The Grain of Dust: A Novel Read online

  Produced by Charles Keller and David Garcia

  "'I will teach you to love me,' he cried."]

  THE GRAIN OF DUST

  _A NOVEL_

  BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS

  ILLUSTRATED BY A.B. WENZELL

  1911

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  "'I will teach you to love he,' he cried"

  "'You won't make an out-and-out idiot of yourself, will you Ursula?'"

  "'Would you like to think I was marrying you for what you have?--or forany other reason whatever but for what you are?'"

  "'It has killed me,' he groaned."

  "She glanced complacently down at her softly glistening shoulders."

  "'Father . . . I have asked you not to interfere between Fred and me.'"

  "Evidently she had been crying."

  "At Josephine's right sat a handsome young foreigner."

  THE GRAIN OF DUST

  I

  Into the offices of Lockyer, Sanders, Benchley, Lockyer & Norman,corporation lawyers, there drifted on a December afternoon a girl insearch of work at stenography and typewriting. The firm was about themost important and most famous--radical orators often said infamous--inNew York. The girl seemed, at a glance, about as unimportant and obscurean atom as the city hid in its vast ferment. She was blonde--tawny hair,fair skin, blue eyes. Aside from this hardly conclusive mark of identitythere was nothing positive, nothing definite, about her. She was neithertall nor short, neither fat nor thin, neither grave nor gay. She gavethe impression of a young person of the feminine gender--that, andnothing more. She was plainly dressed, like thousands of other girls,in darkish blue jacket and skirt and white shirt waist. Her boots andgloves were neat, her hair simply and well arranged. Perhaps in theserespects--in neatness and taste--she did excel the average, which isdepressingly low. But in a city where more or less strikingly prettywomen, bent upon being seen, are as plentiful as the blackberries ofKentucky's July--in New York no one would have given her a second look,this quiet young woman screened in an atmosphere of self-effacement.

  She applied to the head clerk. It so happened that need for anothertypewriter had just arisen. She got a trial, showed enough skill towarrant the modest wage of ten dollars a week; she became part of theoffice force of twenty or twenty-five young men and women similarlyemployed. As her lack of skill was compensated by industry andregularity, she would have a job so long as business did not slacken.When it did, she would be among the first to be let go. She shrank intoher obscure niche in the great firm, came and went in mouse-likefashion, said little, obtruded herself never, was all but forgotten.

  Nothing could have been more commonplace, more trivial than the wholeincident. The name of the girl was Hallowell--Miss Hallowell. On thechief clerk's pay roll appeared the additional information that herfirst name was Dorothea. The head office boy, in one of his occasionalspells of "freshness," addressed her as Miss Dottie. She looked at himwith a puzzled expression; it presently changed to a slight, sweetsmile, and she went about her business. There was no rebuke in hermanner, she was far too self-effacing for anything so positive as themildest rebuke. But the head office boy blushed awkwardly--why he didnot know and could not discover, though he often cogitated upon it. Sheremained Miss Hallowell.

  Opposites suggest each other. The dimmest personality in those officeswas the girl whose name imaged to everyone little more than a pencil,notebook, and typewriting machine. The vividest personality wasFrederick Norman. In the list of names upon the outer doors of thefirm's vast labyrinthine suite, on the seventeenth floor of theSyndicate Building, his name came last--and, in the newest lettering,suggesting recentness of partnership. In age he was the youngest of thepartners. Lockyer was archaic, Sanders an antique; Benchley, actuallyonly about fifty-five, had the air of one born in the grandfather class.Lockyer the son dyed his hair and affected jauntiness, but was in factnot many years younger than Benchley and had the stiffening jerky legsof one paying for a lively youth. Norman was thirty-seven--at the agethe Greeks extolled as divine because it means all the best of youthcombined with all the best of manhood. Some people thought Normanyounger, almost boyish. Those knew him uptown only, where he hid the manof affairs beneath the man of the world-that-amuses-itself. Some peoplethought he looked, and was, older than the age with which thebiographical notices credited him. They knew him down town only--wherehe dominated by sheer force of intellect and will.

  As has been said, the firm ranked among the greatest in New York.It was a trusted counselor in large affairs--commercial, financial,political--in all parts of America, in all parts of the globe, for manyof its clients were international traffickers. Yet this young man, thisyoungest and most recent of the partners, had within the month forced areorganization of the firm--or, rather, of its profits--on a basis thatgave him no less than one half of the whole.

  His demand threw his four associates into paroxysms of rage andfear--the fear serving as a wholesome antidote to the rage.

  It certainly was infuriating that a youth, admitted to partnershipbarely three years ago, should thus maltreat his associates. Ingratewas precisely the epithet for him. At least, so they honestly thought,after the quaint human fashion; for, because they had given him thepartnership, they looked on themselves as his benefactors, and neglectedas unimportant detail the sole and entirely selfish reason for theirgraciousness. But enraged though these worthy gentlemen were, andeagerly though they longed to treat the "conceited and grasping upstart"as he richly deserved, they accepted his ultimatum. Even the venerableand venerated Lockyer--than whom a more convinced self-deceiver on thesubject of his own virtues never wore white whiskers, black garments,and the other badges of eminent respectability--even old Joseph Lockyercould not twist the acceptance into another manifestation of thebenevolence of himself and his associates. They had to stare thegrimacing truth straight in the face; they were yielding because theydared not refuse. To refuse would mean the departure of Norman with thefirm's most profitable business. It costs heavily to live in New York;the families of successful men are extravagant; so conduct unbecoming agentleman may not there be resented if to resent is to cut down one'sincome. The time was, as the dignified and nicely honorable Sandersobserved, when these and many similar low standards did not prevail inthe legal profession. But such is the frailty of human nature--or sosavage the pressure of the need of the material necessities of civilizedlife, let a profession become profitable or develop possibilities ofprofit--even the profession of statesman, even that of lawyer--ordoctor--or priest--or wife--and straightway it begins to tumble downtoward the brawl and stew of the market place.

  In a last effort to rouse the gentleman in Norman or to shame him intopretense of gentlemanliness, Lockyer expostulated with him like aprophet priest in full panoply of saintly virtue. And Lockyer waspassing good at that exalted gesture. He was a Websterian figure,with the venality of the great Daniel in all its pompous dignitymodernized--and correspondingly expanded. He abounded in those idealistsonorosities that are the stock-in-trade of all solemn old-fashionedfrauds. The young man listened with his wonted attentive courtesy untilthe dolorous appeal disguised as fatherly counsel came to an end. Thenin his blue-gray eyes appeared the gleam that revealed the tenacity andthe penetration of his mind. He said:

  "Mr. Lockyer, you have been absent six years--except an occasional twoor three weeks--absent as American Ambassador to France. You have donenothing for the firm in that time. Yet you have not scorned to takeprofits you did not earn. Why should I scorn to take profits I do earn?"

  Mr. Lockyer shook his picturesque head in sad remonstrance at thisvulgar, coarse, but latterly frequent retort of insurgent democracy uponindignant aristocracy. But he answered nothing.


  "Also," proceeded the graceless youth in the clear and concise way thatwon the instant attention of juries and Judges, "also, our professionis no longer a profession but a business." His humorous eyes twinkledmerrily. "It divides into two parts--teaching capitalists how to lootwithout being caught, and teaching them how to get off if by chancethey have been caught. There are other branches of the profession, butthey're not lucrative, so we do not practice them. Do I make myselfclear?"

  Mr. Lockyer again shook his head and sighed.

  "I am not an Utopian," continued young Norman. "Law and custompermit--not to say sanctify--our sort of business. So--I do my best. ButI shall not conceal from you that it's distasteful to me. I wish to getout of it. I shall get out as soon as I've made enough capital to assureme the income I have and need. Naturally, I wish to gather in thenecessary amount as speedily as possible."

  "Fred, my boy, I regret that you take such low views of our nobleprofession."

  "Yes--as a profession it is noble. But not as a practice. _My_ regret isthat it invites and compels such low views."

  "You will look at these things more--more mellowly when you are older."

  "I doubt if I'll ever rise very high in the art of self-deception,"replied Norman. "If I'd had any bent that way I'd not have got so far soquickly."

  It was a boastful remark--of a kind he, and other similar young men,have the habit of making. But from him it did not sound boastful--simplya frank and timely expression of an indisputable truth, which indeed itwas. Once more Mr. Lockyer sighed. "I see you are incorrigible," saidhe.

  "I have not acted without reflection," said Norman.

  And Lockyer knew that to persist was simply to endanger his dignity."I am getting old," said he. "Indeed, I am old. I have gotten into thehabit of leaning on you, my boy. I can't consent to your going, hardthough you make it for us to keep you. I shall try to persuade ourcolleagues to accept your terms."

  Norman showed neither appreciation nor triumph. He merely bowedslightly. And so the matter was settled. Instead of moving into thesuite of offices in the Mills Building on which he had taken an option,young Norman remained where he had been toiling for twelve years.

  After this specimen of Norman's quality, no one will be surprised tolearn that in figure he was one of those solidly built men of mediumheight who look as if they were made to sustain and to deliver shocks,to bear up easily under heavy burdens; or that his head thickly coveredwith fairish hair, was hatchet-shaped with the helve or face suggestingthat while it could and would cleave any obstacle, it would wear a merryif somewhat sardonic smile the while. No one had ever seen Norman angry,though a few persevering offenders against what he regarded as hisrights had felt the results of swift and powerful action of the samesort that is usually accompanied--and weakened--by outward show ofanger. Invariably good-humored, he was soon seen to be more dangerousthan the men of flaring temper. In most instances good humor ofthus unbreakable species issues from weakness, from a desire toconciliate--usually with a view to plucking the more easily. Norman'sgood humor arose from a sense of absolute security which in turn was theproduct of confidence in himself and amiable disdain for his fellow men.The masses he held in derision for permitting the classes to rule androb and spit upon them. The classes he scorned for caring to occupythemselves with so cheap and sordid a game as the ruling, robbing, andspitting aforesaid. Coming down to the specific, he despised men asindividuals because he had always found in each and everyone of them aweakness that made it easy for him to use them as he pleased.

  Not an altogether pleasant character, this. But not so unpleasant as itmay seem to those unable impartially to analyze human character, eventheir own--especially their own. And let anyone who is disposed tocondemn Norman first look within himself--in some less hypocritical andself-deceiving moment, if he have such moments--and let him note whatare the qualities he relies upon and uses in his own struggle to savehimself from being submerged and sunk. Further, there were in Normanmany agreeable qualities, important, but less fundamental, thereforeless deep-hidden--therefore generally regarded as the real man and asthe cause of his success in which they in fact had almost no part. Hewas, for example, of striking physical appearance, was attractivelydressed and mannered, was prodigally generous. Neither as lawyer nor asman did he practice justice. But while as lawyer he practiced injustice,as man he practiced mercy. Whenever a weakling appealed to him forprotection, he gave it--at times with splendid recklessness as to thecost to himself in antagonisms and enmities. Indeed, so great werethe generosities of his character that, had he not been arrogant,disdainful, self-confident, resolutely and single-heartedly ambitious,he must inevitably have ruined himself--if he had ever been able to risehigh enough to be worthy the dignity of catastrophe.

  Successful men are usually trying persons to know well. Lambs, asses,and chickens do not associate happily with lions, wolves, and hawks--nordo birds and beasts of prey get on well with one another. Norman wasregarded as "difficult" by his friends--by those of them who happened toget into the path of his ambition, in front of instead of behind him,and by those who fell into the not unnatural error of misunderstandinghis good nature and presuming upon it. His clients regarded him asinsolent. The big businesses, seeking the rich spoils of commerce,frequent highly perilous waters. They need skillful pilots. Usuallythese lawyer-pilots "know their place" and put on no airs upon thequarter-deck while they are temporarily in command. Not so Norman. Hetook the full rank, authority--and emoluments--of commander. And as hispower, fame, and income were swiftly growing, it is fair to assume thathe knew what he was about.

  He was admired--extravagantly admired--by young men with not too broad avein of envy. He was no woman hater--anything but that. Indeed, thosewho wished him ill had from time to time hoped to see him tumble down,through miscalculation in some of his audacities with women. No--he didnot hate women. But there were several women who hated him--or tried to;and if wounded vanity and baffled machination be admitted as just causesfor hatred, they had cause. He liked--but he did not wholly trust. Whenhe went to sleep, it was not where Delilah could wield the shears. Amost irritating prudence--irritating to friends and intimates of alldegrees and kinds, in a race of beings with a mania for being trustedimplicitly but with no balancing mania for deserving trust of theimplicit variety.

  And he ate hugely--and whatever he pleased. He could drink beyondbelief, all sorts of things, with no apparent ill effect upon eitherbody or brain. He had all the appetites developed abnormally, andabnormal capacity for gratifying them. Where there was one man whoenvied him his eminence, there were a dozen who envied him his physicalcapacities. We cannot live and act without doing mischief, as well asthat which most of us would rather do, provided that in the doing we arenot ourselves undone. Probably in no direction did Norman do so muchmischief as in unconsciously leading men of his sets down town and up toimitate his colossal dissipations--which were not dissipation for himwho was abnormal.

  Withal, he was a monster for work. There is not much truth in men'sunending talk of how hard they work or are worked. The ravages fromtheir indulgences in smoking, drinking, gallantry, eating too much andtoo fast and too often, have to be explained away creditably, tothemselves and to others--notably to the wives or mothers who nurse themand suffer from their diminishing incomes. Hence the wailing about work.But once in a while a real worker appears--a man with enormous ingenuityat devising difficult tasks for himself and with enormous persistence indoing them. Frederick Norman was one of these blue-moon prodigies.

  Obviously, such a man could not but be observed and talked about.Endless stories, some of them more or less true, most of themapocryphal, were told of him--stories of his shrewd, unexpected moves inbig cases, of his witty retorts, of his generosities, of hispeculiarities of dress, of eating and drinking; stories of hisadventures with women. Whatever he did, however trivial, took color andcharm from his personality, so easy yet so difficult, so simple yet socomplex, so baffling. Was he wholly selfish? Was he a friend to
almostanybody or to nobody? Did he ever love? No one knew, not even himself,for life interested him too intensely and too incessantly to leave himtime for self-analysis. One thing he was certain of; he hated nobody,envied nobody. He was too successful for that.

  He did as he pleased. And, on the whole, he pleased to do far lessinconsiderately than his desires, his abilities, and his opportunitiestempted. Have not men been acclaimed good for less?

  In the offices, where he was canvased daily by partners, clerks,everyone down to the cleaners whose labors he so often delayed, opinionvaried from day to day. They worshiped him; they hated him. They lovedhim; they feared him. They regarded him as more than human, as less thanhuman; but never as just human--though always as endowed with fine humanvirtues and even finer human weaknesses. Miss Tillotson, next to thehead clerk in rank and pay--and a pretty and pushing youngperson--dreamed of getting acquainted with him--really well acquainted.It was a vain dream. For him, between up town and down town a great gulfwas fixed. Also, he had no interest in or ammunition for sparrows.

  It was in December that Miss Hallowell--Miss Dorothea Hallowell--got hertemporary place at ten dollars a week--that obscure event, somewhat likea field mouse taking quarters in a horizon-bounded grain field. It wasnot until mid-February that she, the palest of personalities, came intodirect contact with Norman, about the most refulgent. This is how ithappened.

  Late in that February afternoon, an hour or more after the last of theoffice force should have left, Norman threw open the door of his privateoffice and glanced round at the rows on rows of desks. The lights in thebig room were on, apparently only because he was still within. With anexclamation of disappointment he turned to re-enter his office. He heardthe click of typewriter keys. Again he looked round, but could see noone.

  "Isn't there some one here?" he cried. "Don't I hear a typewriter?"

  The noise stopped. There was a slight rustling from a far corner, beyondhis view, and presently he saw advancing a slim and shrinking slip of agirl with a face that impressed him only as small and insignificant. Ina quiet little voice she said, "Yes, sir. Do you wish anything?"

  "Why, what are you doing here?" he asked. "I don't think I've ever seenyou before."

  "Yes. I took dictation from you several times," replied she.

  He was instantly afraid he might have hurt her feelings, and he, who inthe days when he was far, far less than now, had often suffered fromthat commonplace form of brutality, was most careful not to commit it."I never know what's going on round me when I'm thinking," explained he,though he was saying to himself that the next time he would probablyagain be unable to remember one with nothing distinctive to fixidentity. "You are--Miss----?"

  "Miss Hallowell."

  "How do you happen to be here? I've given particular instructions thatno one is ever to be detained after hours."

  A little color appeared in the pale, small face--and now he saw that shehad a singularly fair and smooth skin, singularly beautiful--and hewondered why he had not noticed it before. Being a close observer, hehad long ago noted and learned to appreciate the wonders of that mostamazing of tissues, the human skin; and he had come to be a connoisseur."I'm staying of my own accord," said she.

  "They ought not to give you so much work," said he. "I'll speak aboutit."

  Into the small face came the look of the frightened child--a fascinatinglook. And suddenly he saw that she had lovely eyes, clear, expressive,innocent. "Please don't," she pleaded, in the gentle quiet voice. "Itisn't overwork. I did a brief so badly that I was ashamed to hand it in.I'm doing it again."

  He laughed, and a fine frank laugh he had when he was in the mood.At once a smile lighted up her face, danced in her eyes, hoveredbewitchingly about her lips--and he wondered why he had not at firstglance noted how sweet and charmingly fresh her mouth was. "Why, she'sbeautiful," he said to himself, the manly man's inevitable interestin feminine charm wide awake. "Really beautiful. If she had afigure--and were tall--" As he thought thus, he glanced at her figure.A figure? Tall? She certainly was tall--no, she wasn't--yes, shewas. No, not tall from head to foot, but with the most captivatinglong lines--long throat, long bust, long arms, long in body and inlegs--long and slender--yet somehow not tall. He--all this took but aninstant--returned his glance to her face. He was startled. The beautyhad fled, leaving not a trace behind. Before him wavered once more asmall insignificance. Even her skin now seemed commonplace.

  She was saying, "Did you wish me to do something?"

  "Yes--a letter. Come in," he said abruptly.

  Once more the business in hand took possession of his mind. He becameunconscious of her presence. He dictated slowly, carefully choosing hiswords, for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Then he stopped and paced upand down, revolving a new idea, a new phase of the business, that hadflashed upon him. When he had his thoughts once more in form he turnedtoward the girl, the mere machine. He gazed at her in amazement. When hehad last looked, he had seen an uninteresting nonentity. But that wasnot this person, seated before him in the same garments and with thesame general blondness. That person had been a girl. This time thetransformation was not into the sweet innocence of lovely childhood, butinto something incredibly different. He was gazing now at a woman, abeautiful world-weary woman, one who had known the joys and then thesorrows of life and love. Heavy were the lids of the large eyes gazingmournfully into infinity--gazing upon the graves of a life, the long,long vista of buried joys. Never had he seen anything so sad or solovely as her mouth. The soft, smooth skin was not merely pale; itspallor was that of wakeful nights, of weeping until there were no moretears to drain away.

  "Miss Hallowell--" he began.

  She startled; and like the flight of an interrupted dream, the woman hehad been seeing vanished. There sat the commonplace young person he hadfirst seen. He said to himself: "I must be a little off my baseto-night," and went on with the dictation. When he finished she withdrewto transcribe the letter on the typewriter. He seated himself at hisdesk and plunged into the masses of documents. He lost the sense of hissurroundings until she stood beside him holding the typewritten pages.He did not glance up, but seized the sheets to read and sign.

  "You may go," said he. "I am very much obliged to you." And hecontrived, as always, to put a suggestion of genuineness into thecustomary phrase.

  "I'm afraid it's not good work," said she. "I'll wait to see if I am todo any of it over."

  "No, thank you," said he. And he looked up--to find himself gazing atstill another person, wholly different from any he had seen before. Theothers had all been women--womanly women, full of the weakness, thedelicateness rather, that distinguishes the feminine. This woman he waslooking at now had a look of strength. He had thought her frail. He wasseeing a strong woman--a splendidly healthy body, with sinews of steelmost gracefully covered by that fair smooth skin of hers. And herfeatures, too--why, this girl was a person of character, of will.

  He glanced through the pages. "All right--thank you," he said hastily."Please don't stay any longer. Leave the other thing till to-morrow."

  "No--it has to be done to-night."

  "But I insist upon your going."

  She hesitated, said quietly, "Very well," and turned to go.

  "And you mustn't do it at home, either."

  She made no reply, but waited respectfully until it was evident hewished to say no more, then went out. He bundled together his papers,sealed and stamped and addressed his letter, put on his overcoat and hatand crossed the outer office on his way to the door. It was empty; shewas gone. He descended in the elevator to the street, remembered that hehad not locked one of his private cases, returned. As he opened theouter door he heard the sound of typewriter keys. In the corner, theobscure, sheltered corner, sat the girl, bent with childlike gravityover her typewriter. It was an amusing and a touching sight--she lookedso young and so solemnly in earnest.

  "Didn't I tell you to go home?" he called out, with mock sternness.

  Up she sprang, her hand upon he
r heart. And once more she was beautiful,but once more it was in a way startlingly, unbelievably different fromany expression he had seen before.

  "Now, really. Miss--" He had forgotten her name. "You must not stay onhere. We aren't such slave drivers as all that. Go home, please. I'lltake the responsibility."

  She had recovered her equanimity. In her quiet, gentle voice--but it nolonger sounded weak or insignificant--she said, "You are very kind, Mr.Norman. But I must finish my work."

  "Haven't I said I'd take the blame?"

  "But you can't," replied she. "I work badly. I seem to learn slowly. IfI fall behind, I shall lose my place--sooner or later. It was that waywith the last place I had. If you interfered, you'd only injure me. I'vehad experience. And--I must not lose my place."

  One of the scrub women thrust her mussy head and ragged, shapeless bodyin at the door. With a start Norman awoke to the absurdity of hissituation--and to the fact that he was placing the girl in acompromising position. He shrugged his shoulders, went in and locked thecabinet, departed.

  "What a queer little insignificance she is!" thought he, and dismissedher from mind.