University of Virginia Library

13. XIII

WHEN a “high life” engagement such as that of Norman and Miss Burroughs, collapses on the eve of the wedding, the gossip and the scandal, however great, are but a small part of the mess. Doubtless many a marriage — and not in high life alone, either — has been put through, although the one party or the other or both have discovered that disaster was inevitable — solely because of the appalling muddle the sensible course would precipitate. In the case of the Norman-Burroughs fiasco, there were — to note only a few big items — such difficulties as several car loads of presents from all parts of the earth to be returned, a house furnished throughout and equipped to the last scullery maid and stable boy to be disposed of, the entire Burroughs domestic economy which had been reconstructed to be put back upon its former basis.

It is not surprising that, as Ursula Fitzhugh was credibly informed, Josephine almost decided to send for Bob Culver and marry him on the day before the day appointed for her marriage to Fred. The reason given for her not doing this sounded plausible. Culver, despairing of making the match on which his ambition —

and therefore his heart was set — and seeing a chance to get suddenly rich, had embarked for a career as a blackmailer of corporations. That is, he nosed about for a big corporation stealthily doing or arranging to do some unlawful but highly profitable acts; he bought a few shares of its stock, using a fake client as a blind; he then proceeded to threaten it with exposure, expensive hindrances and the like, unless it bought him off at a huge profit to himself. This business was regarded as most disreputable and — thanks to the power of the big corporations over the courts — had resulted in the sending of several of its practisers to jail or on hasty journeys to foreign climes. But Culver, almost if not quite as good a lawyer as Norman, was too clever to be caught in that way. However, while he was getting very rich rapidly, he was as yet far from rich enough to overcome the detestation of old Burroughs, and to be eligible for the daughter.

So, Josephine sailed away to Europe, with the consolation that her father was so chagrined by the fizzle that he had withdrawn his veto upon the purchase of a foreign title — that veto having been the only reason she had looked at home for a husband. Strange indeed are the ways of love — never stranger than when it comes into contact with the vanities of wealth and social position and the other things that cause a human being to feel that he or she is lifted clear of and high above the human condition. Josephine had her consolation. For

Norman the only consolation was escape from a marriage which had become so irksome in anticipation that he did not dare think what it would be in the reality. Over against this consolation was set a long list of disasters. He found himself immediately shunned by all his friends. Their professed reason was that he had acted shabbily in the breaking of the engagement; for, while it was assumed that Josephine must have done the actual breaking, it was also assumed that he must have given her provocation and to spare. This virtuous indignation was in large part mere pretext, as virtuous indignation in frail mortals toward frail mortals is apt to be. The real reason for shying off from Norman was his atmosphere of impending downfall. And certainly that atmosphere had eaten away and dissipated all his former charm. He looked dull and boresome — and he was.

But the chief disaster was material. As has been said, old Burroughs, in his own person and in the enterprises he controlled, gave Norman's firm about half its income. The day Josephine sailed, Lockyer, senior partner of the firm, got an intimation that unless Norman left, Burroughs would take his law business elsewhere, and would “advise” others of their clients to follow his example. Lockyer no sooner heard than he began to bestir himself. He called into consultation the learned Benchley and the astute Sanders and the soft and sly Lockyer junior. There could be no question

that Norman must be got rid of. The only point was, who should inform the lion that he had been deposed?

After several hours of anxious discussion, Lockyer, his inward perturbations hid beneath that mask of smug and statesmanlike respectability, entered the lion's den — a sick lion, sick unto death probably, but not a dead lion. “When you're ready to go uptown, Frederick,” said he in his gentlest, most patriarchal manner, “let me know. I want to have a little talk with you.”

Norman, heavy eyed and listless, looked at the handsome old fraud. As he looked something of the piercing quality and something of the humorous came back into his eyes. “Sit down and say it now,” said he.

“I'd prefer to talk where we can be quiet.”

Norman rang his bell and when an office boy appeared, said “No one is to disturb me until I ring again.” Then as the boy withdrew he said to Lockyer: “Now, sir, what is it?”

Lockyer strolled to the window, looked out as if searching for something he failed to find, came back to the chair on the opposite side of the desk from Norman, seated himself. “I don't know how to begin,” said he. “It is hard to say painful things to anyone I have such an affection for as I have for you.”

Norman pushed a sheet of letter paper across the desk toward his partner. “Perhaps that will help you,” observed he carelessly.

Lockyer put on his nose glasses with the gesture of

grace and intellect that was famous. He read — a brief demand for a release from the partnership and a request for an immediate settlement. Lockyer blinked off his glasses with the gesture that was as famous and as admiringly imitated by lesser legal lights as was his gesture of be-spectacling himself. “This is most astounding, my boy,” said he. “It is most — most — — ”

“Gratifying?” suggested Norman with a sardonic grin.

“Not in the least, Frederick. The very reverse — the exact reverse.”

Norman gave a shrug that said “Why do you persist in those frauds — and with me?” But he did not speak.

“I know,” pursued Lockyer, “that you would not have taken this step without conclusive reasons. And I shall not venture the impertinence of prying or of urging.”

“Thanks,” said Norman drily. “Now, as to the terms of settlement.”

Lockyer, from observation and from gossip, had a pretty shrewd notion of the state of his young partner's mind, and drew the not unwarranted conclusion that he would be indifferent about terms — would be “easy.” With the suavity of Mr. Great-and-Good-Heart he said: “My dear boy, there can't be any question of money with us. We'll do the generously fair thing — for, we're not hucksterers but gentlemen.”

“That sounds terrifying,” observed the young man, with a faint ironic smile. “I feel my shirt going and the cold winds whistling about my bare body. To save time, let me state the terms. You want to be rid of me. I want to go. It's a whim with me. It's a necessity for you.”

Lockyer shifted uneasily at these evidences of unimpaired mentality and undaunted spirit.

“Here are my terms,” proceeded Norman. “You are to pay me forty thousand a year for five years — unless I open an office or join another firm. In that case, payments are to cease from the date of my reentering practice.”

Lockyer leaned back and laughed benignantly. “My dear Norman,” he said with a gently remonstrant shake of the head, “those terms are impossible. Forty thousand a year! Why that is within ten thousand of the present share of any of us but you. It is the income of nearly three quarters of a million at six per cent — of a million at four per cent!”

“Very well,” said Norman, settling back in his chair. “Then I stand pat.”

“Now, my dear Norman, permit me to propose terms that are fair to all — — ”

“When I said I stood pat I meant that I would stay on.” His eyes laughed at Lockyer. “I guess we can live without Burroughs and his dependents. Maybe they will find they can't live without us.” He slowly

leaned forward until, with his forearms against the edge of his desk, he was concentrating a memorable gaze upon Lockyer. “Mr. Lockyer,” said he, “I have been exercising my privilege as a free man to make a damn fool of myself. I shall continue to exercise it so long as I feel disposed that way. But let me tell you something. I can afford to do it. If a man's asset is money, or character or position or relatives and friends or popular favor or any other perishable article, he must take care how he trifles with it. He may find himself irretrievably ruined. But my asset happens to be none of those things. It is one that can be lost or damaged only by insanity or death. Do you follow me?”

The old man looked at him with the sincere and most flattering tribute of compelled admiration. “What a mind you've got, Frederick — and what courage!”

“You accept my terms?”

“If the others agree — and I think they will.”

“They will,” said Norman.

The old man was regarding him with eyes that had genuine anxiety in them. “Why do you do it, Fred?” he said.

“Because I wish to be free,” replied Norman. He would never have told the full truth to that incredulous old cynic of a time-server — the truth that he was resigning at the dictation of a pride which forbade him to involve others in the ruin he, in his madness, was bent upon.

“I don't mean, why do you resign,” said Lockyer. “I mean the other — the — woman.”

Norman laughed harshly.

“I've seen too much of the world not to understand,” continued Lockyer. “The measureless power of woman over man — especially — pardon me, my dear Norman — especially a bad woman!”

“The measureless power of a man's imagination over himself,” rejoined Norman. “Did you ever see or hear of a man without imagination being upset by a woman? It's in here, Mr. Lockyer” — he rapped his forehead — “altogether in here.”

“You realize that. Yet you go on — and for such a — pardon me, my boy, for saying it — for such a trifling object.”

“What does `trifling' mean, sir?” replied the young man. “What is trifling and what is important? It depends upon the point of view. What I want — that is vital. What I do not want — that is paltry. It's my nature to go for what I happen to want — to go for it with all there is in me. I will take nothing else — nothing else.”

There was in his eyes the glitter called insanity — the glitter that reflects the state of mind of any strong man when possessed of one of those fixed ideas that are the idiosyncrasy of the strong. It would have been impossible for Lockyer to be possessed in that way; he had not the courage nor the concentration nor the independence

of soul; like most men, even able men, he dealt only in the conventional. Not in his wildest youth could he have wrecked or injured himself for a woman; women, for him, occupied their conventional place in the scheme of things, and had no allure beyond the conventionally proper and the conventionally improper — for, be it remembered, vice has its beaten track no less than virtue and most of the vicious are as tame and unimaginative as the plodders in the high roads of propriety. Still, Lockyer had associated with strong men, men of boundless desires; thus, he could in a measure sympathize with his young associate. What a pity that these splendid powers should be perverted from the ordinary desires of strong men!

Norman rose, to end the interview. “My address is my house. They will forward — if I go away.”

Lockyer gave him a hearty handclasp, made a few phrases about good wishes and the like, left him alone. The general opinion was that Norman was done for. But Lockyer could not see it. He had seen too many men fall only to rise out of lowest depths to greater heights than they had fallen from. And Norman was only thirty-seven. Perhaps this would prove to be merely a dip in a securely brilliant career and not a fall at all. In that case — with such a brain, such a genius for the lawlessness of the law, what a laughing on the other side of the mouth there might yet be among young Norman's enemies — and friends!

He spent most of the next few days — the lunch time, the late afternoon, finally the early morning hours — lurking about the Equitable Building, in which were the offices of Pytchley and Culver. As that building had entrances on four streets, the best he could do was to walk round and round, with an occasional excursion through the corridors and past the elevators. He had written her, asking to see her; he had got no answer. He ceased to wait at the elevators after he had twice narrowly escaped being seen by Tetlow. He was indifferent to Tetlow, except as meeting him might make it harder to see Dorothy. He drank hard. But drink never affected him except to make him more grimly tenacious in whatever he had deliberately and soberly resolved. Drink did not explain — neither wholly nor in any part — this conduct of his. It, and the more erratic vagaries to follow, will seem incredible conduct for a man of Norman's character and position to feeble folk with their feeble desires, their dread of criticism and ridicule, their exaggerated and adoring notions of the master men. In fact, it was the natural outcome of the man's nature — arrogant, contemptuous of his fellowmen and of their opinions, and, like all the master men, capable of such concentration upon a desire that he would adopt any means, high or low, dignified or the reverse, if only it promised to further his end. Fred Norman, at these vulgar vigils, took the measure of his own self-abasement to a hair's breadth. But he kept on, with the fever of

his infatuation burning like a delirium, burning higher and deeper with each baffled day.

At noon, one day, as he swung into Broadway from Cedar street, he ran straight into Tetlow. It was raining and his umbrella caught in Tetlow's. It was a ludicrous situation, but there was no answering smile in his former friend's eyes. Tetlow glowered.

“I've heard you were hanging about,” he said. “How low you have sunk!”

Norman laughed in his face. “Poor Tetlow,” he said. “I never expected to see you develop into a crusader. And what a Don Quixote you look. Cheer up, old man. Don't take it so hard.”

“I warn you to keep away from her,” said Tetlow in subdued, tense tones, his fat face quivering with emotion. “Hasn't she shown you plainly that she'll have nothing to do with you?”

“I want only five minutes' talk with her, Tetlow,” said Norman, dropping into an almost pleading tone. “And I guarantee I'll say nothing you wouldn't approve, if you heard. You are advising her badly. You are doing her an injury.”

“I am protecting her from a scoundrel,” retorted Tetlow.

“She'll not thank you for it, when she finds out the truth.”

“You can write to her. What a shallow liar you are!”

“I cannot write what I must say,” said Norman. It had never been difficult for him, however provoked, to keep his temper — outwardly. Tetlow's insults were to him no more than the barkings of a watch dog, and one not at all dangerous, but only amusing. “I must see her. If you are her friend, and not merely a jealous, disappointed lover, you'll advise her to see me.”

“You shall not see her, if I can help it,” cried his former friend. “And if you persist in annoying her — — ”

“Don't make futile threats, Tetlow,” Norman interrupted. “You've done me all the mischief you can do. I see you hate me for the injuries you've done me. That's the way it always is. But I don't hate you. It was at my suggestion that the Lockyer firm is trying to get you back as a partner.” Then, as Tetlow colored — “Oh, I see you're accepting their offer.”

“If I had thought — — ”

“Nonsense. You're not a fool. How does it matter whose the hand, if only it's a helping hand? And you may be sure they'd never have made you the offer if they didn't need you badly. All the credit I claim is having the intelligence to enlighten their stupidity with the right suggestion.”

In spite of himself Tetlow was falling under the spell of Norman's personality, of the old and deep admiration the lesser man had for the greater.

“Norman,” he said, “how can you be such a combination

of bigness and petty deviltry? You are a monster of self-indulgence. It's a God's mercy there aren't more men with your selfishness and your desires.”

Norman laughed sardonically. “The difference between me and most men,” said he, “isn't in selfishness or in desires, but in courage. Courage, Billy — there's what most of you lack. And even in courage I'm not alone. My sort fill most of the high places.”

Tetlow looked dismal confession of a fear that Norman was right.

“Yes,” pursued Norman, “in this country there are enough wolves to attend to pretty nearly all the sheep — though it's amazing how much mutton there is.” With an abrupt shift from raillery, “You'll help me with her, Billy?”

“Why don't you let her alone, Fred?” pleaded Tetlow. “It isn't worthy of you — a big man like you. Let her alone, Fred! — the poor child, trying to earn her own living in an honest way.”

“Let her alone? Tetlow, I shall never let her alone — as long as she and I are both alive.”

The fat man, with his premature wrinkles and his solemn air of law books that look venerable though fresh from the press, took on an added pastiness. “Fred — for God's sake, can't you love her in a noble way — a way worthy of you?”

Norman gave him a penetrating glance. “Is love — such love as mine — and yours — ” There Tetlow flushed

guiltily — “is it ever noble? — whatever that means. No, it's human — human. But I'm not trying to harm her. I give you my word. . . . Will you help me — and her?”

Tetlow hesitated. His heavy cheeks quivered. “I don't trust you,” he cried violently — the violence of a man fighting against an enemy within. “Don't ever speak to me again.” And he rushed away through the rain, knocking umbrellas this way and that.

About noon two days later, as Norman was making one of his excursions past the Equitable elevators, he saw Bob Culver at the news stand. It so happened that as he recognized Culver, Culver cast in the direction of the elevators the sort of look that betrays a man waiting for a woman. Unseen by Culver, Norman stopped short. Into his face blazed the fury of suspicion, jealousy, and hate — one of the cyclones of passion that swept him from time to time and revealed to his own appalled self the full intensity of his feeling, the full power of the demon that possessed him. Culver was of those glossy, black men who are beloved of women. He was much handsomer than Norman, who, indeed, was not handsome at all, but was regarded as handsome because he had the air of great distinction. Many times these two young men had been pitted against each other in legal battles. Every time Norman had won. Twice they had contended for the favor of the same lady. Each had scored once. But as Culver's victory was merely for a very light and empty-headed lady of the stage while he

had won Josephine Burroughs away from Culver, the balance was certainly not against him.

As Norman slipped back and into the cross corridor to avoid meeting Culver, Dorothy Hallowell hurried from a just descended elevator and, with a quick, frightened glance toward Culver, in profile, almost ran toward Norman. It was evident that she had only one thought — to escape being seen by her new employer. When she realized that some one was standing before her and moved to one side to pass, she looked up. “Oh!” she gasped, starting back. And then she stood there white and shaking.

“Is that beast Culver hounding you?” demanded Norman.

She recovered herself quickly. With flashing eyes, she cried: “How dare you! How dare you!”

Norman, possessed by his rage against Culver, paid no attention. “If he don't let you alone,” he said, “I'll thrash him into a hospital for six months. You must leave his office at once. You'll not go back there.”

“You must be crazy,” replied she, calm again. “I've no complaint to make of the way I'm being treated. I never was so well off in my life. And Mr. Culver is very kind and polite.”

“You know what that means,” said Norman harshly.

“Everyone isn't like you,” retorted she.

He was examining her from head to foot, as if to make sure that it was she with no charm missing. He

noted that she was much less poorly dressed than when she worked for his firm. In those days she often looked dowdy, showed plainly the girl who has to make a hasty toilet in a small bedroom, with tiny wash-stand and looking-glass, in the early, coldest hours of a cold morning. Now she looked well taken care of physically, not so well, not anything like so well as the women uptown — the ladies with nothing to do but make toilettes; still, unusually well looked after for a working girl. At first glance after those famished and ravening days of longing for her and seeking her, she before him in rather dim reality of the obvious office-girl, seemed disappointing. It could not be that this insignificance was the cause of all his fever and turmoil. He began to hope that he was recovering, that the cloud of insane desire was clearing from his sky. But a second glance killed that hope. For, once more he saw her mystery, her beauties that revealed their perfection and splendor only to the observant.

While he looked she was regaining her balance, as the fading color in her white skin and the subsidence of the excitement in her eyes evidenced. “Let me pass, please,” she said coldly — for, she was against the wall with him standing before her in such a way that she could not go until he moved aside.

“We'll lunch together,” he said. “I want to talk with you. Did that well-meaning ass — Tetlow — tell you?”

“There is nothing you can say that I wish to hear,” was her quiet reply.

“Your eyes — the edges of the lids are red. You have been crying?”

She lifted her glance to his and he had the sense of a veil drawing aside to reveal a desolation. “For my father,” she said.

His face flushed. He looked steadily at her. “Now that he is gone, you have no one to protect you. I am — — ”

“I need no one,” said she with a faintly contemptuous smile.

“You do need some one — and I am going to undertake it.”

Her face lighted up. He thought it was because of what he had said. But she immediately undeceived him. She said in a tone of delighted relief, “Here comes Mr. Tetlow. You must excuse me.”

“Dorothy — listen!” he cried. “We are going to be married at once.”

The words exploded dizzily in his ears. He assumed they would have a far more powerful effect upon her. But her expression did not change. “No,” she said hastily. “I must go with Mr. Tetlow.” Tetlow was now at hand, his heavy face almost formidable in its dark ferocity. She said to him: “I was waiting for you. Come on”

Norman turned eagerly to his former friend. He

said: “Tetlow, I have just asked Miss Hallowell to be my wife.”

Tetlow stared. Then pain and despair seemed to flood and ravage his whole body.

“I told you the other day,” Norman went on, “that I was ready to do the fair thing. I have just been saying to Miss Hallowell that she must have some one to protect her. You agree with me, don't you?”

Tetlow, fumbling vaguely with his watch chain, gazed straight ahead. “Yes,” he said with an effort. “Yes, you are right, Norman. An office is no place for an attractive girl as young as she is.”

“Has Culver been annoying her?” inquired Norman.

Tetlow started. “Ah — she's told you — has she? I rather hoped she hadn't noticed or understood.”

Both men now looked at the girl. She had shrunk into herself until she was almost as dim and unimpressive, as cipher-like as when Norman first beheld her. Also she seemed at least five years less than her twenty. “Dorothy,” said Norman, “you will let me take care of you — won't you?”

“No,” she said — and the word carried all the quiet force she was somehow able to put into her short, direct answers.

Tetlow's pasty sallowness took on a dark red tinge. He looked at her in surprise. “You don't understand, Miss Dorothy,” he said. “He wants to marry you.”

“I understand perfectly,” replied she, with the far-away look in her blue eyes. “But I'll not marry him. I despise him. He frightens me. He sickens me.”

Norman clinched his hands and the muscles of his jaw in the effort to control himself. “Dorothy,” he said, “I've not acted as I should. Tetlow will tell you that there is good excuse for me. I know you don't understand about those things — about the ways of the world — — ”

“I understand perfectly,” she interrupted. “It's you that don't understand. I never saw anyone so conceited. Haven't I told you I don't love you, and don't want anything to do with you?”

Tetlow, lover though he was — or perhaps because he was lover, of the hopeless kind that loves generously — could not refrain from protest. The girl was flinging away a dazzling future. It wasn't fair to her to let her do it when if she appreciated she would be overwhelmed with joy and gratitude. “I believe you ought to listen to Norman, Miss Dorothy,” he said pleadingly. “At any rate, think it over — don't answer right away. He is making you an honorable proposal — one that's advantageous in every way — — ”

Dorothy regarded him with innocent eyes, wide and wondering. “I didn't think you could talk like that, Mr. Tetlow!” she exclaimed. “You heard what I said to him — about the way I felt. How could I be his wife? He tried everything else — and, now, though he's ashamed

of it, he's trying to get me by marriage. Oh, I understand. I wish I didn't. I'd not feel so low.” She looked at Norman. “Can't you realize ever that I don't want any of the grand things you're so crazy about — that I want something very different — something you could never give me — or get for me?”

“Isn't there anything I can do, Dorothy, to make you forget and forgive?” he cried, like a boy, an infatuated boy. “For God's sake, Tetlow, help me! Tell her I'm not so rotten as she thinks. I'll be anything you like, my darling — anything — if only you'll take me. For I must have you. You're the only thing in the world I care for — and, without you, I've no interest in life — none — none!”

He was so impassioned that passersby began to observe them curiously. Tetlow became uneasy. But Norman and Dorothy were unconscious of what was going on around them. The energy of his passion compelled her, though the passion itself was unwelcome. “I'm sorry,” she said gently. “Though you would have hurt me, if you could, I don't want to hurt you. . . . I'm sorry. I can't love you. . . . I'm sorry. Come on, Mr. Tetlow.”

Norman stood aside. She and Tetlow went on out of the building. He remained in the same place, oblivious of the crowd streaming by, each man or woman with a glance at his vacant stare.