Norman trifled nervously with the papers before him. Presently he said, "Is it some one else?"
Tetlow shook his head.
"How do you know?"
"Because she said so," replied the head clerk.
"Oh—if she said so, that settles it," said Norman with raillery.
"She's given up work—thank God," pursued Tetlow. "She's getting more beautiful all the time—Norman, if you had seen her last night, you'd understand why I'm stark mad about her."
Norman's eyes were down. His hands, the muscles of his jaw were clinched.
"But, I mustn't think of that," Tetlow went on. "As I was about to say, if she were to stay on in the offices some one—some attractive man like you, only with the heart of a scoundrel——"
Norman laughed cynically.
"Yes, a scoundrel!" reiterated the fat head-clerk. "Some scoundrel would tempt her beyond her power to resist. Money and clothes and luxury will do anything. We all get to be harlots here in New York. Some of us know it, and some don't. But we all look it and act it. And she'd go the way of the rest—with or without marriage. It's just as well she didn't marry me. I know what'd have become of her."