Part 47 (1/2)

”No, I don't,” snapped Tetlow.

”That's what it means to be Tetlow. Now, I do see--and that's why I'm Norman.”

Tetlow looked at him doubtfully, uncertain whether he had been listening to wisdom put in a jocose form of audacious egotism or to the effervescings of intoxication. The hint of a smile lurking in the sobriety of the powerful features of his extraordinary friend only increased his doubt. Was Norman mocking him, and himself as well? If so, was it the mockery of sober sense or of drunkenness?

”You seem to be puzzled, Billy,” said Norman, and Tetlow wondered how he had seen. ”Don't get your brains in a stew trying to understand me. I'm acting the way I've always acted--except in one matter. You know that I know what I'm about?”

”I certainly do,” replied his admirer.

”Then, let it go at that. If you could understand me--the sort of man I am, the sort of thing I do--you'd not need me, but would be the whole show yourself--eh? That being true, don't show yourself a commonplace n.o.body by deriding and denying what your brain is unable to comprehend.

Show yourself a somebody by seeing the limitations of your ability. The world is full of little people who criticise and judge and laugh at and misunderstand the few real intelligences. And very tedious interruptions of the scenery those little people are. Don't be one of them. . . . Did you know my wife's father?”

Tetlow startled. ”No--that is, yes,” he stammered. ”That is, I met him a few times.”

”Often enough to find out that he was crazy?”

”Oh, yes. He explained some of his ideas to me. Yes--he was quite mad, poor fellow.”

Norman gave way to a fit of silent laughter. ”I can imagine,” he presently said, ”what you'd have thought if Columbus or Alexander or Napoleon or Stevenson or even the chaps who doped out the telephone and the telegraph--if they had talked to you before they arrived. Or even after they arrived, if they had been explaining some still newer and bigger idea not yet accomplished.”

”You don't think Mr. Hallowell was mad?”

”He was mad, a.s.suming that you are the standard of sanity. Otherwise, he was a great man. There'll be statues erected and pages of the book of fame devoted to the men who carry out his ideas.”

”His death was certainly a great loss to his daughter,” said Tetlow in his heaviest, most bourgeois manner.

”I said he was a great man,” observed Norman. ”I didn't say he was a great father. A great man is never a great father. It takes a small man to be a great father.”

”At any rate, her having no parents or relatives doesn't matter, now that she has you,” said Tetlow, his manner at once forced and constrained.

”Um,” muttered Norman.

Said Tetlow: ”Perhaps you misunderstood why I--I acted as I did about her, toward the last.”

”It was of no importance,” said Norman brusquely. ”I wish to hear nothing about it.”

”But I must explain, Fred. She piqued me by showing so plainly that she despised me. I must admit the truth, though I've got as much vanity as the next man, and don't like to admit it. She despised me, and it made me mad.”

An expression of grim satire pa.s.sed over Norman's face. Said he: ”She despised me, too.”

”Yes, she did,” said Tetlow. ”And both of us were certainly greatly her superiors--in every substantial way. It seemed to me most--most----”

”Most impertinent of her?” suggested Norman.

”Precisely. _Most_ impertinent.”

”Rather say, ignorant and small. My dear Tetlow, let me tell you something. Anybody, however insignificant, can be loved. To be loved means nothing, except possibly a hallucination in the brain of the lover. But to _love_--that's another matter. Only a great soul is capable of a great love.”

”That is true,” murmured Tetlow sentimentally, preening in a quiet, gentle way.

Said Norman sententiously: ”_You_ stopped loving. It was _I_ that kept on.”