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.”

“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?”