第22章 IV(6)

"That Hallowell girl has nothing to do with this," he rejoined. "I like to feel that you really love me--that you'd have taken me wherever you happened to find me--and that you'd stick to me no matter how far I might drop."

"I would! I would!" she cried, tears in her eyes.

"Oh, I didn't mean that, Fred. You know I didn't--don't you?"

She tried to put her arms round his neck, but he took her hands and held them. "Would you like to think I was marrying you for what you have?--or for any other reason whatever but for what you are?"

It being once more a question of her own sex, the obstinate line appeared round her mouth. "But, Fred, I'd not be ME, if I were--a working girl," she replied.

"You might be something even better if you were," retorted he coldly. "The only qualities I don't like about you are the surface qualities that have been plated on in these surroundings. And if I thought it was anything but just you that I was marrying, I'd lose no time about leaving you. I'd not let myself degrade myself."

"Fred--that tone--and don't--please don't look at me like that!" she begged.

But his powerful glance searched on. He said, "Is it possible that you and I are deceiving ourselves--and that we'll marry and wake up--and be bored and dissatisfied--like so many of our friends?"

"No--no," she cried, wildly agitated. "Fred, dear we love each other. You know we do. I don't use words as well as you do--and my mind works in a queer way-- Perhaps I didn't mean what I said. No matter.

If my love were put to the test--Fred, I don't ask anything more than that your love for me would stand the tests my love for you would stand."

He caught her in his arms and kissed her with more passion than he had ever felt for her before. "I believe you, Jo," he said. "I believe you."

"I love you so--that I could be jealous even of her--of that little girl in your office. Fred, I didn't confess all the truth. It isn't true that I thought her --a nobody. When she first came in here--it was in this very room--I thought she was as near nothing as any girl I'd ever seen. Then she began to change--as you said. And--oh, dearest, I can't help hating her!

And when I tried to get her away from you, and she wouldn't come----"

"Away from me!" he cried, laughing.

"I felt as if it were like that," she pleaded. "And she wouldn't come--and treated me as if she were queen and I servant--only politely, I must say, for Heaven knows I don't want to injure her----"

"Shall I have her discharged?"

"Fred!" exclaimed she indignantly. "Do you think I could do such a thing?"

"She'd easily get another job as good. Tetlow can find her one. Does that satisfy you?"

"No," she confessed. "It makes me feel meaner than ever."

"Now, Jo, let's drop this foolish seriousness about nothing at all. Let's drop it for good."

"Nothing at all--that's exactly it. I can't understand, Fred. What is there about her that makes her haunt me? That makes me afraid she'll haunt you?"

Norman felt a sudden thrill. He tightened his hold upon her hands because his impulse had been to release them. "How absurd!" he said, rather noisily.

"Isn't it, though?" echoed she. "Think of you and me almost quarreling about such a trivial person."

Her laugh died away. She shivered, cried, "Fred, I'm superstitious about her. I'm--I'm--AFRAID!" And she flung herself wildly into his arms.

"She IS somewhat uncanny," said he, with a lightness he was far from feeling. "But, dear--it isn't complimentary to me, is it?"

"Forgive me, dearest--I don't mean that. I couldn't mean that. But--I LOVE you so. Ever since I began to love you I've been looking round for something to be afraid of. And this is the first chance you've given me."

"I'VE given you!" mocked he.

She laughed hysterically. "I mean the first chance I've had. And I'm doing the best I can with it."

They were in good spirits now, and for the rest of the evening were as loverlike as always, the nearer together for the bit of rough sea they had weathered so nicely. Neither spoke of Miss Hallowell. Each had privately resolved never to speak of her to the other again. Josephine was already regretting the frankness that had led her to expose a not too attractive part of herself--and to exaggerate in his eyes the importance of a really insignificant chit of a typewriter. When he went to bed that night he was resolved to have Tetlow find Miss Hallowell a job in another office.

"She certainly IS uncanny," he said to himself. "I wonder why--I wonder what the secret of her is. She's the first woman I ever ran across who had a real secret.

IS it real? I wonder."