第26章 V(4)

"No one, as I told you the other day, when you questioned me about her."

Norman shifted, looked embarrassed.

"I hope I didn't give you the impression I was ashamed of loving her or would ever be ashamed of her anywhere?" continued Tetlow, a very loverlike light in his usually unromantic eyes. "If I did, it wasn't what I meant--far from it. You'll see, when I marry her, Norman. You'll be congratulating me."

Norman sprang up again. "This is plain lunacy, Tetlow. I am amazed at you--amazed!"

"Get acquainted with her, Mr. Norman," pleaded the subordinate. "Do it, to oblige me. Don't condemn us----"

"I wish to hear nothing more!" cried Norman violently. "Another thing. You must find her a place in some other office--at once."

"You're right, sir," assented Tetlow. "I can readily do that."

Norman scowled at him, made an imperious gesture of dismissal. Tetlow, chopfallen but obdurate, got himself speedily out of sight.

Norman, with hands deep in his pockets, stared out among the skyscrapers and gave way to a fit of remorse.

It was foreign to his nature to do petty underhanded tricks. Grand strategy--yes. At that he was an adept, and not the shiftiest, craftiest schemes he had ever devised had given him a moment's uneasiness. But to be driving a ten-dollar-a-week typewriter out of her job --to be maneuvering to deprive her of a for her brilliant marriage--to be lying to an old and loyal retainer who had helped Norman full as much and as often as Norman had helped him--these sneaking bits of skullduggery made him feel that he had sunk indeed. But he ground his teeth together and his eyes gleamed wickedly. "He shan't have her, damn him!" he muttered. "She's not for him."

He summoned Tetlow, who was obviously low in mind as the result of revolving the things that had been said to him. "Billy," he began in a tone so amiable that he was ashamed for himself, "you'll not forget I have your promise?"

"What did I promise?" cried Tetlow, his voice shrill with alarm.

"Not to see her, except at the office, for a week."

"But I've promised her father I'd call this evening.

He's going to show me some experiments."

"You can easily make an excuse--business."

"But I don't want to," protested the head clerk.

"What's the use? I've got my mind made up. Norman, I'd hang on after her if you fired me out of this office for it. And I can't rest--I'm fit for nothing--until this matter's settled. I came very near taking her aside and proposing to her, just after I went out of here a while ago."

"You DAMN fool!" cried Norman, losing all control of himself. "Take the afternoon express for Albany instead of Harcott and attend to those registrations and arrange for those hearings. I'll do my best to save you. I'll bring the girl in here and keep her at work until you get out of the way."

Tetlow glanced at his friend; then the tears came into his eyes. "You're a hell of a friend!" he ejaculated. "And I thought you'd sympathize because you were in love."

"I do sympathize, Billy," Norman replied with an abrupt change to shamefaced apology. "I sympathize more than you know. I feel like a dog, doing this.

But it can't result in any harm, and I want you to get a little fresh air in that hot brain of yours before you commit yourself. Be reasonable, old man. Suppose you rushed ahead and proposed--and she accepted--and then, after a few days, you came to. What about her?

You must act on the level, Tetlow. Do the fair thing by yourself and by her."

Norman had often had occasion to feel proud of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of his brain. He had never been quite so proud as he was when he finished that speech. It pacified Tetlow; it lightened his own sense of guilt; it gave him a respite.

Tetlow rewarded Norman with the look that in New York is the equivalent of the handclasp friend seeks from friend in times of stress. "You're right, Fred.

I'm much obliged to you. I haven't been considering HER side of it enough. A man ought always to think of that. The women--poor things--have a hard enough time to get on, at best."

Norman's smile was characteristically cynical.

Sentimentality amused him. "I doubt if there are more female wrecks than male wrecks scattered about the earth," rejoined he. "And I suspect the fact isn't due to the gentleness of man with woman, either. Don't fret for the ladies, Tetlow. They know how to take care of themselves. They know how to milk with a sure and a steady hand. You may find it out by depressing experience some day."

Tetlow saw the aim. His obstinate, wretched expression came back. "I don't care. I've got----"

"You went over that ground," interrupted Norman impatiently. "You'd better be catching the train."

As Tetlow withdrew, he rang for an office boy and sent him to summon Miss Hallowell.

Norman had been reasoning with himself--with the aid of the self that was both better and more worldly wise. He felt that his wrestlings had not been wholly futile. He believed he had got the strength to face the girl with a respectful mind, with a mind resolute in duty--if not love--toward Josephine Burroughs. "I LOVE Josephine," he said to himself. "My feeling for this girl is some sort of physical attraction. I certainly shall be able to control it enough to keep it within myself. And soon it will die out. No doubt I've felt much the same thing as strongly before. But it didn't take hold because I was never bound before--never had the sense of the necessity for restraint. That sense is always highly dangerous for my sort of man."

This sounded well. He eyed the entering girl coldly, said in a voice that struck him as excellent indifference, "Bring your machine in here, Miss Hallowell, and recopy these papers. I've made some changes. If you spoil any sheets, don't throw them away, but return everything to me."

"I'm always careful about the waste-paper baskets," said she, "since they warned me that there are men who make a living searching the waste thrown out of offices."