A man who admired her as a figure, a man who liked her, a man who had no feeling for her beyond the general human feeling of wishing well pretty nearly everybody—­in brief, any man but one who had loved her and had gotten over it would have deeply pitied and sympathized with her.  Fred Norman said, his look and his tone coolly calm: 

“I am backing Mr. Hallowell in a company for which he is doing chemical research work.  We are hatching eggs, out of the shell, so to speak.  Also we are aging and rejuvenating arthropods and the like.  So far we have declared no dividends.  But we have hopes.”

She gave a hysterical sob of relief.  “Then it’s only business—­not the girl at all!”

“Oh, yes, it’s the girl, too,” replied he.  “She’s an officer of the company.  In fact, it was to make a place for her that I went into the enterprise originally.”  With an engaging air of frankness he inquired, “Anything more?”

She was gazing soberly, almost somberly, into the fire.  “You’ll not be offended if I ask you one question?”

“Certainly not.”

“Is there anything between you and—­her?”

“You mean, am I having an affair with her?”

She hung her head, but managed to make a slight nod of assent.

He laughed.  “No.”  He laughed again.  “No—­not thus far, my dear.”  He laughed a third time, with still stronger and stranger mockery.  “She congratulated me on my engagement with a sincerity that would have piqued a man who was interested in her.”

“Will you forgive me?” Josephine said.  “What I’ve just been feeling and saying and putting you through—­it’s beneath both of us.  I suppose a woman—­no woman—­can help being nasty where another woman is concerned.”

With his satirical good-humored smile, “I don’t in the least blame you.”

“And you’ll not think less of me for giving way to a thing so vulgar?”

He kissed her with a carelessness that made her wince But she felt that she deserved it—­and was grateful.  He said:  “Why don’t you go over and see for yourself?  No doubt Tetlow gave you the address—­and no doubt you have remembered it.”

She colored and hastily turned her head.  “Don’t punish me,” she pleaded.

“Punish you?  What nonsense! . . .  Do you want me to take you over?  The laboratory would interest you—­and Miss Hallowell is lovelier than ever.  She has an easier life now.  Office work wears on women terribly.”

Josephine looked at him with a beautiful smile of love and trust.  “You wish to be sure I’m cured.  Well, can’t you see that I am?”

“I don’t see why you should be.  I’ve said nothing one way or the other.”

She laughed gayly.  “You can’t tempt me.  I’m really cured.  I think the only reason I had the attack was because Mr. Tetlow so evidently believed he was speaking the truth.”

“No doubt he did think he was.  I’m sure, in the same circumstances, I’d think of anyone else just what he thinks of me.”