tain 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."

"You are making a mistake--a serious mistake."

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 you