The Grain of Dust | Page 9

in the previous chapter, Norman had to devise a secret agreement among several of the most eminent of his clients. They wished to band together, to do a thing expressly forbidden by the law; they wished to conspire to lower wages and raise prices in several railway systems under their control. But none would trust the others; so there must be something in writing, laid away in a secret safety deposit box along with sundry bundles of securities put up as forfeit, all in the custody of Norman. When he had worked out in his mind and in fragmentary notes the details of their agreement, he was ready for some one to do the clerical work. The some one must be absolutely trustworthy, as the plain language of the agreement would make clear to the dullest mind dazzling opportunities for profit--not only in stock jobbing but also in blackmail. He rang for Tetlow, the head clerk. Tetlow--smooth and sly and smug, lacking only courageous initiative to make him a great lawyer, but, lacking that, lacking all--Tetlow entered and closed the door behind him.
Norman leaned back in his desk chair and laced his fingers behind his head. "One of your typewriters is a slight blonde girl--sits in the corner to the far left-- if she's still here."
"Miss Hallowell," said Tetlow. "We are letting her go at the end of this week. She's nice and ladylike, and willing--in fact, most anxious to please. But the work's too difficult for her. She's rather--rather--well, not exactly stupid, but slow."
"Um," said Norman reflectively. "There's Miss Bostwick--perhaps she'll do."
"Miss Bostwick got married last week."
Norman smiled. He remembered the girl because she was the oldest and homeliest in the office. "There's somebody for everybody--eh, Tetlow?"
"He was a lighthouse keeper," said Tetlow. "There's a story that he advertised for a wife. But that may be a joke."
"Why not that Miss--Miss Halloway?" mused Norman.
"Miss Hallowell," corrected Tetlow.
"Hallowell--yes. Is she--VERY incompetent?
"Not exactly that. But business is slackening-- and she's been only temporary--and----"
Norman cut him off with, "Send her in."
"You don't wish her dismissed? I haven't told her yet."
"Oh, I'm not interfering in your department. Do as you like. . . . No--in this case--let her stay on for the present."
"I can use her," said Tetlow. "And she gets only ten a week."
Norman frowned. He did not like to HEAR that an establishment in which he had control paid less than decent living wages--even if the market price did excuse--yes, compel it. "Send her in," he repeated. Then, as Tetlow was about to leave, "She is trustworthy?"
"All our force is. I see to that, Mr. Norman."
"Has she a young man--steady company, I think they call it?"
"She has no friends at all. She's extremely shy-- at least, reserved. Lives with her father, an old crank of an analytical chemist over in Jersey City. She hasn't even a lady friend."
"Well, send her in."
A moment later Norman, looking up from his work, saw the dim slim nonentity before him. Again he leaned back and, as he talked with her, studied her face to make sure that his first judgment was correct. "Do you stay late every night?" asked he smilingly.
She colored a little, but enough to bring out the exquisite fineness of her white skin. "Oh, I don't mind," said she, and there was no embarrassment in her manner. "I've got to learn--and doing things over helps."
"Nothing equal to it," declared Norman. "You've been to school?"
"Only six weeks," confessed she. "I couldn't afford to stay longer."
"I mean the other sort of school--not the typewriting."
"Oh! Yes," said she. And once more he saw that extraordinary transformation. She became all in an instant delicately, deliciously lovely, with the moving, in a way pathetic loveliness of sweet children and sweet flowers. Her look was mystery; but not a mystery of guile. She evidently did not wish to have her past brought to view; but it was equally apparent that behind it lay hid nothing shameful, only the sad, perhaps the painful. Of all the periods of life youth is the best fitted to bear deep sorrows, for then the spirit has its full measure of elasticity. Yet a shadow upon youth is always more moving than the shadows of maturer years--those shadows that do not lie upon the surface but are heavy and corroding stains. When Norman saw this shadow upon her youth, so immature-looking, so helpless-looking, he felt the first impulse of genuine interest in her. Perhaps, had that shadow happened to fall when he was seeing her as the commonplace and colorless little struggler for bread, and seeming doomed speedily to be worsted in the struggle--perhaps, he would have felt no interest, but only the brief qualm of pity that we dare not encourage in ourselves, on a journey so beset with hopeless pitiful things