The Grain of Dust by David Graham Phillips
page 98 of 394 (24%)
page 98 of 394 (24%)
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spoil any sheets, don't throw them away, but return everything to me."
"I'm always careful about the waste-paper baskets," said she, "since they warned me that there are men who make a living searching the waste thrown out of offices." He made no reply. He could not have spoken if he had tried. Once more the spell had seized him--the spell of her weird fascination for him. As she sat typewriting, with her back almost toward him, he sat watching her and analyzing his own folly. He knew that diagnosing a disease does not cure it; but he found an acute pleasure in lingering upon all the details of the effect she had upon his nerves. He did not dare move from his desk, from the position that put a huge table and a revolving case of reference books between them. He believed that if he went nearer he would be unable to resist seizing her in his arms and pouring out the passion that was playing along his nerves as the delicate, intense flame flits back and forth along the surface of burning alcohol. A knock at the door. He plunged into his papers. "Come!" he called. Tetlow thrust in his head. Miss Hallowell did not look up. "I'm off," the head clerk said. His gaze was upon the unconscious girl--a gaze that filled Norman with longing to strangle him. "Telegraph me from Albany as soon as you get there," said Norman. "Telegraph me at my club." Tetlow was gone. The machine tapped monotonously on. The barette which held the girl's hair at the back was so high that the full beauty of the nape of her neck was revealed. That wonderful white skin with the golden |
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