第21章 IV(5)

So there was no relief for his embarrassment. He saw that she too felt constrained. Instead of meeting him half way in embrace and kiss, as she usually did, she threw him a kiss and pretended to be busy lighting a cigarette and arranging the shades of the table lamp.

"Well, I saw your `poor little creature,' " she began.

She was splendidly direct in all her dealings, after the manner of people who have never had to make their own way--to cajole or conciliate or dread the consequences of frankness.

"I told you you'd not find her interesting."

"Oh, she was a nice little girl," replied Josephine with elaborate graciousness--and Norman, the "take off" fresh in his mind, was acutely critical of her manner, of her mannerisms. "Of course," she went on, "one does not expect much of people of that class. But I thought her unusually well-mannered--and quite clean."

"Tetlow makes 'em clean up," said Norman, a gleam of sarcasm in his careless glance and tone. And into his nostrils stole an odor of freshness and health and youth, the pure, sweet odor that is the base of all the natural perfumes. It startled him, his vivid memory of a feature of her which he had not been until now aware that he had ever noted.

"I offered her some work," continued Josephine, "but I guess you keep her too busy down there for her to do anything else."

"Probably," said Norman. "Why do you sit on the other side of the room?"

"Oh, I don't know," laughed Josephine. "I feel queer to-night. And it seems to me you're queer, too."

"I? Perhaps rather tired, dear--that's all."

"Did you and Miss Hallowell work hard to-day?"

"Oh, bother Miss Hallowell. Let's talk about ourselves."

And he drew her to the sofa at one end of the big fireplace. "I wish we hadn't set the wedding so far off." And suddenly he found himself wondering whether that remark had been prompted by eagerness--a lover's eagerness--or by impatience to have the business over and settled.

"You don't act a bit natural to-night, Fred. You touch me as if I were a stranger."

"I like that!" mocked he. "A stranger hold your hand like this?--and--kiss you--like this?"

She drew away, suddenly laid her hands on his shoulders, kissed him upon the lips passionately, then looked into his eyes. "DO you love me, Fred?--REALLY?"

"Why so earnest?"

"You've had a great deal of experience?"

"More or less."

"Have you ever loved any woman as you love me?"

"I've never loved any woman but you. I never before wanted to marry a woman."

"But you may be doing it because--well, you might be tired and want to settle down."

"Do you believe that?"

"No, I don't. But I want to hear you say it isn't so."

"Well--it isn't so. Are you satisfied?"

"I'm frightfully jealous of you, Fred."

"What a waste of time!"

"I've got something to confess--something I'm ashamed of."

"Don't confess," cried he, laughing but showing that he meant it. "Just--don't be wicked again That's much better than confession."

"But I must confess," insisted she. "I had evil {illust. caption = " `Would you like to think I was marrying you for what you have?--or for any other reason whatever but for what you are?' "} thoughts evil suspicions about you. I've had them all day--until you came. As soon as I saw you I felt bowed into the dust. A man like you, doing anything so vulgar as I suspected you of--oh, dearest, I'm SO ashamed!"

He put his arms round her and drew her to his shoulder. And the scene of mimicry in his office flashed into his mind, and the blood burned in his cheeks. But he had no such access of insanity as to entertain the idea of confession.

"It was that typewriter girl," continued Josephine.

She drew away again and once more searched his face.

"You told me she was homely."

"Not exactly that."

"Insignificant then."

"Isn't she?"

"Yes--in a way," said Josephine, the condescending note in her voice again--and in his mind Miss Hallowell's clever burlesque of that note. "But, in another way-- Men are different from women. Now I--a woman of my sort--couldn't stoop to a man of her class. But men seem not to feel that way."

"No," said he, irritated. "They've the courage to take what they want wherever they find it. A man will take gold out of the dirt, because gold is always gold.

But a woman waits until she can get it at a fashionable jeweler's, and makes sure it's made up in a fashionable way. I don't like to hear YOU say those things."

Her eyes flashed. "Then you DO like that Hallowell girl!" she cried--and never before had her voice jarred upon him.