第18章 IV(2)

An interesting and highly complicated enterprise is such a construction. It was of the kind in which Norman's mind especially delighted; Hercules is himself only in presence of an herculean labor. But on that day he could not concentrate, and because of a trifle! He felt like a giant disabled by a grain of dust in the eye--yes, a mere grain of dust!" I must love Josephine even more than I realize, to be fretted by such a paltry thing," thought he. And after patiently enduring the client for half an hour without being able to grasp the outlines of the project, he rose abruptly and said: "I must get into my mind the points you've given me before we can go further. So I'll not waste your time."

This sounded very like "Clear out--you've bored me to my limit of endurance." But the motions of a mind such as he knew Norman had were beyond and high above the client's mere cunning at dollar-trapping.

He felt that it was the part of wisdom--also soothing to vanity--to assume that Norman meant only what his words conveyed. When Norman was alone he rang for an office boy and said:

"Please ask Miss Halliday to come here."

The boy hesitated. "Miss Hallowell?" he suggested.

"Hallowell--thanks--Hallowell," said Norman.

And it somehow pleased him that he had not remembered her name. How significant it was of her insignificance that so accurate a memory as his should make the slip. When she, impassive, colorless, nebulous, stood before him the feeling of pleasure was, queerly enough, mingled with a sense of humiliation. What absurd vagaries his imagination had indulged in! For it must have been sheer hallucination, his seeing those wonders in her. How he would be laughed at if those pictures he had made of her could be seen by any other eyes!" They must be right when they say a man in love is touched in the head. Only, why the devil should I have happened to get these crazy notions about a person I've no interest in?" However, the main point --and most satisfactory--was that Josephine would be at a glance convinced--convicted--made ashamed of her absurd attack. A mere grain of dust.

"Just a moment, please," he said to Miss Hallowell.

"I want to give you a note of introduction."

He wrote the note to Josephine Burroughs: "Here she is. I've told her you wish to talk with her about doing some work for you." When he finished he looked up. She was standing at the window, gazing out upon the tremendous panorama of skyscrapers that makes New York the most astounding of the cities of men. He was about to speak. The words fell back unuttered.

For once more the hallucination--or whatever it was--laid hold of him. That figure by the window--that beautiful girl, with the great dreamy eyes and the soft and languorous nuances of golden haze over her hair, over the skin of perfectly rounded cheek and perfectly moulded chin curving with ideal grace into the whitest and firmest of throats----"Am I mad? or do I really see what I see?" he muttered.

He turned away to clear his eyes for a second view, for an attempt to settle it whether he saw or imagined.

When he looked again, she was observing him--and once more she was the obscure, the cipherlike Miss Hallowell, ten-dollar-a-week typewriter and not worth it.

Evidently she noted his confusion and was vaguely alarmed by it. He recovered himself as best he could and debated whether it was wise to send her to Josephine. Surely those transformations were not altogether his own hallucinations; and Josephine might see, might humiliate him by suspecting more strongly-- . . . Ridiculous!

He held out the letter.

"The lady to whom this is addressed wishes to see you. Will you go there, right away, please? It may be that you'll get the chance to make some extra money. You've no objection, I suppose?"

She took the letter hesitatingly.

"You will find her agreeable, I think," continued he. "At any rate, the trip can do no harm."

She hesitated a moment longer, as if weighing what he had said. "No, it will do no harm," she finally said.

Then, with a delightful color and a quick transformation into a vision of young shyness, "Thank you, Mr. Norman. Thank you so much."

"Not at all--not in the least," he stammered, the impulse strong to take the note back and ask her to return to her desk.

When the door closed behind her he rose and paced about the room uneasily. He was filled with disquiet, with hazy apprehension. His nerves were unsteady, as if he were going through an exhausting strain. He sat and tried to force himself to work. Impossible. "What sort of damn fool attack is this?" he exclaimed, pacing about again. He searched his mind in vain for any cause adequate to explain his unprecedented state. "If I did not know that I was well--absolutely well--I'd think I was about to have an illness--something in the brain."

He appealed to that friend in any trying hour, his sense of humor. He laughed at himself; but his nerves refused to return to the normal. He rushed from his private office on various pretexts, each time lingered in the general room, talking aimlessly with Tetlow--and watching the door. When she at last appeared, he guiltily withdrew, feeling that everyone was observing his perturbation and was wondering at it and jesting about it. "And what the devil am I excited about?" he demanded of himself. What indeed? He seated himself, rang the bell.

"If Miss Hallowell has got back," he said to the office boy, "please ask her to come in."

"I think she's gone out to lunch," said the boy. "I know she came in a while ago. She passed along as you was talking to Mr. Tetlow."

Norman felt himself flushing. "Any time will do," he said, bending over the papers spread out before him --the papers in the case of the General Traction Company resisting the payment of its taxes. A noisome odor seemed to be rising from the typewritten sheets.