But not yet. He was still young; he could--and he would!--drink of the sparkling heady life of the senses, typefied now for him in this girl. How her loveliness flamed in his blood--flamed as fiercely when he could not see the actual, tangible charms as when they were radiating their fire into his eyes and through his skin!
First he must live that glorious life of youth, of nerves aquiver with ecstasy. Also, he must shut out the things of the intellect--must live in brain as well as in body the animal life--in brain the life of cunning and strategy. For the intellectual life would make it impossible to pursue such ignoble things. First, material success and material happiness. Then, in its own time, this intellectual life to which such men as Hallowell ever beckon, from their heights, such men as Norman, deep in the wallow that seems to them unworthy of them, even as they roll in it.
As soon as there came a convenient pause in Hallowell's talk, Norman said, "And you devote your whole life to these things?"
Hallowell's countenance lost its fine glow of enthusiasm.
"I have to make a living. I do chemical analyses for doctors and druggists. That takes most of my time."
"But you can dispatch those things quickly."
Hallowell shook his head. "There's only one way to do things. My clients trust me. I can't shirk."
Norman smiled. He admired this simplicity. But it amused him, too; in a world of shirking and shuffling, not to speak of downright dishonesty, it struck the humorous note of the incongruous. He said:
"But if you could give all your time you would get on faster."
"Yes--if I had the time--AND the money. To make the search exhaustive would take money--five or six thousand a year, at the least. A great deal more than I shall ever have."
"Have you tried to interest capitalists?"
Hallowell smiled ironically. "There is much talk about capitalists and capital opening up things. But I have yet to learn of an instance of their touching anything until they were absolutely sure of large profits.
Their failed enterprises are not miscarriage of noble purpose but mistaken judgment, judgment blinded by hope and greed."
"I see that a philosopher can know life without living it," said Norman. "But couldn't you put your scheme in such a way that some capitalist would be led to hope?"
"I'd have to tell them the truth. Possibly I might discover something with commercial value, but I couldn't promise. I don't think it is likely."
Norman's eyes were on the door. His thoughts were reaching out to the distant and faint sound of a piano. "Just what do you propose to search for?" inquired he.
He tried to listen, because it was necessary that he have some knowledge of Hallowell's plans. But he could not fix his attention. After a few moments he glanced at his watch, interrupted with, "I think I understand enough for the present. I've stayed longer than I intended. I must go now. When I come again I may perhaps have some plan to propose."
"Plan?" exclaimed Hallowell, his eyes lighting up.
"I'm not sure--not at all sure," hastily added Norman. "I don't wish to give you false hopes. The matter is extremely difficult. But I'll try. I've small hope of success, but I'll try."
"My daughter didn't explain to me," said the scientist. "She simply said one of the gentlemen for whom she worked was coming to look at my place. I thought it was mere curiosity."
"So it was, Mr. Hallowell," said Norman. "But I have been interested. I don't as yet see what can be done. I'm only saying that I'll think it over."
"I understand," said Hallowell. He was trying to seem calm and indifferent. But his voice had the tremulous note of excitement in it and his hands fumbled nervously, touching evidence of the agitated gropings of his mind in the faint, perhaps illusory, light of a new-sprung hope. "Yes, I understand perfectly. Still--it is pleasant to think about such a thing, even if there's no chance of it. I am very fond of dreaming. That has been my life, you know."
Norman colored, moved uneasily. The fineness of this man's character made him uncomfortable. He could pity Hallowell as a misguided failure. He could dilate himself as prosperous, successful, much the more imposing and important figure in the contrast. Yet there was somehow a point of view at which, if one looked carefully, his own sort of man shriveled and the Hallowell sort towered.
"I MUST be going," Norman said. "No--don't come with me. I know the way. I've interrupted you long enough." And he put out his hand and, by those little clevernesses of manner which he understood so well, made it impossible for Hallowell to go with him to Dorothy.
He was glad when he shut the door between him and her father. He paused in the hall to dispel the vague, self-debasing discomfort--and listening to HER voice as she sang helped wonderfully. There is no more trying test of a personality than to be estimated by the voice alone. That test produces many strange and startling results. Again and again it completely reverses our judgment of the personality, either destroys or enhances its charm. The voice of this girl, floating out upon the quiet of the cottage--the voice, soft and sweet, full of the virginal passion of dreams unmarred by experience-- It was while listening to her voice, as he stood there in the dimly lighted hall, that Frederick Norman passed under the spell in all its potency. In taking an anaesthetic there is the stage when we reach out for its soothing effects; then comes the stage when we half desire, half fear; then a stage in which fear is dominant, and we struggle to retain our control of the senses. Last comes the stage when we feel the full power of the drug and relax and yield or are beaten down into quiet. Her voice drew him into the final stage, was the blow of the overwhelming wave's crest that crushed him into submission.
