第41章 VIII(2)

Poor Tetlow!--he deserved a better fate than to be drawn into this girl's trap--for, of course, she never could care for such a heavy citizen--heavy and homely --the loosely fat kind of homely that is admired by no one, not even by a woman with no eye at all for the physical points of the male. It would be a real kindness to save worthy Tetlow. What a fool she'd make of him!--how she'd squander his money--and torment him with jealousy--and unfit him for his career. Poor Tetlow! If he could get what he wanted, he'd be well punished for his imprudence in wanting it. Really, could friendship do him a greater service than to save him?

Norman gave Tetlow a friendly, humorous glance.

"You're a hopeless case, Billy," he said. "But at least don't rush into trouble. Take your time. You can always get in, you know; and you may not get in quite so deep."

"You promise to let her alone?" said Tetlow eagerly.

Again his distinguished friend laughed. "Don't be an ass, old man. Why imagine that, just because you've taken a fancy to a girl, everyone wants her?"

He clapped him on the shoulder, gave him a push toward the door. "I've wasted enough time on this nonsense."

Tetlow did not venture to disregard a hint so plain.

He went with his doubt still unsolved--his doubt whether his jealousy was right or his high opinion of his hero friend whose series of ever-mounting successes had filled him with adoration. He knew the way of success, knew no man could tread it unless he had, or acquired, a certain hardness of heart that made him an uncomfortable not to say dangerous associate. He regretted his own inability to acquire that indispensable hardness, and envied and admired it in Fred Norman. But, at the same time that he admired, he could not help distrusting.

Norman battled with his insanity an hour, then sent for Miss Hallowell.

The girl had lost her look of strength and vitality.

She seemed frail and dim--so unimportant physically that he wondered why her charm for him persisted.

Yet it did persist. If he could take her in his arms, could make her drooping beauty revive!--through love for him if possible; if not, then through anger and hate! He must make her feel, must make her acknowledge, that he had power. It seemed to him another instance of the resistless fascination which the unattainable, however unworthy, has ever had for the conqueror temperament.

"You are leaving?" he said curtly, both a question and an affirmation.

"Yes."

"You are making a mistake--a serious mistake."

She stood before him listlessly, as if she had no interest either in what he was saying or in him. That maddening indifference!

"It was a mistake to tattle your trouble to Tetlow."

"I did not tattle," said she quietly, colorlessly. "I said only enough to make him help me."

"And what did he say about me?"

"That I had misjudged you--that I must be mistaken."

Norman laughed. "How seriously the little people of the world do take themselves!"

She looked at him. His amused eyes met hers frankly. "You didn't mean it?" she said.

He beamed on her. "Certainly I did. But I'm not a lunatic or a wild beast. Do you think I would take advantage of a girl in your position?"

Her eyes seemed to grow large and weary, and an expression of experience stole over her young face, giving it a strange appearance of age-in-youth. "It has been done," said she.

How reconcile such a look with the theory of her childlike innocence? But then how reconcile any two of the many varied personalities he had seen in her?

He said: "Yes--it has been done. But not by me.

I shall take from you only what you gladly give."

"You will get nothing else," said she with quiet strength.

"That being settled--" he went on, holding up a small package of papers bound together by an elastic--"Here are the proposed articles of incorporation of the Chemical Research Company. How do you like the name?"

"What is it?"

"The company that is to back your father. Capital stock, twenty-five thousand dollars, one half paid up. Your father to be employed as director of the laboratories at five thousand a year, with a fund of ten thousand to draw upon. You to be employed as secretary and treasurer at fifteen hundred a year. I will take the paid-up stock, and your father and you will have the privilege of buying it back at par within five years. Do you follow me?"

"I think I understand," was her unexpected reply.

Her replies were usually unexpected, like the expressions of her face and figure; she was continually comprehending where one would have said she would not, and not comprehending where it seemed absurd that she should not. "Yes, I understand. . . . What else?"

"Nothing else."

She looked intently at him, and her eyes seemed to be reading his soul to the bottom.

"Nothing else," he repeated.

"No obligation--for money--or--for anything?"

"No obligation. A hope perhaps." He was smiling with the gayest good humor. "But not the kind of hope that ever becomes a disagreeable demand for payment."

She seated herself, her hands in her lap, her eyes down--a lovely picture of pensive repose. He waited patiently, feasting his senses upon her delicate, aromatic loveliness. At last she said:

"I accept."

He had anticipated an argument. This promptness took him by surprise. He felt called upon to explain, to excuse her acceptance. "I am taking a little flyer --making a gamble," said he. "Your father may turn up nothing of commercial value. Again the company may pay big----"

She gave him a long look through half-closed eyes, a queer smile flitting round her lips. "I understand perfectly why you are doing it," she said. "Do you understand why I am accepting?"

"Why should you refuse?" rejoined he. "It is a good business prop----"

"You know very well why I should refuse. But--"

She gave a quiet laugh of experience; it made him feel that she was making a fool of him--"I shall not refuse.

I am able to take care of myself. And I want father to have his chance. Of course, I shan't explain to him."

She gave him a mischievous glance. "And I don't think YOU will."