by a girl like that! A man such as I am, caught by _any_ woman whatever!"
It was grotesque. He opened his door to summon Tetlow.

The gate in the outside railing was directly opposite, and about thirty
feet away. Tetlow and Miss Hallowell were going out--evidently to lunch
together. She was looking up at the chief clerk with laughing eyes--they
seemed coquettish to the infuriated Norman. And Tetlow--the serious and
squab young ass was gazing at her with the expression men of the stupid
squab sort put on when they wish to impress a woman. At this spectacle,
at the vision of that slim young loveliness, that perfect form and
deliciously smooth soft skin, white beyond belief beneath its faintly
golden tint--the hot blood steamed up into Norman's brain, blinded his
sight, reddened it with desire and jealousy. He drew back, closed his
door with a bang.

"This is not I," he muttered. "What has happened? Am I insane?"

* * * * *

When Tetlow returned from lunch the office boy on duty at the gate told
him that Mr. Norman wished to see him at once. Like all men trying to
advance along ways where their fellow men can help or hinder, the head
clerk was full of more or less clever little tricks thought out with a
view to making a good impression. One of them was to stamp upon all
minds his virtue of promptness--of what use to be prompt unless you
forced every one to feel how prompt you were? He went in to see Norman,
with hat in hand and overcoat on his back and one glove off, the other
still on. Norman was standing at a window, smoking a cigarette. His
appearance--dress quite as much as manner--was the envy of his
subordinate--as, indeed, it was of hundreds of the young men struggling