"You"re a wonder," was his comment. "Well, we"ve got a running start on that order," and he threw a glance over his shoulder at the mill.
"Everything going full speed ahead. When we put it through I guess I"ll have to give you some of the credit."
"Oh, I haven"t done anything," she protested.
"More than you think. You"ve taken so much off my shoulders I couldn"t get along without you." His voice vibrated, reminding her of the voices of those who made sentimental recitations for the graphophone. It sounded absurd, yet it did not repel her: something within her responded to it. "Which way were you going?" he inquired.
"Home," she said.
"Where do you live?"
"In Fillmore Street." And she added with a touch of defiance: "It"s a little street, three blocks above Hawthorne, off East Street."
"Oh yes," he said vaguely, as though he had not understood. "I"ll come with you as far as the bridge--along the ca.n.a.l. I"ve got so much to say to you."
"Can"t you say it to-morrow?"
"No, I can"t; there are so many people in the office--so many interruptions, I mean. And then, you never give me a chance."
She stood hesitating, a struggle going on within her. He had proposed the route along the ca.n.a.l because n.o.body would be likely to recognize them, and her pride resented this. On the other hand, there was the sweet allurement of the adventure she craved, which indeed she had come out to seek and by a strange fatality found--since he had appeared on the bridge almost as soon as she reached it. The sense of fate was strong upon her. Curiosity urged her, and, thanks to the eulogy she had read of him that day, to the added impression of his power conveyed by the trip through the mills, Ditmar loomed larger than ever in her consciousness.
"What do you want to say?" she asked.
"Oh, lots of things."
She felt his hand slipping under her arm, his fingers pressing gently but firmly into her flesh, and the experience of being impelled by a power stronger than herself, a masculine power, was delicious. Her arm seemed to burn where he touched her.
"Have I done something to offend you?" she heard him say. "Or is it because you don"t like me?"
"I"m not sure whether I like you or not," she told him. "I don"t like seeing you--this way. And why should you want to know me and see me outside of the office? I"m only your stenographer."
"Because you"re you--because you"re different from any woman I ever met.
You don"t understand what you are--you don"t see yourself."
"I made up my mind last night I wouldn"t stay in your office any longer," she informed him.
"For G.o.d"s sake, why?" he exclaimed. "I"ve been afraid of that. Don"t go--I don"t know what I"d do. I"ll be careful--I won"t get you talked about."
"Talked about!" She tore herself away from him. "Why should you get me talked about?" she cried.
He was frightened. "No, no," he stammered, "I didn"t mean--"
"What did you mean?"
"Well--as you say, you"re my stenographer, but that"s no reason why we shouldn"t be friends. I only meant--I wouldn"t do anything to make our friendship the subject of gossip."
Suddenly she began to find a certain amus.e.m.e.nt in his confusion and penitence, she achieved a pleasurable sense of advantage, of power over him.
"Why should you want me? I don"t know anything, I"ve never had any advantages--and you have so much. I read an article in the newspaper about you today--Mr. Caldwell gave it to me--"
"Did you like it?" he interrupted, naively.
"Well, in some places it was rather funny."
"Funny? How?"
"Oh, I don"t know." She had been quick to grasp in it the journalistic lack of restraint hinted at by Caldwell. "I liked it, but I thought it praised you too much, it didn"t criticize you enough."
He laughed. In spite of his discomfort, he found her candour refreshing.
From the women to whom he had hitherto made love he had never got anything but flattery.
"I want you to criticize me," he said.
But she went on relentlessly:--"When I read in that article how successful you were, and how you"d got everything you"d started out to get, and how some day you might be treasurer and president of the Chippering Mill, well--" Despairing of giving adequate expression to her meaning, she added, "I didn"t see how we could be friends."
"You wanted me for a friend?" he interrupted eagerly.
"I couldn"t help knowing you wanted me--you"ve shown it so plainly. But I didn"t see how it could be. You asked me where I lived--in a little flat that"s no better than a tenement. I suppose you would call it a tenement. It"s dark and ugly, it only has four rooms, and it smells of cooking. You couldn"t come there--don"t you see how impossible it is?
And you wouldn"t care to be talked about yourself, either," she added vehemently.
This defiant sincerity took him aback. He groped for words.
"Listen!" he urged. "I don"t want to do anything you wouldn"t like, and honestly I don"t know what I"d do if you left me. I"ve come to depend on you. And you may not believe it, but when I got that Bradlaugh order I thought of you, I said to myself "She"ll be pleased, she"ll help me to put it over.""
She thrilled at this, she even suffered him, for some reason unknown to herself, to take her arm again.
"How could I help you?"
"Oh, in a thousand ways--you ought to know, you do a good deal of thinking for me, and you can help me by just being there. I can"t explain it, but I feel somehow that things will go right. I"ve come to depend on you."
He was a little surprised to find himself saying these things he had not intended to say, and the lighter touch he had always possessed in dealing with the other s.e.x, making him the envied of his friends, had apparently abandoned him. He was appalled at the possibility of losing her.
"I"ve never met a woman like you," he went on, as she remained silent.
"You"re different--I don"t know what it is about you, but you are." His voice was low, caressing, his head was bent down to her, his shoulder pressed against her shoulder. "I"ve never had a woman friend before, I"ve never wanted one until now."
She wondered about his wife.
"You"ve got brains--I"ve never met a woman with brains."
"Oh, is that why?" she exclaimed.
"You"re beautiful," he whispered. "It"s queer, but I didn"t know it at first. You"re more beautiful to-night than I"ve ever seen you."
They had come almost to Warren Street. Suddenly realizing that they were standing in the light, that people were pa.s.sing to and fro over the end of the bridge, she drew away from him once more, this time more gently.
"Let"s walk back a little way," he proposed.
"I must go home--it"s late."