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.
