nt and master. Norman might well
have been flattered. In that restrained tone from one used to servility
and fond of it and easily miffed by lack of it was the whole story of
Norman's long battle and splendid victory. But he was not in the mood to
be flattered; he was thinking of other things. And it presently annoyed
him that his usually docile mind refused to obey his will's order to
concentrate on the client and the business--said business being one of
those huge schemes through which a big monster of a corporation is
constructed by lawyers out of materials supplied by great capitalists
and controllers of capital, is set to eating in enormous meals the
substance of the people; at some obscure point in all the principal
veins small but leechlike parasite corporations are attached,
industriously to suck away the surplus blood so that the owners of the
beast may say, "It is eating almost nothing. See how lean it is, poor
thing! Why, the bones fairly poke through its meager hide."

An interesting and highly complicated enterprise is such a construction.
It was of the kind in which Norman's mind especially delighted; Hercules
is himself only in presence of an herculean labor. But on that day he
could not concentrate, and because of a trifle! He felt like a giant
disabled by a grain of dust in the eye--yes, a mere grain of dust! "I
must love Josephine even more than I realize, to be fretted by such a
paltry thing," thought he. And after patiently enduring the client for
half an hour without being able to grasp the outlines of the project, he
rose abruptly and said: "I must get into my mind the points you've given
me before we can go further. So I'll not waste your time."

This sounded very like "Clear out--you've bored me to my limit of
endurance." But the motions of a mind such as he knew Norman had were
beyond and high above the client's mere cunning at dollar-trapping. He
felt that it was the part of wisdom--also soothing to vanity--to assume
that Norman meant only what his words conveyed. When Norman was alone he
rang for an office boy and said:

"Please ask Miss Halliday to come here."

The boy hesitated. "Miss Hallowell?" he suggested.

"Hallowell--thanks--Hallowell," said Norman.

And it somehow pleased him that he had not remembered her name. How
significant it was of her insignificance that so accurate a memory as
his should make the slip. When she, impassive, colorless, nebulous,
stood before him the feelin