"I know better," Tetlow stubbornly maintained. "Anyhow, I don't care. I love her, and I'd marry her, no matter what her reason for marrying me was."
What pitiful infatuation!—worse than his own. Poor Tetlow!—he deserved a better fate than to be drawn into this girl's trap—for, of course, she never could care for such a heavy citizen—heavy and homely—the loosely fat kind of homely that is admired by no one, not even by a woman with no eye at all for the physical points of the male. It would be a real kindness to save worthy Tetlow. What a fool she'd make of him!—how she'd squander his money—and torment him with jealousy—and unfit him for his career. Poor Tetlow! If he could get what he wanted, he'd be well punished for his imprudence in wanting it. Really, could friendship do him a greater service than to save him?
Norman gave Tetlow a friendly, humorous glance. "You're a hopeless case, Billy," he said. "But at least don't rush into trouble. Take your time. You can always get in, you know; and you may not get in quite so deep."
"You promise to let her alone?" said Tetlow eagerly.
Again his distinguished friend laughed. "Don't be an ass, old man. Why imagine that, just because you've taken a fancy to a girl, everyone wants her?" He clapped him on the shoulder, gave him a push toward the door. "I've wasted enough time on this nonsense."
Tetlow did not venture to disregard a hint so plain. He went with his doubt still unsolved—his doubt whether his jealousy was right or his high opinion of his hero friend whose series of ever-mounting successes had filled him with adoration. He knew the way of success, knew no man could tread it unless he had, or acquired, a certain hardness of heart that made him an uncomfortable not to say dangerous associate. He regretted his own inability to acquire that indispensable hardness, and envied and admired it in Fred Norman. But, at the same time that he admired, he could not help distrusting.
Norman battled with his insanity an hour, then sent for Miss Hallowell.
The girl had lost her look of strength and vitality. She seemed frail and dim—so unimportant physically that he wondered why her charm for him persisted. Yet it did persist. If he could take her in his arms, could make her drooping beauty revive!—through love for him if possible; if not, then through anger and hate! He must make her feel, must make her acknowledge, that he had power. It seemed to him another instance of the resistless fascination which the unattainable, however unworthy, has ever had for the conqueror temperament.
"You are leaving?" he said curtly, both a question and an affirmation.
"Yes."