Norman colored, moved uneasily. The fineness of this man's character made him uncomfortable. He could pity Hallowell as a misguided failure. He could dilate himself as prosperous, successful, much the more imposing and important figure in the contrast. Yet there was somehow a point of view at which, if one looked carefully, his own sort of man shriveled and the Hallowell sort towered. "I _must_ be going," Norman said. "No--don't come with me. I know the way. I've interrupted you long enough." And he put out his hand and, by those little clevernesses of manner which he understood so well, made it impossible for Hallowell to go with him to Dorothy. He was glad when he shut the door between him and her father. He paused in the hall to dispel the vague, self-debasing discomfort--and listening to _her_ voice as she sang helped wonderfully. There is no more trying test of a personality than to be estimated by the voice alone. That test produces many strange and startling results. Again and again it completely reverses our judgment of the personality, either destroys or enhances its charm. The voice of this girl, floating out upon the quiet of the cottage--the voice, soft and sweet, full of the virginal passion of dreams unmarred by experience--It was while listening to her voice, as he stood there in the dimly lighted hall, that Frederick Norman passed under the spell in all its potency. In taking an anaesthetic there is the stage when we reach out for its soothing effects; then comes the stage when we half desire, half fear; then a stage in which fear is dominant, and we struggle to retain our control of the senses. Last comes the stage when we feel the full power of the drug and relax and yield or are beaten down into quiet. Her voice drew him into the final stage, was the blow of the overwhelming wave's crest that crushed him into submission. She glanced toward the door. He was leaning there, an ominous calm in his pale, resolute face. She gazed at him with widening eyes. And her look was the look of helplessness before a force that may, indeed must, be struggled against, but with the foregone certainty of defeat. A gleam of triumph shone in his eyes. Then his expression changed to one more conventional. "I stopped a moment to listen, on my way out," said he. Her expression changed also. The instinctive, probably unconscious response to his look faded into the sweet smile, serious rather than merry, that was her habitual greeting. "Mr. Tetlow didn't get away from father so soon." "I stayed longer than I intended. I found it even more interesting than I had expected. . . . Would you be glad if your father could be free to do as he likes and not be worried about anything?" "That is one of my dreams." "Well, it's certainly one that might come true. . . . And you--It's a shame that you should have to do so much drudgery--both here and in New York."