第65章 XIII(3)

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 com-bination 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.