Produced by Charles Keller and David GarciaIllustration I will teach you to love me he criedTHE GRAIN OF DUST_A NOVEL_BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPSILLUSTRATED BY AB WENZELL1911LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONSI will teach you to love he he criedYou wont make an outandout idiot of yourself will you UrsulaWould you like to think I was marrying you for what you haveor forany other reason whatever but for what you areIt has killed me he groanedShe glanced complacently down at her softly glistening shouldersFather    I have asked you not to interfere between Fred and meEvidently she had been cryingAt Josephines right sat a handsome young foreignerTHE GRAIN OF DUSTIInto the offices of Lockyer Sanders Benchley Lockyer  Normancorporation lawyers there drifted on a December afternoon a girl insearch of work at stenography and typewriting The firm was about themost important and most famousradical orators often said infamousinNew York The girl seemed at a glance about as unimportant and obscurean atom as the city hid in its vast ferment She was blondetawny hairfair 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 genderthat andnothing more She was plainly dressed like thousands of other girlsin darkish blue jacket and skirt and white shirt waist Her boots andgloves were neat her hair simply and well arranged Perhaps in theserespectsin neatness and tasteshe 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 ofKentuckys Julyin New York no one would have given her a second lookthis quiet young woman screened in an atmosphere of selfeffacementShe 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 twentyfive 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 slackenWhen 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 mouselikefashion said little obtruded herself never was all but forgottenNothing could have been more commonplace more trivial than the wholeincident The name of the girl was HallowellMiss Hallowell On thechief clerks 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 selfeffacing for anything so positive as themildest rebuke But the head office boy blushed awkwardlywhy he didnot know and could not discover though he often cogitated upon it Sheremained Miss HallowellOpposites suggest each other The dimmest personality in those officeswas the girl whose name imaged to everyone little more than a pencilnotebook and typewriting machine The vividest personality wasFrederick Norman In the list of names upon the outer doors of thefirms vast labyrinthine suite on the seventeenth floor of theSyndicate Building his name came lastand in the newest letteringsuggesting recentness of partnership In age he was the youngest of thepartners Lockyer was archaic Sanders an antique Benchley actuallyonly about fiftyfive had the air of one born in the grandfather classLockyer 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 thirtysevenat 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 worldthatamusesitself Some peoplethought he looked and was older than the age with which thebiographical notices credited him They knew him down town onlywherehe dominated by sheer force of intellect and willAs has been said the firm ranked among the greatest in New YorkIt was a trusted counselor in large affairscommercial financialpoliticalin 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 firmor rather of its profitson a basis thatgave him no less than one half of the wholeHis demand threw his four associates into paroxysms of rage andfearthe fear serving as a wholesome antidote to the rageIt 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 thoughtafter 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 upstartas he richly deserved they accepted his ultimatum Even the venerableand venerated Lockyerthan whom a more convinced selfdeceiver on thesubject of his own virtues never wore white whiskers black garmentsand the other badges of eminent respectabilityeven 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 thefirms most profitable business It costs heavily to live in New Yorkthe families of successful men are extravagant so conduct unbecoming agentleman may not there be resented if to resent is to cut down onesincome The time was as the dignified and nicely honorable Sandersobserved when these and