refused to obey. He turned everything over to his associates or to
subordinates, fighting all morning against the longing to send for her.
At half past twelve he strode out of the office, putting on the air of
the big man absorbed in big affairs. He descended to the street. But
instead of going up town to keep an appointment at a business lunch he
hung round the entrance to the opposite building.

She did not appear until one o'clock. Then out she came--with the head
office boy!--the good-looking, young head office boy.

Norman's contempt for himself there reached its lowest ebb. For his
blood boiled with jealousy--jealousy of his head office boy!--and about
an obscure little typewriter! He followed the two, keeping to the other
side of the street. Doubtless those who saw and recognized him fancied
him deep in thought about some mighty problem of corporate law or
policy, as he moved from and to some meeting with the great men who
dictated to a nation of ninety millions what they should buy and how
much they should pay for it. He saw the two enter a quick-lunch
restaurant--struggled with a crack-brained impulse to join them--dragged
himself away to his appointment.

He was never too amiable in dealing with his clients, because he had
found that, in self-protection, to avoid being misunderstood and largely
increasing the difficulties of amicable intercourse, he must keep the
feel of iron very near the surface. That day he was for the first time
irascible. If the business his clients were engaged in had been less
perilous and his acute intelligence not indispensable, he would have
cost the firm dear. But in business circles, where every consideration
yields to that of material gain, the man with the brain may conduct
himself as he pleases--and usually does so, when he has strength of