of fortune, of rosiest hopes about"striking it rich," of carelessness and ignorance as to values, of eagerand untrained appetite for luxury and novelty of any and every kind.

  At first any expenditure, however small, for the plainest comfort whichhad been beyond their means seemed a giddy extravagance. But a bankaccount--_and_ a check book--soon dissipated that nervousness. A fewcharge accounts, a little practice in the simple easy gesture of drawinga check, and she was almost at her ease. With people who have known onlysqualor or with those who have earned their better fortune by privationand slow accumulation, the spreading out process is usually slow--not soslow as it used to be when our merchants had not learned the art oftempting any and every kind of human nature, but still far from rapid. Apiece of money reminds them vividly and painfully of the toil put intoacquiring it; and they shy away from the pitfall of the facile check.With those born and bred as Dorothy was and elevated into what seems tothem affluence by no effort of their own, the spreading is a tropical,overnight affair.

  Counting all she spent and arranged to spend in those first few weeks,you had no great total. But it was great for a girl who had been makingten dollars a week. Also there were sown in her mind broadcast and thickthe seeds of desire for more luxurious comfort, of need for it, thatcould never be uprooted.

  Norman came over almost every evening. He got a new and youthful andyouth-restoring kind of pleasure out of this process of expansion. Heliked to hear each trifling detail, and he was always making suggestionsthat bore immediate fruit in further expenditure. When he again broughtup the subject of a larger house, she listened with only the faintestprotests. Her ideas of such a short time before seemed small, laughablysmall now. "Father was worrying only this morning because he is socramped," she admitted.

  "We must remedy that at once," said Norman.

  "'It has killed me,' he groaned."]

  And on the following Sunday he and she went house hunting. They found asatisfactory place--peculiarly satisfactory to Norman because it wasnear the Hudson tunnel, and so only a few minutes from his office. ToDorothy it loomed a mansion, almost a palace. In fact it was a modestlyroomy old-fashioned brick house, with a brick stable at the side that,with a little changing, would make an admirable laboratory.

  "You haven't the time--or the experience--to fit this place up," saidNorman. "I'll attend to it--that is, I'll have it attended to." Seeingher uneasy expression, he added: "I can get much better terms. They'dcertainly overcharge you. There's no sense in wasting money--is there?"

  "No," she admitted, convinced.

  He gave the order to a firm of decorators. It was a moderate order,considering the amount o
f work that had to be done. But if the girl hadseen the estimates Norman indorsed, she would have been terrified.However, he saw to it that she did not see them; and she, ignorant ofvalues, believed him when he told her the general account of thecorporation must be charged with two thousand dollars.

  Her alarm took him by surprise. The sum seemed small to him--and it wasonly about one fifth what the alterations and improvements had cost.Cried she, "Why, that's more than our whole income for a year has been!"

  "You are forgetting these improvements add to the value of the property.I've bought it."

  That quieted her. "You are sure you didn't pay those decorators andfurnishers too much?" said she.

  "You don't like their work?" inquired he, chagrined.

  "Oh, yes--yes, indeed," she assured him. "I like plain, solid-lookingthings. But--two thousand dollars is a lot of money."

  Norman regretted that, as his whole object had been to please her, hehad not ordered the more showy cheaper stuff but had insisted upon thesimplest, plainest-looking appointments throughout. Even her bedroomfurniture, even her dressing table set, was of the kind that suggestscost only to the experienced, carefully and well educated in values andin taste.

  "But I'm sure it isn't fair to charge _all_ these things to the company,"she protested. "I can't allow it. Not the things for my personal use."

  "You _are_ a fierce watchdog of a treasurer," said Norman, laughing at herbut noting and respecting the fine instinct of good breeding shown inher absence of greediness, of desire to get all she could. "But I'mletting the firm of decorators take over what you leave behind in theold house. I'll see what they'll allow for it. Maybe that will cover theexpense you object to."

  This contented her. Nor was she in the least suspicious when heannounced that the decorators had made such a liberal allowance that thedeficit was but three hundred dollars. "Those chaps," he explained,"have a wide margin of profit. Besides, they're eager to get more andbigger work from me."

  A few weeks, and he was enjoying the sight of her ensconced with herfather in luxurious comfort--with two servants, with a well-run house,with pleasant gardens, with all that is at the command of an income ofsix thousand a year in a comparatively inexpensive city. Onlyoccasionally--and then not deeply--was he troubled by the reflectionthat he was still far from his goal--and had made apparently absurdlylittle progress toward it through all this maneuvering. The truth was,he preferred to linger when lingering gave him so many new kinds ofpleasure. Of those in the large and motley company that sit down to thebanquet of the senses, the most are crude, if not coarse, gluttons. Theyeat fast and furiously, having a raw appetite. Now and then there is onewho has some idea of the art of enjoyment--the art of prolonging andvarying both the joys of anticipation and the joys of realization.

  He turned his attention to tempting her to extravagance in dress. Buthis success there was not all he could have wished. She wore betterclothes--much better. She no longer looked the poor working girl,struggling desperately to be neat and clean. She had almost immediatelytaken on the air of the comfortable classes. But everything she got forherself was inexpensive and she made dresses for herself, and trimmedall her hats. With the hats Norman found no fault. There her good tasteproduced about as satisfactory results as could have been got at thefashionable milliners--more satisfactory than are got by the women whogo there, with no taste of their own beyond a hazy idea that they want"something like what Mrs. So-and-So is wearing." But homemade dresseswere a different matter.

  Norman longed to have her in toilettes that would bring out the fullbeauty of her marvelous figure. He, after the manner of the moreintelligent and worldly-wise New York men, had some knowledge ofwomen's clothes. His sister knew how to dress; Josephine knew how,though her taste was somewhat too sober to suit Norman--at least to suithim in Dorothy. He thought out and suggested dresses to Dorothy, andtold her where to get them. Dorothy tried to carry out at home such ofhis suggestions as pleased her--for, like all women, she believed sheknew how to dress herself. Her handiwork was creditable. It would havecontented a less exacting and less trained taste than Norman's. It wouldhave contented him had he not been infatuated with her beauty of faceand form. As it was, the improvement in her appearance only served tointensify his agitation. He now saw in her not only all that had firstconquered him, but also those unsuspected beauties and graces--andpossibilities of beauty and grace yet more entrancing, were she butdressed properly.

  "You don't begin to appreciate how beautiful you are," said he. It hadever been one of his rules in dealing with women to feed their physicalvanity sparingly and cautiously, lest it should blaze up into one ofthose consuming flames that produce a very frenzy of conceit. But thisrule, like all the others, had gone by the board. He could not concealhis infatuation from her, not even when he saw that it was turning herhead and making his task harder and harder. "If you would only go overto New York to several dressmakers whose names I'll give you, I knowyou'd get clothes from them that you could touch up into somethinguncommon."

  "I can't afford it," said she. "What I have is good enough--and costsmore than I've the right to pay." And her tone silenced him; it was thetone of finality, and he had discovered that she had a will.

  * * * * *

  Never before had Frederick Norman let any important thing drift. Andwhen he started in with Dorothy he had no idea of changing that fixedpolicy. He would have scoffed if anyone had foretold to him that hewould permit the days and the weeks to go by with nothing definiteaccomplished toward any definite purpose. Yet that was what occurred.Every time he came he had in mind a fixed resolve to make distinctprogress with the girl. Every time he left he had a furious quarrel withhimself for his weakness. "She is making a fool of me," he said tohimself. "She _must_ be laughing at me." But he returned only to repeathis folly, to add one more to the lengthening, mocking series of lostopportunities.

  The truth lay deeper than he saw. He recognized only his own weakness ofthe infatuated lover's fatuous timidity. He did not realize how potenther charm for him was, how completely content she made him when he waswith her, just from the fact that they were together. After a time anunsatisfied passion often thus diffuses itself, ceases to be a narrowtorrent, becomes a broad river whose resistless force is hidden beneathan appearance of sparkling calm. Her ingenuousness amused him; herdeveloping taste and imagination interested him; her freshness, herfreedom from any sense of his importance in the world fascinated him,and there was a keener pleasure than he dreamed in the novel sensationof breathing the perfume of what he, the one time cynic, would havestaked his life on being unsullied purity. Their relations were to him adelightful variation upon the intimacy of master and pupil. Either hewas listening to her or was answering her questions--and the time flew.And there never was a moment when he could have introduced the subjectthat most concerned him when he was not with her. To have introduced itwould have been rudely to break the charm of a happy afternoon orevening.

  Was she leading him on and on nowhere deliberately? Or was it the sweetand innocent simplicity it seemed? He could not tell. He would havebroken the charm and put the matter to the test had he not been afraidof the consequences. What had he to fear? Was she not in his power? Wasshe not his, whenever he should stretch forth his hand and claim her?Yes--no doubt--not the slightest doubt. But--He was afraid to breakthe charm; it was such a satisfying charm.

  Then--there was her father.

  Men who arrive anywhere in any direction always have the habit ofignoring the nonessential more or less strongly developed. Onereason--perhaps the chief reason--why Norman had got up to the highplaces of material success at so early an age was that he had anunerring instinct for the essential and wasted no time or energy uponthe nonessential. In his present situation Dorothy's father, theabstracted man of science, was one of the factors that obviously fellinto the nonessential class. Norman knew little about him, and caredless. Also, he took care to avoid knowing him. Knowing the father wouldopen up
possibilities of discomfort--But, being a wise young man,Norman gave this matter the least possible thought.

  Still, it was necessary that the two men see something of each other.Hallowell discovered nothing about Norman, not enough about his personalappearance to have recognized him in the street far enough away from thelaboratory to dissociate the two ideas. Human beings--except hisdaughter--did not interest Hallowell; and his feeling for her wassomewhat in the nature of an abstraction. Norman, on the other hand, wasintensely interested in human beings; indeed, he was interested inlittle else. He was always thrusting through surfaces, probing intominds and souls. He sought thoroughly to understand the living machineshe used in furthering his ambitions and desires. So it was not longbefore he learned much about old Newton Hallowell--and began to admirehim--and with a man of Norman's temperament to admire is to like.

  He had assumed at the outset that the scientist was more or less thecrank. He had not talked with him many times before he discovered that,far from being in any respect a crank, he was a most able andwell-balanced mentality--a genius. The day came when, Dorothy not havingreturned from a shopping tour, he lingered in the laboratory talkingwith the father, or, rather, listening while the man of great ideasunfolded to him conceptions of the world that set his imagination tosoaring.

  Most of us see but dimly beyond the ends of our noses, and visualizewhat lies within our range of sight most imperfectly. We know littleabout ourselves, less about others. We fancy that the world and thehuman race always have been about as they now are, and always will be.History reads to us like a fairy tale, to which we give conventionalacceptance as truth. As to the future, we can conceive nothing but thecontinuation of just what we see about us in the present. Norman,practical man though he was, living in and for the present, had yet animagination. He thought Hallowell a kind of fool for thinking only ofthe future and working only for it--but he soon came to think him adivine fool. And through Hallowell's spectacles he was charmed for manyan hour with visions of the world that is to be when, in the slow butsteady processes of evolution, the human race will become intelligent,will conquer the universe with the weapons of science and will make itover.

  When he first stated his projects to Norman, the young man haddifficulty in restraining his amusement. A new idea, in any line ofthought with which we are not familiar, always strikes us as ridiculous.Norman had been educated in the ignorant conventional way still in highrepute among the vulgar and among those whose chief delight is to makethe vulgar gape in awe. He therefore had no science, that is, noknowledge--outside his profession--but only what is called learning,though tommyrot would be a fitter name for it. He had only the mostmeager acquaintance with that great fundamental of a sound and saneeducation, embryology. He knew nothing of what science had already doneto destroy all the still current notions about the mystery of life andbirth. He still laughed, as at a clever bit of legerdemain, whenHallowell showed him how far science had progressed toward mastery ofthe life of the lower forms of existence--how those "worms" could beartificially created, could be aged, made young again, made diseased anddecrepit, restored to perfect health, could be swung back and forth orsideways or sinuously along the span of existence--could even be killedand brought back to vigor.

  "We've been at this sort of thing only a few years," said Hallowell. "Irather think it will not be many years now before we shall not even needthe initial germ of life to enable us to create but can do it by purechemical means, just as a taper is lighted by holding a match to it."

  Norman ceased to think of sleight-of-hand.

  "Life," continued the juggler, transformed now into practical man,leader of men, "life has been demonstrated to be simply one of the formsof energy, or one of the consequences of energy. The final discovery isscientifically not far away. Then--" His eyes lighted up.

  "Then what?" asked Norman.

  "Then immortality--in the body. Eternal youth and health. A body that isrenewable much as any of our inanimate machines of the factory isrenewable. Why not? So far as we know, no living thing ever dies exceptby violence. Disease--old age--they are quite as much violence as theknife and the bullet. What science can now do with these 'worms,' as mydaughter calls them--that it will be able to do with the higherorganisms."

  "And the world would soon be jammed to the last acre," objected Norman.

  Hallowell shrugged his shoulders. "Not at all. There will be nonecessity to create new people, except to take the place of those whomay be accidentally obliterated."

  "But the world is dying--the earth, itself, I mean."

  "True. But science may learn how to arrest that cooling process--or toadapt man to it. Or, it may be that when the world ceases to beinhabitable we shall have learned how to cross the star spaces, as Ithink I've suggested before. Then--we should simply find a planet in itsyouth somewhere, and migrate to it, as a man now moves to a new housewhen the old ceases to please him."

  "That is a long flight of the fancy," said Norman.

  "Long--but no stronger than the telegraph or the telephone. The troublewith us is that we have been long stupefied by the ignorant theologicalideas of the universe--ideas that have come down to us from thechildhood of the race. We haven't got used to the new era--thescientific era. And that is natural. Why, until less than threegenerations ago there was really no such thing as science."

  "I hadn't thought of that," admitted Norman. "We certainly have got onvery fast in those three generations."

  "Rather fast. Not so fast, however, as we shall in the next three.Science--chemistry--is going speedily to change all the conditions oflife because it will turn topsy-turvy all the ways of producingthings--food, clothing, shelter. Less than two generations ago men livedmuch as they had for thousands of years. But it's very different to-day.It will be inconceivably different to-morrow."

  Norman could not get these ideas out of his brain. He began tounderstand why Hallowell cared nothing about the active life of theday--about its religion, politics, modes of labor, its habits of onecreature preying upon another. To-morrow, not religion, not politics,but chemistry, not priests nor politicians, but chemists, would changeall that--and change it by the only methods that compel. An abstractidea of liberty or justice can be rejected, evaded, nullified. But atelephone, a steam engine, a mode of prolonging life--those realizationsof ideas _compel_.

  When Dorothy came, Norman went into the garden with her in a frame ofmind so different from any he had ever before experienced that hescarcely recognized himself. As the influence of the father's glowingimagination of genius waned before the daughter's physical lovelinessand enchantment for him, he said to himself, "I'll keep away from him."Why? He did not permit himself to go on to examine into his reasons. Buthe could not conceal them from himself quickly enough to hide theknowledge that they were moral.

  "What is the matter with you to-day?" said Dorothy. "You are not a bitinteresting."

  "Interested, you mean," he said with a smile of raillery, for he hadlong since discovered that she was not without the feminine vanity thatcommands the centering of all interest in the woman herself and resentsany wandering of thought as a slur upon her own powers of fascination.

  "Well, interested then," said she. "You are thinking about somethingelse."

  "Not now," he assured her.

  But he left early. No sooner had he got away from the house than thescientific dreaming vanished and he wished himself back with heragain--back where every glance at her gave him the most exquisitesensations. And when he came the following day he apparently had oncemore restored her father to his proper place of a nonessential. All thatdefinitely remained of the day before's impression was a certainsatisfaction that he was aiding with his money an enterprise of greatervalue and of less questionable character than merely his own project.But the powerful influences upon our life and conduct are rarely directand definite. He, quite unconsciously, had a wholly different feelingabout Dorothy because of her father, because of what his new knowledgeof and respect for her fathe
r had revealed and would continue to revealto him as to the girl herself--her training, her inheritance, hercharacter that could not but be touched with the splendor of thefather's noble genius. And long afterward, when the father as a distinctpersonality had been almost forgotten, Norman was still, altogetherunconsciously, influenced by him--powerfully, perhaps decisivelyinfluenced. Norman had no notion of it, but ever after that talk in thelaboratory, Dorothy Hallowell was to him Newton Hallowell's daughter.

  When he came the following day, with his original purposes and plansonce more intact, as he thought, he found that she had made more of atoilet than usual, had devised a new way of doing her hair that enabledhim to hang a highly prized addition in his memory gallery of widelyvaried portraits of her.

  The afternoon was warm. They sat under a big old tree at the end of thegarden. He saw that she was much disturbed--and that it had to do withhim. From time to time she looked at him, studying his face when shethought herself unobserved. As he had learned that it is never wise toopen up the disagreeable, he waited. After making several futile effortsat conversation, she abruptly said:

  "I saw Mr. Tetlow this morning--in Twenty-third Street. I was coming outof a chemical supplies store where father had sent me."

  She paused. But Norman did not help her. He continued to wait.

  "He--Mr. Tetlow--acted very strangely," she went on. "I spoke to him. Hestared at me as if he weren't going to speak--as if I weren't fit tospeak to."

  "Oh!" said Norman.

  "Then he came hurrying after me. And he said, 'Do you know that Normanis to be married in two weeks?'"

  "So!" said Norman.

  "And I said, 'What of it? How does that interest me?'"

  "It didn't interest you?"

  "I was surprised that you hadn't spoken of it," replied she. "But I wasmore interested in Mr. Tetlow's manner. What do you think he said next?"

  "I can't imagine," said Norman.

  "Why--that I was even more shameless than he thought. He said: 'Oh, Iknow all about you. I found out by accident. I shan't tell anyone, for Ican't help loving you still. But it has killed my belief in woman tofind out that _you_ would sell yourself.'"

  She was looking at Norman with eyes large and grave. "And what did yousay?" he inquired.

  "I didn't say anything. I looked at him as if he weren't there andstarted on. Then he said, 'When Norman abandons you, as he soon will,you can count on me, if you need a friend.'"

  There was a pause. Then Norman said, "And that was all?"

  "Yes," replied she.

  Another pause. Norman said musingly: "Poor Tetlow! I've not seen himsince he went away to Bermuda--at least he said he was going there. Oneday he sent the firm a formal letter of resignation. . . . Poor Tetlow!Do you regret not having married him?"

  "I couldn't marry a man I didn't love." She looked at him with sweetfriendly eyes. "I couldn't even marry you, much as I like you."

  Norman laughed--a dismal attempt at ease and raillery.

  "When he told me about your marrying," she went on, "I knew how I feltabout you. For I was not a bit jealous. Why haven't you ever saidanything about it?"

  He disregarded this. He leaned forward and with curious deliberatenesstook her hand. She let it lie gently in his. He put his arm round herand drew her close to him. She did not resist. He kissed her upturnedface, kissed her upon the lips. She remained passive, looking at himwith calm eyes.

  "Kiss me," he said.

  She kissed him--without hesitation and without warmth.

  "Why do you look at me so?" he demanded.

  "I can't understand."

  "Understand what?"

  "Why you should wish to kiss me when you love another woman. What wouldshe say if she knew?"

  "I'm sure I don't know. And I rather think I don't care. You are theonly person on earth that interests me."

  "Then why are you marrying?"

  "Let's not talk about that. Let's talk about ourselves." He clasped herpassionately, kissed her at first with self-restraint, then in a kind offrenzy. "How can you be so cruel!" he cried. "Are you utterly cold?"

  "I do not love you," she said.

  "Why not?"

  "There's no reason. I--just don't. I've sometimes thought perhaps it wasbecause you don't love me."

  "Good God, Dorothy! What do you want me to say or do?"

  "Nothing," replied she calmly. "You asked me why I didn't love you, andI was trying to explain. I don't want anything more than I'm getting. Iam content--aren't you?"

  "Content!" He laughed sardonically. "As well ask Tantalus if he iscontent, with the water always before his eyes and always out of reach.I want you--all you have to give. I couldn't be content with less."

  "You ought not to talk to me this way," she reproved gently, "when youare engaged."

  He flung her hand into her lap. "You are making a fool of me. And Idon't wonder. I've invited it. Surely, never since man was created hasthere been such another ass as I." He drew her to her feet, seized herroughly by the shoulders. "When are you coming to your senses?" hedemanded.

  "What do you mean?" she inquired, in her childlike puzzled way.

  He shook her, kissed her violently, held her at arm's length. "Do youthink it wise to trifle with me?" he asked. "Don't your good sense tellyou there's a limit even to such folly as mine?"

  "What _is_ the matter?" she asked pathetically. "What do you want? I can'tgive you what I haven't got to give."

  "No," he cried. "But I want what you _have_ got to give."

  She shook her head slowly. "Really, I haven't, Mr. Norman."

  He eyed her with cynical amused suspicion. "Why did you call me _Mr._Norman just then? Usually you don't call me at all. It's been weekssince you have called me Mister. Was your doing it just then one ofthose subtle, adroit, timely tricks of yours?"

  She was the picture of puzzled innocence. "I don't understand," shesaid.

  "Well--perhaps you don't," said he doubtfully. "At any rate, don't callme Mr. Norman. Call me Fred."

  "I can't. It isn't natural. You seem Mister to me. I always think of youas Mr. Norman."

  "That's it. And it must stop!"

  She smiled with innocent gayety. "Very well--Fred. . . . Fred. . . . Nowthat I've said it, I don't find it strange." She looked at him with anexpression between appeal and mockery. "If you'd only let me getacquainted with you. But you don't. You make me feel that I've got to becareful with you--that I must be on my guard. I don't know againstwhat--for you are certainly the very best friend that I've ever had--theonly real friend."

  He frowned and bit his lip--and felt uncomfortable, though he protestedto himself that he was simply irritated at her slyness. Yes, it must beslyness.

  "So," she went on, "there's no _reason_ for being on guard. Still, I feelthat way." She looked at him with sweet gravity. "Perhaps I shouldn't ifyou didn't talk about love to me and kiss me in a way I feel you've noright to."

  Again he laid his hands upon her shoulders. This time he gazed angrilyinto her eyes. "Are you a fool? Or are you making a fool of me?" hesaid. "I can't decide which."

  "I certainly am very foolish," was her apologetic answer. "I don't knowa lot of things, like you and father. I'm only a girl."

  And he had the maddening sense of being baffled again--of having gotnowhere, of having demonstrated afresh to himself and to her his ownweakness where she was concerned. What unbelievable weakness! Had thereever been such another case? Yes, there must have been. How little hehad known of the possibilities of the relations of men and women--hewho had prided himself on knowing all!

  She said, "You are going to marry?"

  "I suppose so," replied he sourly.

  "Are you worried about the expense? Is it costing you too much, thishelping father? Are you sorry you went into it?"

  He was silent.

  "You are sorry?" she exclaimed. "You feel that you are wasting yourmoney?"

  His generosity forbade him to keep up the pretense that might aid him inhis project. "N
o," he said hastily. "No, indeed. This expense--it'snothing." He flushed, hung his head in shame before his own weakness, ashe added, in complete surrender, "I'm very glad to be helping yourfather."

  "I knew you would be!" she cried triumphantly. "I knew it!" And sheflung her arms round his neck and kissed him.

  "That's better!" he said with a foolishly delighted laugh. "I believe weare beginning to get acquainted."

  "Yes, indeed. I feel quite different already."

  "I hoped so. You are coming to your senses?"

  "Perhaps. Only--" She laid a beautiful white pleading hand upon hisshoulder and gazed earnestly into his eyes--"please don't frighten mewith that talk--and those other kisses."

  He looked at her uncertainly. "Come round in your own way," he said atlast. "I don't want to hurry you. I suppose every bird has its own wayof dropping from a perch."

  "You don't like my way?" she inquired.

  It was said archly but also in the way that always made him vaguelyuneasy, made him feel like one facing a mystery which should be exploredcautiously. "It is graceful," he admitted, with a smile since he couldnot venture to frown. "Graceful--but slow."

  She laughed--and he could not but feel that the greater laughter in hertoo innocent eyes was directed at him. She talked of other things--andhe let her--charmed, yet cursing his folly, his slavery, the while.