Part 21 (1/2)

She stood before him listlessly, as if she had no interest either in what he was saying or in him. That maddening indifference!

”It was a mistake to tattle your trouble to Tetlow.”

”I did not tattle,” said she quietly, colorlessly. ”I said only enough to make him help me.”

”And what did he say about me?”

”That I had misjudged you--that I must be mistaken.”

Norman laughed. ”How seriously the little people of the world do take themselves!”

She looked at him. His amused eyes met hers frankly. ”You didn't mean it?” she said.

He beamed on her. ”Certainly I did. But I'm not a lunatic or a wild beast. Do you think I would take advantage of a girl in your position?”

Her eyes seemed to grow large and weary, and an expression of experience stole over her young face, giving it a strange appearance of age-in-youth. ”It has been done,” said she.

How reconcile such a look with the theory of her childlike innocence?

But then how reconcile any two of the many varied personalities he had seen in her? He said: ”Yes--it has been done. But not by me. I shall take from you only what you gladly give.”

”You will get nothing else,” said she with quiet strength.

”That being settled--” he went on, holding up a small package of papers bound together by an elastic--”Here are the proposed articles of incorporation of the Chemical Research Company. How do you like the name?”

”What is it?”

”The company that is to back your father. Capital stock, twenty-five thousand dollars, one half paid up. Your father to be employed as director of the laboratories at five thousand a year, with a fund of ten thousand to draw upon. You to be employed as secretary and treasurer at fifteen hundred a year. I will take the paid-up stock, and your father and you will have the privilege of buying it back at par within five years. Do you follow me?”

”I think I understand,” was her unexpected reply. Her replies were usually unexpected, like the expressions of her face and figure; she was continually comprehending where one would have said she would not, and not comprehending where it seemed absurd that she should not. ”Yes, I understand. . . . What else?”

”Nothing else.”

She looked intently at him, and her eyes seemed to be reading his soul to the bottom.

”Nothing else,” he repeated.

”No obligation--for money--or--for anything?”

”No obligation. A hope perhaps.” He was smiling with the gayest good humor. ”But not the kind of hope that ever becomes a disagreeable demand for payment.”

She seated herself, her hands in her lap, her eyes down--a lovely picture of pensive repose. He waited patiently, feasting his senses upon her delicate, aromatic loveliness. At last she said:

”I accept.”

He had antic.i.p.ated an argument. This promptness took him by surprise. He felt called upon to explain, to excuse her acceptance. ”I am taking a little flyer--making a gamble,” said he. ”Your father may turn up nothing of commercial value. Again the company may pay big----”

She gave him a long look through half-closed eyes, a queer smile flitting round her lips. ”I understand perfectly why you are doing it,”

she said. ”Do you understand why I am accepting?”

”Why should you refuse?” rejoined he. ”It is a good business prop----”