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diff --git a/old/28301-8.txt b/old/28301-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..21e9b75 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/28301-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11099 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beloved Woman, by Kathleen Norris + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Beloved Woman + +Author: Kathleen Norris + +Release Date: March 10, 2009 [EBook #28301] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BELOVED WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Katherine Ward and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + [Transcriber's Note: + Hyphenation standardized. + Archaic and variable spelling was preserved as printed. + Missing quotation marks were added to standardize usage. Otherwise, + the editor's punctuation style was preserved. + Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).] + + + + + THE + BELOVED WOMAN + + + BY KATHLEEN NORRIS + + + AUTHOR OF + _"Harriet and the Piper," etc._ + + + A. L. BURT COMPANY + + Publishers + New York + + Published by arrangement with Doubleday, Page & Company + Printed in U. S. A. + + + COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY + KATHLEEN NORRIS + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION + INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN + + COPYRIGHT 1920, 1921, BY THE PICTORIAL REVIEW COMPANY + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES + AT + THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. + + + TO + MARY O'SULLIVAN SUTRO + + For gifts beyond all counting and esteeming, + For kindness than which Heaven's self is not kinder, + For the old days of tears, and smiles, and dreaming, + This in acknowledgment, and in reminder. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +For forty-eight hours the snow-storm had been raging unabated over New +York. After a wild and windy Thursday night the world had awakened to a +mysterious whirl of white on Friday morning, and to a dark, strange day +of steady snowing. Now, on Saturday, dirty snow was banked and heaped +in great blocks everywhere, and still the clean, new flakes fluttered +and twirled softly down, powdering and feathering every little ledge +and sill, blanketing areas in spotless white, capping and hooding every +unsightly hydrant and rubbish-can with exquisite and lavish beauty. +Shovels had clinked on icy sidewalks all the first day, and even during +the night the sound of shouting and scraping had not ceased for a +moment, and their more and more obvious helplessness in the teeth of +the storm awakened at last in the snow-shovellers, and in the men and +women who gasped and stumbled along the choked thoroughfares, a sort of +heady exhilaration in the emergency, a tendency to be proud of the +storm, and of its effect upon their humdrum lives. They laughed and +shouted as they battled with it, and as Nature's great barrier of snow +threw down the little barriers of convention and shyness. Men held out +their hands to slipping and stumbling women, caught them by their +shoulders, panted to them that this was a storm, all right, this was +the worst yet! Girls, staggering in through the revolving glass doors +of the big department stores, must stand laughing helplessly for a few +seconds in the gush of reviving warmth, while they beat their wet +gloves together, regaining breath and self-possession, and straightened +outraged millinery. + +Traffic was congested, deserted trucks and motor-cars lined the side +streets, the subways were jammed, the surface cars helpless. Here and +there long lines of the omnibuses stood blocked in snow, and the press +frantically heralded impending shortages of milk and coal, reiterating +pessimistically: "No relief in sight." + +But late in Saturday morning there was a sudden lull. The snow stopped, +the wind fell, and the pure, cold air was motionless and sweet. The city +emerged exhausted from its temporary blanketing, and from the buried +benches of Bowling Green to the virgin sweep of pure white beyond Van +Cortlandt Park, began its usual January fight with the snow. + +A handsome, rosy old lady, wrapped regally in furs, and with a maid +picking her way cautiously beside her, was one of the first to take +advantage of the sudden change in the weather. Mrs. Melrose had been +held captive for almost two days, first by Thursday's inclement winds, +and then by the blizzard. Her motor-car was useless, and although at +sixty she was an extremely youthful and vigorous woman, her daughters +and granddaughter had threatened to use force rather than let her risk +the danger of an expedition on foot, at least while the storm continued. + +But now the wind was gone, and by the time Mrs. Melrose had been +properly shod, and coated, and hatted, there was even a dull glimmer +toward the southeast that indicated the location of the long-lost sun. +The old lady looked her approval at Fifth Avenue, with all its crudities +veiled and softened by the snowfall, and as she climbed into an omnibus +expressed herself firmly to Regina. + +"You mark my words, the sun will be out before we come home!" + +Regina, punching the two dimes carefully into the jolting receiver, made +only a respectful murmur for answer. She was, like many a maid, a snob +where her mistress was concerned, and she did not like to have Mrs. +Melrose ride in public omnibuses. For Regina herself it did not matter, +but Mrs. Melrose was one of the city's prominent and wealthy women, and +Regina could not remember that she had ever sunk to the use of a public +conveyance before to-day. The maid was glad when they descended at a +street in the East Sixties. They would probably be sent home, she +reflected, in Mrs. Liggett's car. For Regina noticed that private cars +were beginning to grind and slip over the snow again. + +Old Mrs. Melrose was going to see her daughter Alice, who was Mrs. +Christopher Liggett, because Alice was an invalid. It had been only a +few years after Alice's most felicitous marriage, a dozen years ago, +when an accident had laid the lovely and brilliant woman upon the bed of +helplessness that she might never leave again. There was no real reason +why the spine should continue useless, the great specialists said, there +was a hope--even a probability--that as Alice grew rested and strong, +after the serious accident, she might find herself walking again. But +Alice had been a prisoner for ten years now, and the mother and sister +who idolized her feared that she would never again be the old dancing +Alice and feared that she knew it. What Christopher Liggett feared they +did not know. He insisted that Alice's illness was but temporary, and +was tireless in his energetic pursuit of treatment for his wife. +Everything must be hoped, and everything must be tried, and Alice's +mother knew that one of the real crosses of her daughter's life was +sorrowful pity for Chris's optimistic delusions. + +The young Liggetts had sold the old house of Christopher's father, an +immense brownstone mansion a few squares away, and lived in a modern, +flat-faced gray-stone house that rose five stories from the beautifully +arranged basement entrance. There were stone benches at the entrance, +and a great iron grill, and two potted trees, and the small square +windows were leaded, and showed blossoming plants inside. The three long +windows above gave upon a little-used formal drawing-room, with a Gothic +fireplace of white stone at one end, and a dim jumble of rich colours +and polished surfaces between that and the big piano at the other. The +room at the back, on this floor, was an equally large and formal +dining-room, gleaming with carved mahogany and fretted plate, used only +on the rare occasions of a dinner-party. + +But on the floor above the gracious mistress of the house had her +domain, and here there was enough beauty and colour to make the whole +house live. The front room, cool all summer because it faced north, and +warm all winter, because of the great open fireplace that augmented the +furnace heat, was Alice's sitting-room; comfortable, beautiful, and +exquisitely ordered. None of the usual clutter of the invalid was there. +The fireplace was of plain creamy tiling, the rugs dull-toned upon a +dark, polished floor. There were only two canvases on the dove-gray +walls, and the six or seven photographs that were arranged together on +the top of one of the low, plain, built-in bookcases, were framed alike. +There were no meaningless vases, no jars or trays or plaques or +ornaments in Alice's room. Her flowers she liked to see in shining glass +bowls; her flat-topped desk was severely bare. + +But the cretonne that dressed her big comfortable chairs and her couch +was bright with roses and parrots and hollyhocks, and the same cretonne, +with plain net undercurtaining, hung at her four front windows. The room +was big enough to accommodate besides, even with an air of space and +simplicity, the little grand piano that Christopher played for her +almost every night. A great Persian tortoise-shell cat was at home here, +and sometimes Alice had her magnificent parrot besides, hanging himself +upside down on his gaily-painted stand, and veiling the beady, sharp eye +with which he watched her. The indulgent extravagance of her mother had +bound all the books that Alice loved in the same tone of stony-blue +vellum, the countless cushions with which the aching back was so +skillfully packed were of the same dull tone, and it pleased the persons +who loved her to amuse the prisoner sometimes with a ring in which her +favourite note was repeated, or a chain of old lapis-lazuli that made +Alice's appreciative blue eyes more blue. + +Back of Alice's room was a den in which Christopher could conduct much +of his personal business, and beyond that was the luxurious bathroom, a +modern miracle of enamel tiling and shining glass. Across the +sun-flooded back of the house were Alice's little bedroom, nunlike in +its rigid austerity, her nurse's room adjoining, and a square sun-room, +giving glimpses of roofs and trim back-gardens, full of flowers, with a +little fountain and goldfish, a floor of dull pink tiling, and plants in +great jars of Chinese enamel. Christopher had planned this delightful +addition to Alice's domain only a few years ago, and, with that +knowledge of her secret heart that only Christopher could claim, had let +her share the pleasure of designing and arranging it. It stretched out +across the west side of the spacious backyard, almost touching the +branches of the great plane tree, and when, after the painful move to +her mother's house, and the necessary absence during the building of it, +Alice had been brought back to this new evidence of their love and +goodness, she had buried her face against Christopher's shoulder, and +told him that she didn't think people with all the world to wander in +had ever had anything lovelier than this! + +One of the paintings that Alice might look at idly, in the silence of +the winter noon, was of a daisied meadow, stretching between walls of +heavy summer woodland to the roof of a half-buried farmhouse in the +valley below. The other picture was of the very mother who was coming +toward Alice now, in the jolting omnibus. But it was a younger mother, +and a younger Alice, that had been captured by the painter's genius. It +was a stout, imperious, magnificently gowned woman, of not much more +than thirty, in whose spreading silk lap a fair little girl was sitting. +This little earnest-eyed child was Alice at seven. The splendid, +dark-eyed, proud-looking boy of about fourteen, who stood beside the +mother, was Teddy, her only son, dead now for many years, and perhaps +mercifully dead. The fourth and last person pictured was the elder +daughter, Annie, who had been about nine years old then, Alice +remembered. Annie and Alice had been unusually alike, even for sisters, +but even then Annie's fair, aristocratic type of blonde prettiness had +been definite where Alice's was vague, and Annie's expression had been +just a trifle haughty and discontented where Alice's was always grave +and sweet. Annie had almost been a beauty, she was extremely and +conspicuously good-looking even now, when as Mrs. Hendrick von Behrens, +wife of a son of an old and wealthy Knickerbocker family, she was +supreme in the very holy of holies of the city's social life. + +Mrs. Melrose came unannounced upon her daughter to-day, and Alice's +colourless warm cheek flushed with happiness under her mother's fresh, +cold kiss. + +"Mummy--you darling! But how did you get here? Miss Slater says that the +streets are absolutely impassable!" + +"I came in the 'bus, dear," Mrs. Melrose said, very much pleased with +herself. "How warm and comfy you are in here, darling. But what did I +interrupt?" + +"You didn't interrupt anything," Alice said, quickly. "Chris telephoned, +and he's bringing Henrici--the Frenchman who wrote that play I loved +so--to tea. Isn't that fun? I'm so excited--and I think Chris was such a +duck to get hold of him. I was translating it, you know, and Bowditch, +who was here for dinner last night, told me he'd place it, if I finished +it. And now I can talk it over with Henrici himself--thanks to Chris! +Chris met my man at the club, and told him about me, and he said he +would be charmed. So I telephoned several persons, and I tried to get +hold of Annie----" + +"Annie has a lunch--and a board meeting at the hospital at four," +Annie's mother remembered, "and Leslie is at a girls' luncheon +somewhere. Annie had breakfast with me, and was rushing off afterward. +She's quite wonderfully faithful about those things." + +"Well, but you'll stay for lunch and tea, too, Mummy?" Alice pleaded. +She was lying back in her pillows, feasting her eyes upon her mother's +face with that peculiarly tense devotion that was part of her nature. +Rarely did a day pass without their meeting, and no detail touching +Annie's life, Annie's boys or husband, was too small to interest Alice. +She was especially interested, too, in Leslie, the eighteen-year-old +daughter that her brother Theodore had left to his mother's care; in +fact, between the mother and daughters, the one granddaughter and two +little grandsons, and the two sons-in-law of the Melrose family, a deep +bond existed, a bond of pride as well as affection. It was one of their +favourite boasts that to the Melroses the unity and honour of the family +was the first consideration in the world. + +But to-day Mrs. Melrose could not stay. At one o'clock she left Alice to +be put into her prettiest robe by the devoted Miss Slater, saw with +satisfaction that preparations for tea were noiselessly under way, +called Regina, odorous of tea and mutton chops, from the pantry, and +went out into the quiet cold of the winter noon. + +The old Melrose house was a substantial, roomy, brownstone building in +Madison Avenue, inconspicuous perhaps among several notoriously handsome +homes, but irreproachably dignified none the less. A few blocks below it +the commercial current of East Thirty-fourth Street ebbed and flowed; a +few blocks north the great façade of the Grand Central Station shut off +the street completely. Third Avenue, behind it, swarmed and rattled +alarmingly close, and Broadway flared its impudent signs only five +minutes' walk in the other direction, but here, in a little oasis of +quiet street, two score of old families serenely held their place +against the rising tide, and among them the Melroses confidently felt +themselves valued and significant. + +Mrs. Melrose mounted her steps with the householder's secret +complacency. They were scrupulously brushed of the last trace of snow, +and the heavy door at the top swung noiselessly open to admit her. She +suddenly realized that she was very tired, that her fur coat was heavy, +and her back ached. She swept straight to the dark old curving stairway, +and mounted slowly. + +"Joseph," she said over her shoulder, "send luncheon upstairs, please. +And when Miss Leslie comes in, tell her I should like to see her, if it +isn't too late. Anybody coming to-night?" + +"Mr. von Behrens telephoned that he and Mr. Liggett might come in for a +moment, on his way to the banquet at the Waldorf, Madam. But that was +all." + +"I may have dinner upstairs, too, if Leslie is going anywhere," Mrs. +Melrose said to herself, mounting slowly. And it seemed to her fatigue +very restful to find her big room warm and orderly, her coal fire +burning behind the old-fashioned steel rods, all the homely, +comfortable treasures of her busy years awaiting her. She sank into a +chair, and Regina flew noiselessly about with slippers and a loose silk +robe. Presently a maid was serving smoking-hot bouillon, and Mrs. +Melrose felt herself relaxed and soothed; it was good to be home. + +Yet there was trace of uneasiness, of something almost like +apprehension, in the look that wandered thoughtfully about the +overcrowded room. Presently she reached a plump, well-groomed hand +toward the bell. But when Regina came to stand expectantly near her, +Mrs. Melrose roused herself from a profound abstraction to assure her +that she had not rung--it must have been a mistake. + +"Miss Leslie hasn't come in?" + +"Not yet, Madam, Miss Melrose is at Miss Higgins's luncheon." + +"Yes; but it was an early luncheon," the grandmother said, +discontentedly. "She was playing squash, or tennis, or something! +Regina----" + +"Yes, Madam?" + +But Mrs. Melrose was musing again. + +"Regina, I am expecting a caller at four o'clock, a Mrs. Sheridan. +Please see that she is shown up at once. I want to see her here. And +please----" + +A pause. Regina waited. + +"That's all!" her mistress announced, suddenly. + +Alone again, the old lady stirred her tea, ruminated for a few moments +with narrowed eyes fixed on space, recalled herself to her surroundings, +and finished her cup. + +Her room was large, filled with chairs and tables, lamps and cushions, +silver trays and lacquer boxes, vases and jars and bowls, gift books +and current magazines. There was not an unbroken inch of surface +anywhere, the walls were closely set with pictures of all sorts. Along +the old-fashioned mantel, a scalloped, narrow shelf of marble, was a +crowding line of photographs in silver frames, and there were other +framed photographs all about the room. There were the young mothers of +the late eighties, seated to best display their bustles and their French +twists, with heavy-headed infants in their tightly cased arms, and there +were children's pictures, babes in shells, in swings, or leaning on +gates. There were three Annies: one in ringlets, plaid silk, and +tasselled boots, at eight; one magnificent in drawing-room plumes; and a +recent one, a cloudy study of the severely superb mother, with a +sleek-headed, wide-collared boy on each side of her. There was a +photograph of the son Theodore, handsome, sullen, dressed in the fashion +of the opening century, and there was more than one of Theodore's +daughter, the last of the Melroses. Leslie had been a wide-eyed, sturdy +little girl who carried a perpetually surprised, even a babyish +expression into her teens, but her last pictures showed the débutante, +the piquant and charming eighteen-year-old, whose knowingly tipped hat +and high fur collar left only a glimpse of pretty and pouting face +between. + +Leslie came in upon her grandmother at about three o'clock. She was +genuinely tired, after an athletic morning at the club, a luncheon amid +a group of chattering intimates, and a walk with the young man whose +attentions to her were thrilling not only her grandmother and aunts, but +the cool-blooded little Leslie herself. Acton Liggett was Christopher's +only brother, only relative indeed, and promised already to be as great +a favourite as the irresistible Chris himself. Both were rich, both +fine-looking, straightforward, honourable men, proud of their own +integrity, their long-established family, and their old firm. Acton was +pleasantly at home in the Melrose, Liggett, and Von Behrens houses, the +very maids loved him, and his quiet singling out of Leslie for his +devotion had satisfied everyone's sense of what was fitting and +delightful. Pretty Leslie, back from a summer's idling with Aunt Annie +and the little boys, in California and Hawaii, had found Acton's +admiration waiting for her, with all the other joys of her débutante +winter. + +And even the critical Aunt Annie had to admit that the little minx was +managing the whole matter with consummate skill. Leslie was not in the +least self-conscious with Acton; she turned to him with all the artless +confidence of a little sister. She asked him about her dancing partners, +and about her gowns, and she discussed with him all the various bits of +small gossip that concerned their own friends. + +"Should I have said that, Acton?" she would ask, trustfully. "Shall I be +Marion's bridesmaid? Would you?--after I refused Linda Fox, you know. I +don't like to dance with Louis Davis, after what you told me; what shall +I do when he comes up to me?" + +Acton was twenty-five, seven years her senior. He advised her earnestly, +over many a confidential cup of tea. And just lately, the grandmother +noticed exultantly, hardly a day passed that did not find the young +couple together. + +"How did Acton happen to meet you, lovey?" she asked to-day, _apropos_ +of the walk. + +"Why, he telephoned Vesta Higgins's, and asked me how I was going to get +home. I said, walk. There was no use trying motor-cars, anyway, for they +were slipping and bumping terribly! He said he was in the neighbourhood, +and he came up. Granny----" + +She paused, and her grandmother was conscious of a quickened heart-beat. +The thoughtful almost tremulous tone was not like giddy little Leslie. + +"Granny," the girl repeated, presently, "how old was my mother when she +got married?" + +"About twenty-two," the old woman said. + +"And how old was Aunt Annie when she did?" + +"Annie's about thirty-seven," her mother considered. "She was about +twenty-five. But why, dear?" + +"Nothing," said Leslie, and fell silent. + +She was still in the silk blouse and short homespun skirt that she had +worn at the athletic club luncheon, but she had thrown aside her loose +woolly coat, and the narrow furs that were no softer than her own fair +skin. Flung back into a deep chair, and relaxed after her vigorous day, +she looked peculiarly childish and charming, her grandmother thought. +She was like both her aunts, with Annie's fair, almost ashen hair and +Alice's full, pretty mouth. But she was more squarely built than either, +and a hint of a tip, at the end of her nose, gave her an expression at +once infantile and astonished. When Leslie opened her blue eyes widely, +and stared at anything, she looked like an amazed baby, and the effect +of her round eyes and tilted nose was augmented by her very fair skin, +and by just a sixteenth of an inch shortness in her upper lip. Of course +she knew all this. Her acquaintance with her own good and bad points had +begun in school days, and while through her grandmother's care her +teeth were being straightened, and her eyes and throat subjected to mild +forms of surgery, her Aunt Annie had seen to it that her masses of fair +hair had been burnished and groomed, her hands scraped and polished into +beauty, and finally that her weight was watched with scrupulous care. +Nature had perhaps intended Leslie to be plump and ruddy, but modern +fashion had decreed otherwise, and, with half the girls of her own age +and set, Leslie took saccharine in her tea, rarely touched sweets or +fried food, and had the supreme satisfaction of knowing that she was +actually too slim and too willowy for her height, and interestingly +colourless into the bargain. + +Could Acton possibly have said anything definite to start this unusual +train of thought, the grandmother speculated. With Leslie so +felicitously married, she would have felt ready for her _nunc dimittis_. +She watched Leslie expectantly. But the girl was apparently dreaming, +and was staring absently at the tip of one sturdy oxford above which a +stretch of thick white woollen stocking was visible almost to her knee. + +"How can they fall in love with them, dressed like Welsh peasants!" the +grandmother said to herself, in mild disapproval. And aloud she said: +"Ah, don't, lovey!" + +For Leslie had taken out a small gold case, and was regarding it +thoughtfully. + +"My first to-day, on my honour!" Leslie said, as she lazily lighted a +sweet-scented cigarette. It never occurred to her to pay any attention +to her grandmother's protest, for Grandmother had been regularly +protesting against everything Leslie had done since her adored and +despotic childhood. She had fainted when Leslie had dived off the dock +at Newport, and had wept when Leslie had galloped through the big iron +gates on her own roan stallion; she had called in Christopher, as +Leslie's guardian, when Leslie, at fifteen, had calmly climbed into one +of the big cars, and driven it seven miles, alone and unadvised, and +totally without instruction or experience. Leslie knew that this +half-scandalized and wholly-admiring opposition was one of her +grandmother's secret satisfactions, and she combatted it only +mechanically. + +"Have one, Grandma?" + +"Have one--you wild girl you! I'd like to know what a nice young man +thinks when a refined girl offers him----" + +"All the nice young men are smoking themselves, like chimneys!" + +"Ah, but that's a very different thing. No, my dear, no man, whether he +smokes himself or not, likes to have a sweet, womanly girl descend----" + +"Darling, didn't you ever do anything that my revered great-grandmother +Murison disapproved of?" Leslie teased, dropping on her knees before her +grandmother, and resting her arms on her lap. + +"Smoke----! My mother would have fainted," said Mrs. Melrose. "And don't +blow that nasty-smelling stuff in my face!" + +But she could not resist the pleasure that the lovely young face, so +near her own, gave her, and she patted it with her soft, wrinkled hand. +Suddenly Leslie jumped up eagerly, listening to the sound of voices in +the hall. + +"There's Aunt Annie--oh, goody! I wanted to ask her----" + +But it was Regina who opened the door, showing in two callers. The first +was a splendid-looking woman of perhaps forty-five, with a rosy, +cheerful face, and wide, shrewd gray eyes shining under a somewhat +shabby mourning veil. With her was a pretty girl of eighteen, or perhaps +a little more. + +Leslie glanced astonished at her grandmother. It was extremely unusual +to have callers shown in in this unceremonious fashion, even if she had +been rather unprepossessed by these particular callers. The younger +woman's clothing, indeed, if plain, was smart and simple; her severe +tailor-made had a collar of beaver fur to relieve its dark blue, and her +little hat of blue beaver felt was trimmed only by a band of the same +fur. She had attractive dark-blue eyes and a flashing smile. + +But her companion's comfortable dowdiness, her black cotton gloves, her +squarely built figure, and worn shoes, all awakened a certain contempt +in the granddaughter of the house, and caused Leslie shrewdly to surmise +that these humble strangers were pensioners of her grandmother, the +older one probably an old servant. + +"Kate Sheridan!" Old Mrs. Melrose had gotten to her feet, and had put +her arm about the visitor. "Well, my dear, my dear, I've not seen you +these----What is it? Don't tell me how many years it is! And which +daughter is this?" + +"This is my niece, Norma," the older woman said, in a delightful rich +voice that was full of easy confidence and friendliness. "This is Mrs. +Melrose, Norma, darling, that was such a good friend to me and mine +years ago!" + +"No warmer friend than you were to me, Kate," the old lady said, +quickly, still keeping an arm about the sturdy figure. "This is my +granddaughter, Theodore's little girl," Mrs. Melrose added, catching +Leslie with her free hand. + +Leslie was not more of a snob than is natural to a girl of her age and +upbringing, but she could not but give Mrs. Sheridan a pretty cool +glance. Grandmother's old friends were all very well---- + +But Mrs. Sheridan was studying her with affectionate freedom. + +"And isn't she Miss Alice's image! But she's like you all--she's like +Mr. Theodore, too, especially through the eyes!" + +And she turned back to her hostess, interested, animated, and as +oblivious to Leslie's hostile look as if the girl were her own picture +on the wall. + +"And you and my Norma must know each other," she said, presently, +watching the girls as they shook hands, with a world of love and +solicitude in her eyes. + +"Sit down, both you two," Mrs. Melrose said. Leslie glanced at the +strapped watch at her wrist. + +"Grandmother, I really----" she began. + +"No, you don't really!" her grandmother smiled. "Talk to Miss Sheridan +while I talk"--she turned smiling to her old friend--"to Kate! Tell me, +how are you all, Kate? And where are you all--you were in Detroit?" + +"We've been in New York more than two years now, and why I haven't been +to see you before, perhaps _you_ can tell me, for _I_ can't!" Kate +Sheridan said. "But my boy is a great big fellow now; Wolf's +twenty-four, and Rose is twenty-one, and this one," she nodded toward +Norma, who was exchanging comments on the great storm with Leslie, "this +one is nearly nineteen! And you see they're all working: Wolf's doing +wonderfully with a firm of machine manufacturers, in Newark, and Rose +has been with one real estate firm since we came. And Norma here works +in a bookstore, up the Avenue a bit, Biretta's." + +"Why, I go in there nearly every week!" the old lady said. + +"She told me the other night that she had been selling some books to Mr. +Christopher Liggett, and that's Miss Alice's husband, I hear," said Mrs. +Sheridan. "She's in what they call the Old Book Room," she added, +lowering her voice. "She's wonderful about books, reads them, and knows +them as if they were children--they think the world of her in there! And +I keep house for the three of them, and what with this and that--I never +have any time!" + +"But you have someone to help you, Kate?" the old lady asked, with her +amused and affectionate eyes on the other's wholesome face. + +"Why would I?" demanded Mrs. Sheridan, roundly. "The girls are a great +help----" + +"She always assumes a terrific brogue the minute you ask her why we +don't have someone in to help her," Norma contributed, with a sort of +shy and loving audacity. "She'll tell you in a minute that faith, she +and her sister used to run barefoot over the primroses, and they +blooming beyond anything the Lord ever created, and the spring on +them----" + +Leslie Melrose laughed out suddenly, in delighted appreciation, and the +tension between the two girls was over. They had not quite known how to +talk to each other; Norma naturally assuming that Leslie looked down +upon a seller of books, and anxious to show her that she was unconscious +of either envy or inferiority, and Leslie at a loss because her usual +social chatter was as foreign here as a strange tongue would be. But no +type is quicker to grasp upon amusement, and to appreciate the amuser, +than Leslie's, unable to amuse itself, and skilled in seeking for +entertainment. She was too shy to ask Norma to imitate her aunt again, +but her stiffness relaxed, and she asked Norma if it was not great "fun" +to sell things--especially at Christmas, for instance. Norma asked in +turn if Mr. Liggett was not Leslie's uncle, and said that she had sold +him hundreds of beautiful books for his wife, and had even had a note +from Leslie's Aunt Alice, thanking her for some little courtesy. + +"But isn't that funny!" Leslie said, with her childish widening of the +eyes. "That you should know Chris!" + +"Well, now," said Mrs. Sheridan's voice, cutting across both +conversations, "where can these girls go for about fifteen minutes? I'll +tell you my little bit of business, Mrs. Melrose, and then Norma and I +will go along. It won't take me fifteen minutes, for there's nothing to +decide to-day," the girls heard her add, comfortably, as they went into +the hall. + +"Leslie!" her grandmother called after her. "If you must change, +dear--but wait a minute, is that Aunt Annie out there?" + +"No, Grandma, just ourselves. What were you going to say?" + +"I was going to say, lovey, that you could ask Miss Sheridan to wait in +the library; her aunt tells me she is fond of books." Mrs. Melrose did +not quite like to commit Leslie to entertaining the strange girl for +perhaps half an hour. She was pleasantly reassured by Leslie's answering +voice: + +"We'll have tea in my room, Grandma. Marion and Doris may come in!" + +"That's right, have a good time!" her grandmother answered. And then +settling back comfortably, she added with her kind, fussy superiority, +"Well, Kate, I've wondered where you were hiding yourself all this time! +Let's have the business. But first I want to say that I appreciate your +turning to me. If it's money--I've got it. If it's something else, Chris +Liggett is one of the cleverest men in New York, and we'll consult him." + +"It's not money, thank God!" Mrs. Sheridan said, in her forthright +voice. "Lord knows where it all comes from, these days, but the children +always have plenty," she added, glad of a diversion. "They bought +themselves a car two years ago, and if it isn't a Victrola this week, +it's a thermos bottle, or a pair of white buckskin shoes! Rose told me +she paid eight dollars for her corsets. 'Eight dollars for what,' I +said, 'a dozen?' But then I've the two houses in Brooklyn, you know----" + +"You still have those?" + +"I have, indeed. And even the baby--we call Norma the baby--is earning +good money now." + +"She has your name, Kate--Sheridan. Had your husband a brother?" + +Kate Sheridan's face grew a trifle pale. She glanced at the door to see +that it was shut, and at the one to the adjoining room to make sure +that it was closed also. Then she turned to Mrs. Melrose, and it was an +anxious glance she directed at the older woman. + +"Well, now, there's no hurry about this," she began, "and you may say +that it's all nonsense, and send me packing--and God knows I hope you +will! But it just began to get on my mind--and I've never been a great +one to worry! I'll begin at the beginning----" + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Marion Duer and Doris Alexander duly arrived for tea with Leslie, and +Norma was introduced. They all sat in Leslie's room, and laughed as they +reached for crumpets, and marvelled at the storm. Norma found them +rather younger than their years, and shyly anxious to be gracious. On +her part she realized with some surprise that they were not really +unapproachable, and that Leslie was genuinely anxious to take her to tea +with Aunt Alice some day, and have them "talk books and things." The +barriers between such girls as this one and herself, Norma was honest +enough to admit, were largely of her own imagining. They were neither so +contemptibly helpless nor so scornfully clever as she had fancied them; +they were just laughing girls, absorbed in thoughts of gowns and +admirers and good times, like her cousin Rose and herself. + +There had been perhaps one chance in one hundred that she and Leslie +Melrose might at once become friends, but by fortunate accident that +chance had favoured them. Leslie's spontaneous laugh in Mrs. Melrose's +room, her casual mention of tea, her appreciative little phrases as she +introduced to Marion and Doris the young lady who picked out books for +Aunt Alice, had all helped to crush out the vaguely hostile impulse +Norma Sheridan had toward rich little members of a society she only knew +by hearsay. Norma had found herself sitting on Leslie's big velvet +couch laughing and chatting quite naturally, and where Norma chatted +naturally the day was won. She could be all friendliness, and all +sparkle and fun, and presently Leslie was listening to her in actual +fascination. + +The butler announced a motor-car, a maid came up; Doris and Marion had +to go. Leslie and Norma went into Leslie's dressing-room, and Leslie's +maid went obsequiously to and fro, and the girls talked almost +intimately as they washed their hands and brushed their hair. Neither +cared that the time was passing. + +But the time was passing none the less. Five o'clock came with a pale +and uncertain sunset, and a cold twilight began to settle over the snowy +city. Leslie and Norma came back to the fire, and were standing there, a +trifle uncertainly, but still talking hard and fast, when there was an +interruption. + +They looked at each other, paling. What was that? + +There was utter silence in the old house. Leslie, with a frightened look +at Norma, ran to the hall door. As she opened it Mrs. Sheridan opened +the door of her grandmother's room opposite, and called, quite loudly: + +"It's nothing, dear! Get hold of your grandmother's maid--somebody! She +feels a little--but she's quite all right!" + +Leslie and Norma ran across the hall, and into Mrs. Melrose's room. By +this time Regina had come flying in, and two of the younger maids, and +Joseph had run upstairs. Leslie had only one glimpse of her grandmother, +leaning against Regina's arm, and drinking from a glass of water that +shook in the maid's hands. Then Mrs. Sheridan guided both herself and +Norma firmly into the hall, and reassured them cheerfully: + +"The room was very hot, dear, and your grandmother said that she had +gotten tired, walking in the wind. She's quite all right--you can go in +immediately. No; she didn't faint--she just had a moment of dizziness, +and called out." + +Regina came out, too evidently convinced that she had to deal with a +murderess, and coldly asked that Mrs. Sheridan would please step back +for a minute. Mrs. Sheridan immediately complied, but it was hardly more +than a minute when she joined the girls again. + +"She wants to see you, dear," she said to Leslie, whose first frightened +tears had dried from bewilderment and curiosity, "and we must hurry on. +Come, Norma, we'll say good-night!" + +"Good-night, Miss Melrose," Norma said. + +"Good-night," Leslie answered, hesitating over the name. Her wide +babyish smile, the more appealing because of her wet lashes, made a +sudden impression upon Norma's heart. Leslie hung childishly on the +upstairs balustrade, in the dim wide upper hall, and watched them go. +"I--I almost called you Norma!" she confessed, mischievously. + +"I wish you had!" Norma called up from below. She was in great spirits +as they went out into the deepening cold blue of the street, and almost +persuaded her aunt to take the omnibus up the Avenue. But Mrs. Sheridan +protested rather absent-mindedly against this extravagance. They were +close to the subway and that was quicker. + +Norma could not talk in the packed and swaying train, and when they +emerged at Sixty-fifth Street they had only one slippery, cold, dark +block to walk. But when they had reached the flat, and snapped on +lights everywhere, and cast off outer garments, aproned and busy, in the +kitchen, she burst out: + +"What on earth was the matter with that old lady, Aunt Kate?" + +"Oh, I suppose they all eat too much, and sleep too much, and pamper +themselves as if they were babies," her aunt returned, composedly, "and +so it doesn't take much to upset 'em!" + +"Oh, come now!" the girl said, stopping with arrested knife. "That +wasn't what made her let out a yell like that!" + +Mrs. Sheridan, kneeling at the oven of the gas stove, laughed uneasily. + +"Oh, you could hear that, could you?" + +"Hear it! They heard it in Yonkers." + +"Well," Mrs. Sheridan said, "she has always been high-strung, that one. +I remember years ago she'd be going into crying and raving fits. She's +got very deep affections, Mrs. Melrose, and when she gets thinking of +Theodore, and of Alice's accident, and this and that, she'll go right +off the handle. She had been crying, poor soul, and suddenly she began +this moaning and rocking. I told her I'd call someone if she didn't +stop, for she'd go from bad to worse, with me." + +"But why with you, Aunt Kate? Do you know her so well?" + +"Do I know them?" Mrs. Sheridan dug an opener into a can of corn with a +vigorous hand. "I know them all!" + +"But how was that?" Norma persisted, now dropping her peeled potatoes +into dancing hot water. + +"I've told you five thousand times, but you and Rose would likely have +one of your giggling fits on, and not a word would you remember!" her +aunt said. "I've told you that years ago, when your Uncle Tom died, and +I was left with two babies, and not much money, a friend of mine, a +milliner she was, told me that she knew a lady that wanted someone to +help manage her affairs--household affairs. Well, I'd often helped your +Uncle Tom with his books, and my mother was with me, to look out for the +children----" + +"Where was I, Aunt Kate?" + +"You! Wolf wasn't but three, and Rose a year old--where would you be?" + +"I was minus two years," Norma said, sententiously. "I was part of the +cosmic all----" + +"You be very careful how you talk about such things until you're a +married woman!" her aunt said. "Salt those potatoes, darling. Norma, can +you remember what I did with the corn that Rose liked so?" + +Norma was attentive. + +"You beat it up with eggs, and it came out a sort of puff," she +recalled. "I know--you put a little cornstarch in, to give it body! +Listen, Aunt Kate, how long did you stay with Mrs. Melrose?" + +"Well, first I just watched her help for her, and paid the bills, and +went to market. And then I got gradually managing more and more; I'd go +to pay her interest, or deposit money, or talk to tenants; I liked it +and she liked me. And then she talked me into going to France with her, +but I cried all the way for my children, and I was glad enough to come +home again! She and Miss Annie spent some time over there, but I came +back. Miss Alice was in school, and Theodore--dear knows where he +was--into some mischief somewhere! But I'd saved money, and she'd given +me the Brooklyn houses, and I took a boarder or two, and that was the +last I ever worked for any one but my own!" + +"Well, that's a nice girl, that Leslie," Norma said, "if her father +_was_ wild!" + +"Her mother was a good girl," Kate said, "I knew her. But the old lady +was proud, Baby--God save any one of us from pride like that! You'd +never know it, to see her now, but she was very proud. Theodore's wife +was a good girl, but she was Miss Annie's maid, and what Mrs. Melrose +never could forgive was that when she ordered the girl out of the house, +she showed her her wedding certificate. She was Mrs. Theodore Melrose, +fast enough--though his mother never would see her or acknowledge her in +any way." + +"They must think the Lord has made a special arrangement for +them--people like that!" Norma commented, turning a lovely flushed face +from the pan where she was dexterously crisping bacon. "What business is +it of hers if her son marries a working girl? That gives me a feeling +akin to pain--just because she happens to have a lot of money! What does +Miss Leslie Melrose think of that?" + +"I don't know what she thinks--she loves her grandmother, I suppose. +Mrs. Melrose took her in when she was only a tiny girl, and she's been +the apple of her eye ever since. Theodore and his wife were divorced, +and when Leslie was about four or five he came back to his mother to +die--poor fellow! It was a terrible sorrow to the old lady--she'd had +her share, one way and another! My goodness, Norma," Mrs. Sheridan +interrupted herself to say, in half-reproachful appreciation, "I wish +you'd always help me like this, my dear! You can be as useful as ten +girls, when you've a mind to! And then perhaps to-morrow you'll be as +contrary----!" + +"Oh, Aunt Kate, aren't you ashamed! When I ironed all your dish-towels +last night, when you were setting bread, and I made the popovers +Sunday!" Norma kissed her aunt, brushed a dab of cornstarch from the +older woman's firm cheek, and performed a sort of erratic dance about +the protestant and solid figure. "I'm a poor working girl," she said, +"and I get dragged out with my long, hard day!" + +"Well, God knows that's true, too," her aunt said, with a sudden look of +compunction; "you may make a joke of it, but it's no life for a girl. My +dear," she added, seriously, holding Norma with a firm arm, and looking +into her eyes, "I hope I did no harm by what I did to-day! I did it for +the best, whatever comes of it." + +"You mean stirring up the whole thing?" Norma asked, frowning a little +in curiosity and bewilderment. "Going to see her?" + +"That--yes." Mrs. Sheridan rubbed her forehead with her hand, a fashion +she had when puzzled or troubled, and suddenly resumed, with a great +rattling of pans and hissing of water, her operations at the sink. +"Well, nothing may come of it--we'll see!" she added, briskly. Norma, +who was watching her expectantly, sighed disappointedly; the subject was +too evidently closed. But a second later she was happily distracted by +the slamming of the front door; Wolf and Rose Sheridan had come in +together, and dinner was immediately served. + +Norma recounted, with her own spirited embellishments, her adventures of +the afternoon as the meal progressed. She had had "fun" getting to the +office in the first place, a man had helped her, and they had both +skidded into another man, and bing!--they had all gone down on the ice +together. And then at the shop nobody had come in, and the lights had +been lighted, and the clerks had all gathered together and talked. Then +Aunt Kate had come in to have lunch, and to have Norma go with her to +the gas company's office about the disputed charge, and they had decided +to make, at last, that long-planned call on the Melroses. There followed +a description of the big house and the spoiled, pretty girl, and the +impressive yet friendly old lady. + +"And Aunt Kate--I'm sorry to say!--talked her into a nervous convulsion. +You did, Aunt Kate--the poor old lady gave one piercing yell----" + +"You awful girl, there'll be a judgment on you for your impudence!" her +aunt said, fondly. But Rose looked solicitously at her mother, and said: + +"Mother looks as if she had had a nervous convulsion, too. You look +terribly tired, Mother!" + +"Well, I had a little business to discuss with Mrs. Melrose," Mrs. +Sheridan said, "and I'm no hand for business!" + +"You know it!" Wolf Sheridan concurred, with his ready laugh. "Why +didn't you send me?" + +"It was her business, lovey," his mother said, mildly, over her second +heartening cup of strong black tea. + +The Sheridan apartment was, in exterior at least, exactly like one +hundred thousand others that line the side streets of New York. It faced +the familiar grimy street, fringed on the great arteries each side by +cigarette stands and saloons, and it was entered by the usual flight of +stained and shabby steps, its doorway showing a set of some dozen +letter-boxes, and looking down upon a basement entrance frequently +embellished with ash-cans and milk-bottles, and, just at present, with +banks of soiled and sooty snow. The Sheridans climbed three long flights +inside, to their own rooms, but as this gained them a glimpse of river, +and a sense in summer of airiness and height, to say nothing of pleasant +nearness to the roof, they rarely complained of the stairs--in fact, +rarely thought of them at all. + +With the opening of their own door, however, all likeness to their +neighbours ceased. Even in a class where home ties and home comforts are +far more common than is generally suspected, Kate Sheridan was +exceptional, and her young persons fortunate among their kind. Her +training had been, she used to tell them, "old country" training, but it +was not only in fresh linen and hot, good food that their advantage lay. +It was in the great heart that held family love a divine gift, that had +stood between them and life's cold realities for some twenty courageous +years. Kate idolized her own two children and her foster-child with a +passion that is the purest and the strongest in the world. In possessing +them, she thought herself the most blessed of women. To keep a roof over +their heads, to watch them progress triumphantly through long division +and measles and skates, to see milk glasses emptied and plates scraped, +to realize that Wolf was as strong morally as he was physically, and +that all her teachers called Rose an angel, to spoil and adore the +beautiful, mischievous, and amusing "Baby"; this made a life full to the +brim, for Kate, of pride and happiness. Kate had never had a servant, +or a fur coat; for long intervals she had not had a night's unbroken +rest; and there had been times, when Wolf's fractured arm necessitated a +doctor's bill, or when coal for the little Detroit house had made a +disproportionate hole in her bank account, in which even the thrifty +Kate had known biting financial worry. + +But the children never knew it. They knew only her law of service and +love. They must love each other, whatever happened. There was no +quarrelling at meals at Kate's house. Rose must of course oblige her +brother, sew on the button, or take his book to the library; Wolf must +always protect the girls, and consider them. Wolf firmly believed his +sister and cousin to be the sweetest girls in the world; Rose and Norma +regarded Wolf as perfection in human form. They rarely met without +embraces, never without brightening eyes and light hearts. + +That this attitude toward each other was only the result of the healthy +bodies and honest souls that Kate had given them they would hardly have +believed. That her resolute training had literally forced them to love +and depend upon themselves in a world where brothers and sisters as +habitually teased and annoyed each other, would have struck them as +fantastic. Perhaps Kate herself hardly knew the power of her own will +upon them. Her commands in their babyhood had not been couched in the +language of modern child-analysts, nor had she given, or been able to +give, any particular reason for her law. But the instinct by which she +drew Wolf's attention to his sister's goodness, or noted Wolf's +cleverness for Rose's benefit, was better than any reason. She summed +the situation up simply for the few friends she had, with the phrase: + +"They're all crazy about each other, every one of them!" + +Kate's parlour would have caused Annie von Behrens actual faintness. But +it was a delightful place to Rose and Wolf and their friends. The +cushioned divan on Sunday nights customarily held a row of them, the +upright ebony piano sifted popular music impartially upon the taboret, +the patent rocker, and the Rover rug. They laughed, gossiped, munched +candy, and experimented in love-making quite as happily as did Leslie +and her own intimates. They streamed out into the streets, and sauntered +along under the lights to the moving pictures, or on hot summer nights +they perched like tiers of birds on the steps, and the world and youth +seemed sweet to them. In Kate's dining-room, finished in black wood and +red paper, they made Welsh rarebits and fudge, and in Kate's spotless +kitchen odours of toast and coffee rose at unseemly hours. + +Lately, Rose and Norma had been talking of changes. Rose was employed in +an office whose severe and beautiful interior decoration had cost +thousands of dollars, and Norma's Old Book Room was a study in dull +carved woods, Oriental rugs, dull bronzes, and flawless glass. The girls +began to feel that a plain cartridge paper and net curtains might well +replace the parlour's florid green scrolling and Nottingham lace. But +they did not worry about it; it served as a topic to amuse their leisure +hours. The subject was generally routed by a shrewd allusion, from Norma +or Wolf, to the sort of parlour people would like if they got married, +married to someone who was doing very well in the shoe business, for +example. + +These allusions deepened the colour in Rose's happy face; she had been +"going" for some three months with an attractive young man who exactly +met these specifications--not her first admirer, not noticeable for any +especial quality, yet Rose and Norma, and Kate, too, felt in their souls +that Rose's hour had come. Young Harry Redding was a big, broad, rather +inarticulate fellow, whose humble calling was not the more attractive to +the average young woman because he supported his mother by it. But he +suited Rose, more, he seemed wonderful to Rose, and because her dreams +had always been humble and self-sacrificing, Harry was a thousand times +more than she had dreamed. She felt herself the luckiest girl in the +world. + +Kate sat at the head of her table, and Wolf at the foot. Rose, a gentle, +quiet copy of her handsome mother, was nearest the kitchen door, to +which she made constant flying trips. Norma was opposite Rose, and by +falling back heavily could tip her entire chair against the sideboard, +from which she extracted forks or salt or candy, as the case might be. +The telephone was in the dining-room, Wolf's especial responsibility, +and Mrs. Sheridan herself occasionally left the table for calls to the +front door or the dumb-waiter. + +To-night, after supper, the girls flew through their share of +clearing-up. It never weighed very heavily upon them; they usually began +the process of piling and scraping dishes before they left the table, +Rose whisking the tablecloth into its drawer as Norma bumped through the +swinging door with the last dishes, and Kate halfway through the washing +even then. Chattering and busy, they hustled the hot plates onto their +shelves, rattled the hot plated ware into its basket, clanked saucepans, +and splashed water. Not fifteen minutes after the serving of the dessert +the last signs of the meal had been obliterated, and Kate was guilty of +what the girls called "making excuses" to linger in the kitchen. She was +mixing cereal, storing cold potatoes and cut bread, soaking dish-towels. +But these things did not belong to the duties of Norma and Rose, and the +younger girl could flash with a free conscience to the little room she +shared with Rose. Wolf had called out for a companion, they were going +to take a walk and see what the blizzard had done! + +Norma washed her face, the velvety skin emerging with its bloom +untouched, the lips crimson, the blue eyes blazing. She pressed a great +wave of silky dark hair across her white forehead, and put the +fur-trimmed hat at a dashing angle. The lace blouse, the pearl beads, +her fur-collared coat again, and Norma was ready to dance out beside +Wolf as if fatigue and labours did not exist. + +"Where's Rose?" he said, as they went downstairs. + +"Oh, Wolf--Saturday night! Harry's coming, of course!" Norma slipped her +little hand, in its shabby glove, through his big arm. "She and Aunt +Kate were gossiping!" + +"Suits me!" Wolf said, contentedly. He held her firmly on the slippery +lumps of packed snow. The sidewalks were almost impassable, yet hundreds +of other happy persons were stumbling and scrambling over them in the +mild winter darkness. Stars were out; and whether Norma was blinking up +at them, or staring into lighted windows of candy stores and fruit +markets, her own eyes danced and twinkled. The elevated trains thundered +above their heads, and the subway roared under their feet; great +advertising signs, with thousands of coloured lights, fanned up and down +in a haze of pink and blue; the air was full of voices, laughing and +shouting, and the screaming of coasting children. + +"I have my pearls on," Norma told her companion. They stopped for some +molasses peppermints, and their pungent odour mingled for Norma in the +impression of this happy hour. "Wolf, how do they do that?" the girl +asked, watching an electric sign on which a maid mopped a dirty floor +with some prepared cleaner, leaving the floor clean after her mop. Wolf, +interested, explained, and Norma listened. They stopped at a drug store, +and studied a picture that subtly altered from Roosevelt's face to +Lincoln's, and thence to Wilson's face, and Wolf explained that, too. +Norma knew that he understood everything of that nature, but she liked +to impress him, too, and did so far more often than she realized, with +her book-lore. When Norma spoke lightly of a full calf edition de luxe +of the Sonnets from the Portuguese, she might almost have been speaking +in that language for all she conveyed to Wolf, but he watched the +animated face proudly just the same. Rose had always been good and +steady and thoughtful, but Wolf knew that Norma was clever, taking his +big-brotherly patronage with admiring awe, but daring where he +hesitated, and boldly at home where he was ill at ease. When she said +that when she got married she wanted Dedham china, and just a plain, +glass bowl for goldfish, Wolf nodded, but he would have nodded just as +placidly if she had wanted a Turkish corner and bead portières. And +to-night when she asserted that she wouldn't be Leslie Melrose for +anything in the world, Wolf asked in simple wonderment why she should +be. + +"Imagine, a maid came to take those big girls home, Wolf! They can speak +French," Norma confided. Wolf did not look for coherence from her, and +took the two statements on their face value. "Now, I know I'm not +pretty," she continued, following, as was usual with her, some obscure +line of thought, "but I'm prettier than Doris Alexander, and she had her +picture in the paper!" + +"Who broke it to you that you're not pretty?" Wolf asked. + +"Well, I _know_ I'm not!" Norma jumped along at his side for a few +minutes, eyeing him expectantly, but Wolf's mind was honestly busy with +this assertion, and he did not speak. Wasn't she pretty? Girls had funny +standards. "You know," she resumed, "you'd hate a girl like Leslie +Melrose, Wolf!" + +"Would I?" + +"Oh, you'd loathe her. But I'll tell you who you _would_ like," Norma +added, in a sudden burst. "You'd love Mr. Liggett!" + +"Why should I?" Wolf asked, in some surprise. + +"Oh, because he's nice--he's very good-looking, and he has such a +pleasant voice, as if he knew everything, but wasn't a bit conceited!" +Norma said. "And he picks out books for his wife, and when I try to tell +him something about them, he always knows lots more. You know, in a +pleasant, careless sort of way, not a bit as if he was showing off. And +I'll tell you what he did. Miss Drake was showing him a pottery bowl +one day, and she dropped it, and she told me he sort of caught at it +with his hand, and he said to Mr. Biretta, 'I've very stupidly broken +this--just put it on my bill, will you?' Of course," Norma added, +vivaciously, "old B. G. immediately said that it was nothing at all, but +_you know_ what Miss Drake would have caught, if _she'd_ broken it!" + +Perhaps Wolf did, but he was thinking at the moment that the family baby +was very cunning, with her bright eyes and indignant mouth. He stopped +her before a vaudeville house, in a flare of bright light. + +"Want to go in?" + +"Oh, Wolf! Would Aunt Kate care? Oh, Wolf, _let's_!" + +There was absolute ecstasy in her eyes as they went through the +enchanted doorway and up the rising empty foyer toward the house. It was +nine o'clock; the performance was fairly under way. Norma rustled into a +seat beside her companion without moving her eyes from the coloured +comedian on the stage; she could remove hat and gloves and jacket +without losing an instant of him. + +When the lights went up Wolf approved the dark hair and the pearls, and +bent toward her to hear the unending confidences. Norma thought she had +never seen anything better, and even Wolf admitted that it was a good +show. They finished the peppermints, and were very happy. + +They had seen the big film, and so could cut the last third of the +programme, and reach home at ten o'clock. There was no comment from Aunt +Kate, who was yawning over the evening paper in the dining-room. Rose +and Harry were murmuring in the dimly lighted parlour. Wolf, who was of +the slow-thinking, intense type that discovers a new world every time it +reads a new book, was halfway through a shabby library copy of "War and +Peace," and went off to his room with the second volume under his arm. +Norma went to her room, too, but she sat dreaming before the mirror, +thinking of that Melrose house, and of Leslie's friendliness, until Rose +came in at eleven o'clock. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +At almost this same moment Norma's self was the subject of a rather +unusual talk between Christopher Liggett and his wife. + +Christopher had come softly into his house, at about half-past ten, to +find Alice awake, still on the big couch before her fire. Her little +bedroom beyond was softly lighted, the white bed turned down, and the +religious books she always read before going to sleep laid in place by +Miss Slater. But Alice had no light except her fire and two or three +candles in old sconces. + +She welcomed Christopher with a smile, and he sat down, in his somewhat +rumpled evening dress, and smiled back at her in a rather weary fashion. +He often told her that these rooms of hers were a sanctuary, that he +tested the men and women he met daily in the world by her fine and lofty +standard. It was part of his utter generosity to her that he talked to +her as frankly as if he thought aloud, and it was Alice's pride and joy +to know that this marriage of theirs, which had so sadly and suddenly +become no marriage at all, was not as one-sided as the world might have +suspected. Her clear, dispassionate viewpoint and her dignified +companionship were not wifehood, but they were dear and valuable to him +none the less, a part of his life that he would not have spared. And he +could still admire her, too, not only for the exquisite clearness of her +intellect, her French and Italian, her knowledge of countries and +affairs, but physically--the clear, childish forehead that was as +unwrinkled as Leslie's, the fair, beautifully brushed hair, the mouth +with its chiselling of wisdom and of pain, and the transparent hand from +which she shook back transparent laces. She was always proud, always +fresh and fragrant, always free for him and for his problems, and it was +proverbial in the circle of their intimates that Chris admired Alice +with all his heart, and never felt himself anything but the privileged +guardian of a treasure. + +To-night he dropped into a chair before her fire, and she watched him +for five or six restful minutes in silence. + +"Stupid dinner?" she ventured. + +"Rotten!" he answered, cheerfully. "I was late, but I got in to hear +Hendrick's speech. The Vice-President was there, everyone else I knew. I +cut away finally; I'm done up." + +"I thought you picked up Hendrick on your way and went together," Mrs. +Liggett said, sympathetically. "I'm sorry it was dull--I suppose men +have to go to these political things!" + +Chris was leaning forward, his locked hands dropped between his knees, +and his eyes on the fire. + +"Hendrick and I stopped at your mother's," he said, deliberately, "and +she was so upset that I sent Hendrick on alone!" + +Alice's eyes lighted apprehensively, but she spoke very quietly. + +"What was it, Chris? Leslie getting saucy?" + +"Oh, no, no! It was a complication of things, I imagine!" Christopher +took out his cigarette-case, looked at its moiré surface reflectively, +and selected a smoke. "She was tired--she'd been out in the +snow--Leslie had gone off with Annie to some débutante affair--I daresay +she felt blue. Alice, do you remember a woman named Kate Sheridan?" + +The question was sudden, and Alice blinked. + +"Yes, I do," she answered, after a moment's thought, "she was a sort of +maid or travelling companion of Mama's. We called her Mrs. Sheridan--she +was quite a superior sort of person." + +"What do you remember about her, dear?" + +"Well--just that. She came when I was only a child--and then when Annie +was ill in Paris she went abroad with Mama--and I remember that she came +back, and she used to come see me at school, for Mama, and once she took +me up to Grandma's, in Brookline. She was a widow, and she had a +child--or two, maybe. Why, Chris?" + +Her husband did not answer, and she repeated the question. + +"Well," he said, at last, flinging the end of his cigarette into the +fire, "she came to see your mother to-day." + +Alice waited, a little at a loss. To her this had no particular +significance. + +"She had her niece with her, young girl about eighteen," Christopher +said. + +"Well--what _of_ it?" Alice demanded, with a sort of superb indifference +to anything such a woman might do. + +He looked at her through his round eyeglasses, with the slight frown +that many of life's problems brought to his handsome face. Then the +glass fell, on its black ribbon, and he laughed. + +"That's just what I don't _get_," he said, good-humouredly. "But I'll +tell you exactly what occurred. What's-His-Name, your mother's +butler----" + +"Joseph." + +"Joseph. Joseph told me that at about four o'clock this Mrs. Sheridan +came in. Your mother had told him that she was expecting the lady, and +that he was to bring her upstairs. With her came this girl--I can't +remember her name--but it was something Sheridan--Nora Sheridan, maybe. +Leslie carried the girl off for tea, and the woman stayed with your +mother. + +"Well, at five--or later, this Mrs. Sheridan ran into the hall, and it +seems--she's all right now!--it seems that your mother had fainted." + +"Mama!" Alice said, anxiously, with an incredulous frown. + +"Yes, but don't worry. She's absolutely all right now. Leslie," +Christopher went back to his narrative, "Leslie cried, and I suppose +there was a scene. Mrs. Sheridan and the girl went home--Leslie dressed +and went out--and your mother immediately telephoned Lee----" + +"Judge Lee?" + +"Yes--she said so. Lee's up in Westchester with his daughter, she +couldn't get him----" + +"But, Chris, why did she want her lawyer?" + +"That's just it--_why_? Well, then she telephoned here for me--I was on +my way there, as it happened, and just before eight Hendrick and I went +in. I could see she was altogether up stage, so I sent Von on and had it +out with her." + +"And what was her explanation, Chris?" + +Christopher laughed again. + +"I'll be darned," he said, thoughtfully, "if I can make head or tail of +it! It would be funny if it wasn't that she's taking it so hard. She was +in bed, and she had been crying--wouldn't eat any dinner----" + +"But, Chris," Alice said, worriedly, "what do you _make_ of it! What did +she _say_?" + +"Well, she clasped my hand, and she said that she had an opportunity to +undo a great wrong--and that I must help her--and not ask any +questions--she was just acting as you and I would have her act under the +circumstances----" + +"What circumstances?" Alice said, at an utter loss, as he paused. + +"She didn't say," he smiled. + +"Oh, come, now, Chris, she must have said more than that!" + +"No, she didn't. She said that she must make it up to this girl, and she +wished to see Lee about it immediately." + +"To change her will!" Alice exclaimed. + +"She didn't say so. Of course, it may be some sort of blackmail." +Christopher looked whimsically at his wife. "As I remember my +father-in-law," he said, "it seems to me improbable that out of the past +could come this engaging young girl--very pretty, they said----" + +"Father! Oh, nonsense!" Alice exclaimed, almost in relief at the +absurdity. "No, but it might be some business--some claim against the +firm," she suggested. + +"Well, I thought of that. But there are one or two reasons why it +doesn't seem the solution. I asked your mother if it was money, and she +said no, said it positively and repeatedly. Then I asked her if she +would like this Sheridan woman shut up, and she was quite indignant. +Kate!--Kate was one of the most magnificent women God had ever made, and +so on!" + +"Well, I do remember Mrs. Sheridan as a lovely sort of person," Alice +contributed. "Plain, you know, but quite wonderful for--well, +_goodness_. It's funny--but then you know Mama is terribly excitable," +she added, "she gets frightfully worked up over nothing, or almost +nothing. It's quite possible that when Kate recalled old times to her +she suddenly wished that she had done more for Kate--something like +that. She'd think nothing of sending for Judge Lee on the spot. You +remember her recalling us from our wedding-trip because she couldn't +find the pearls? All the way from Lake Louise to hear that they had been +lost!" + +"I know," Christopher smiled. "She is--unique, _ma belle mère_. By +George, I'll never forget our rushing into the house like maniacs, not +knowing what had happened to Leslie or Acton, and having her fall +sobbing into your arms, with the pearls in her hands!" + +"Mama's wonderful," Alice laughed. "Chris, did you eat any dinner?" + +He considered. + +"But I'm really not hungry, dear," he protested. + +Alice, superbly incredulous, rang at once. Who was in the kitchen? Well, +she was to be asked to send up a tray at once to Mr. Liggett. "Now that +you asked me, the dinner had reached the point of ice-cream in a paper +tub, as I sat down," he remembered. "You're a little miracle of healing +to me, Alice. When I came in here I didn't know _what_ we were up +against, as a family. Your mother wished the girl pensioned----" + +"Oh, Chris, not really?" + +"I give you my word!" But he was enough his usual self to have taken his +seat at the piano, now, and was looking at her across it, while his +fingers fitted themselves lazily to chords and harmonics. + +"I'll tell you something, if you'll promise to stop playing the instant +your supper comes up!" + +"I'll promise!" + +"Well, then--the new Puccini is there!" She nodded toward the +music-shelves, and he turned to the new score with an eager exclamation. +Fifteen minutes later she had to scold him to bring him to the fire +again, and to the smoking little supper. While Alice sipped ginger ale, +Christopher fell upon his meal, and they discussed the probable +presentation of the opera, and its quality. + +But an hour later, when she was in bed, and Christopher was going back +to the piano for another half-hour of music, she caught his hand. + +"Chris, you're not worried about this Sheridan matter?" + +"Worried? No, dearest child, what is there to worry about? It isn't +blackmail, apparently it's nothing but an overdose of imagination on +your mother's part. If the girl really was promised something, or +has--for example!--old stock, or if her father was an employee who did +this or that or the other--Mrs. Sheridan's husband was employed by your +father at the time of his death, by the way--why, it's easy enough to +pay the claim, whatever it is! The girl seems to have made a nice +impression--your mother tells me she's sold me books, but that doesn't +mean much, I buy books everywhere! No, I don't think you'll ever hear of +her again. But your mother will be here in a day or two; see what you +can make of it all!" + +"Oh, of course, it's nothing _wrong_!" Alice said, confidently. + +And Christopher returned to his beloved piano, relieved in mind by his +wife's counsel, refreshed in body by the impromptu supper, and ready for +the music that soothed in him all the restless and unsatisfied fibres of +his soul. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Annie, who signed herself "Anne Melrose von Behrens," was the real +dictator in the various circles of the allied families, and had a +fashion of finding herself supreme in larger circles, as well. Annie was +thirty-seven or eight, tall, thin, ash-blonde, superb in manner and +bearing. Nature had been generous to her, but she had done far more for +herself than Nature had. Her matchless skin, her figure, her hands, her +voice, were all the result of painstaking and intelligent care. Annie +had been a headstrong, undisciplined girl twenty years ago. She had come +back from a European visit, at twenty-three, with a vague if general +reputation of being "a terror." But Annie was clever, and she had real +charm. She spoke familiarly of European courts, had been presented even +in inaccessible Vienna. She spoke languages, quoted poets, had great +writers and painters for her friends, and rippled through songs that had +been indisputably dedicated, in flowing foreign hands, to the beautiful +Mademoiselle Melrose. Society bowed before Annie; she was the sensation +of her winter, and the marriage she promptly made was the most brilliant +in many winters. + +Annie proceeded to bear her sober, fine, dull, and devoted Hendrick two +splendid sons, and thus riveted to herself his lasting devotion and +trust. The old name was safe, the millions would descend duly to young +Hendrick and Piet. The family had been rich, conspicuous, and respected +in the city, since its sturdy Holstein cattle had browsed along the +fields of lower Broadway, but under Annie's hands it began to shine. +Annie's handsome motor-cars bore the family arms, her china had been +made in the ancestral village, two miles from Rotterdam, and also +carried the shield. Her city home, in Fifth Avenue, was so magnificent, +so chastely restrained and sober, so sternly dignified, that it set the +cue for half the other homes of the ultra-aristocratic set. Annie's +servants had been in the Von Behrens family for years; there was nothing +in the Avenue house, or the Newport summer home, that was not as +handsome, as old, as solid, as carven, as richly dull, or as purely +shining, as human ingenuity could contrive to have it. Collectors saved +their choicest discoveries for Annie; and there was no painter in the +new world who would not have been proud to have Annie place a canvas of +his among her treasures from the old. + +If family relics were worth preserving, what could be more remarkable +than Annie's Washington letter, her Jefferson tray, her Gainsboroughs of +the Murisons who had been the only Americans so honoured by the painter? +Melrose and Von Behrens honours crowded each other--here was the thin +old silver "shepherdess" cup awarded that Johanna von Behrens who had +won a prize with her sheep, while Washington was yet a boy; and here the +quaint tortoise-shell snuff-box that a great prince, homeless and +unknown, had given the American family that took him in; and the silver +buttons from Lafayette's waistcoat that the great Frenchman had +presented Colonel Horace Murison of the "Continentals." + +These things were not thrust at the visitor, nor indeed were they +conspicuous among the thousand other priceless souvenirs that Annie had +gathered about her. + +"Rather nice, isn't it?" Annie would say, abstractedly, when some +enthusiastic girl pored over the colonial letters or the old portraits. +"See here, Margaret," she might add, casually, "do you see the inside of +this little slipper, my dear? Read what's written there: 'In these +slippers Deborah Murison danced with Governor Winthrop, on the night of +her fifteenth birthday, July 1st, 1742.' Isn't that rather quaint?" + +Annie could afford to be casual, to be abstracted. In her all the pride +of the Melrose and Murison families was gathered; hers was an arrogance +so sure of itself, a self-confidence so supreme, that the world +questioned it no more than it questioned the heat of the sun. The old +silver, the Copleys, and the colonial china, the Knickerbocker "court +chests" with their great locks of Dutch silver, and the laces that had +been shown at the Hague two hundred years before, were all confirmed, +all reinforced, as it were, by the power and prosperity of to-day. It +was no by-gone glory that made brilliant the lives of Hendrick and Anne +Melrose von Behrens. Hendrick's cousins and uncles, magnificent persons +of title, were prominent in Holland to-day, their names associated with +that of royalty, and their gracious friendship extended to the American +branch of the family whenever Hendrick chose to claim it. Old maps of +New York bore the boundary lines of the Von Behrens farm; early +histories of the city mingled the names of Melrose and Von Behrens among +those of the men who had served the public need. + +Wherever there was needed that tone that only names of prominence and +wealth can bestow Annie's name was solicited. Wherever it appeared it +gave the instant stamp of dignity and integrity. She had seen this goal +dimly in the distance, when she stepped from her rather spoiled and +wilful girlhood into this splendid wifehood, but even Annie was +astonished at the rapidity with which it had come about. Mama, of +course, had known all the right people, even if she _had_ dropped all +social ties after Papa's death. And Hendrick's name was an open sesame. +But even so it was surprising, and it was gratifying. + +In appearance Annie had no problem. If she was not a beauty she was near +enough to being one. She was smart enough, and blonde enough, and +splendidly dressed enough to be instantly identifiable, and that was all +she desired. Financially, Annie had no problem. Her own inheritance and +her husband's great wealth silenced all question there. The Murison +pearls and the famous diamond tiara that her father had given her mother +years ago had come to Annie, but they were eclipsed by the Von Behrens +family jewels, and these were all hers, with the laces, and the ivories, +and the brocades. Life could give nothing more to Annie, but not many +women would have made so much of what Annie had. There was, far down and +out of sight, a little streak of the adventuress in her, and she never +stopped halfway. + +A young wife, Annie had dutifully considered her nursery. + +"Hendrick's is the elder line, of course, although it is the colonial +one," Annie had said, superintending a princely layette. The child was a +son, his father's image, and nobody who knew Annie was in the least +surprised that fortune had fallen in with her plans. It was the +magnificent Annie who was quoted as telling Madame Modiste to give her a +fitter who would not talk; it was Annie who decided what should be done +in recognizing the principals of the Jacqmain divorce, and that old +Floyd Densmore's actress-wife should not be accepted. Annie's neat and +quiet answer to a certain social acquaintance who remarked, in Annie's +little gallery, "I have seen the original of that picture, in one of the +European galleries," was still quoted by Annie's friends. "This _is_ the +original!" Annie had said quite simply and truthfully. + +Leslie admired her aunt more than any one else in the world. Grandma was +old-fashioned, and Aunt Alice insignificant, in Leslie's eyes, but +stunning, arrogant, fearless Aunt Annie was the model upon which she +would have based herself if she had known how. Annie's quick +positiveness with her servants, her cool friendliness with big men, and +clever men, her calm assurance as to which hats she liked, and which +hats she didn't, her utter belief in everything that was of Melrose or +von Behrens, and her calm contempt for everything that was not, were +masterly in Leslie's eyes. + +Annie might have been a strong royalist had she been born a few +generations earlier. But in Annie's day the ideal of social service had +been laid down by fashion, and she was consequently a tremendously +independent and energetic person, with small time for languishing airs. +She headed committees and boards, knew hundreds of working girls by +name, kept a secretary and a stenographer, and mentioned topics at big +dinners that would not have shocked either old Goodwife Melrose of +Boston, or Vrouw von Behrens of Nieu Amsterdam, for neither had the +faintest idea that such things, or their names, existed. + +Withal, Annie was attractive, even her little affectations were +impressive, and as she went about from luncheons to meetings, swept up +to her model nursery to revel in her model boys, tossed aside regal furs +and tore off princely rings the better to play with them, wrapped her +beautiful figure in satins and jewels to descend to formal dinners, she +was almost as much admired and envied and copied as she might fondly +have hoped to be. She managed her life on modern lines of efficiency, +planned ahead what she wished, tutored herself not to think of anything +undesirable as being even in the range of possibility, trod lightly upon +the sensitive souls of others, and asked no quarter herself, aimed high, +and enjoyed her life and its countless successes to the full. + +Of course there had been setbacks. Her brother Theodore, his most +unfortunate marriage to a servant, his intemperance, the general scandal +of his mother's violent detestation of his wife, all this was most +unpleasant. But Louison, the wife, upon sufficient pressure, had brought +her child to the Melroses, and had doubtfully disappeared, and Theodore +had returned from his wanderings to live, silent and unobtrusive, in his +mother's home, for several years, and to die with his daughter beside +him, and be duly laid in the Melrose plot at Woodlawn. And +Leslie--Leslie had repaid them all, for all of it. + +Alice was another disappointment, or had been one, to Annie. For Alice, +after having achieved a most unexpectedly satisfactory marriage, and +having set up her household gods in the very shadow of her sister's +brilliant example, as it were, had met with that most unfortunate +accident. For a few years Annie had been utterly exasperated whenever +she thought of it. For Christopher was really an extraordinary husband +for Alice to hold, even in normal circumstances. He was so outrageously, +frightfully, irresistibly popular with women everywhere, his wife must +needs keep a very sharp, albeit loving, eye upon him. A sickly wife--a +wife who was a burden and a reproach, that would be fatal to them all! + +But Alice had showed unsuspected courage and pride in this hard trial. +She had made herself beautiful, well-informed, tactful; she had made +herself a magnet to her husband's friends, and his home the centre of a +real social group. Annie respected her for it, and helped her by +flashing into her rooms not less often than every alternate day, with +gossip, with books, with hints that showed Alice just where her course +in this or that matter must lie. + +So Alice had come to be an actual asset, and now to her Aunt Annie's +tremendous satisfaction, Leslie promised to add one more feather to the +family cap by announcing her engagement to Acton Liggett. Annie smiled +to herself whenever she thought of it. When this was consummated she +would have nothing left but the selection of suitable wives for Hendrick +Junior, now aged ten, and Piet, who was four years younger. + +Two or three days after the ending of the big snow-storm, and the +beginning of that domestic storm that was destined strangely to change +some of the lives nearest her, Annie went in to have luncheon with her +sister. It was a brilliant sunshiny winter day, with crossings swimming +in melting snow and roofs steaming brightly into the clear air. + +Annie went straight upstairs to Alice's room, with the usual apology for +lateness. She kissed Alice lightly on the forehead, and while Freda was +coming and going with their meal, they discussed the little boys, books, +politics, and the difficulties of the city in the snow. + +But when they were alone Annie asked immediately: + +"What on earth is the matter with Mama, Alice?" + +"You mean about----? Did she tell you?" + +"No; she didn't have to. Leslie ran in yesterday afternoon, and told me +that Mama has been in bed since Saturday! I telephoned Sunday morning, +but Hendrick and I were taking the boys up to his uncle's house, in +Westchester, and--as she didn't say one word about being ill--I didn't +see her that day, nor yesterday, as it happened, for we didn't come down +until noon. When Leslie came in, there were other people there for tea, +and I didn't have a chance to speak to her alone. But I went over to +Mama this morning, and she seems all broken up!" + +"What did she tell you?" Alice asked, anxiously. + +"Oh, my dear, you know Mama! She wept, and patted my hand, and said that +it was sad to be the last of your own generation, and she hoped you and +I would always have each other, and that she had always loved us, and +tried to do her best for us----" + +Alice laughed. + +"Poor Mama! She gets so worked up!" she said. + +"But what do you make of it?" demanded Annie. "She talked of this Kate +Sheridan--I remember her perfectly, she came to Paris when I was so +ill, years ago. Poor Mama cried, and said that she wished to do +something for Kate. Now you know, Alice," Annie went on reasonably, +"nobody is tying Mama's hands! If she wants to educate this young +girl--this Norma person--to please Kate, or all her children for that +matter, she doesn't have to go into hysterics, and send for Judge Lee. +She said she didn't feel at all well, and she wanted to secure to Kate +some money in her will I told her it was ridiculous--she never looked +better in her life! I wish she could get over to see you, Alice; you +always soothe her so. What on earth does Chris make of it?" + +"Well, I'll tell you what we've done," Alice smiled. "Chris went to see +her Sunday, and they had a long talk. He tells me that she was just as +vague and unsatisfactory as ever, but calmer, and she finally admitted +that all she really wanted to do was to befriend this niece of Kate +Sheridan. Of course Chris and I think Mama has one of her funny notions +about it, but if the child's mother had befriended Mama, for example, a +thousand years ago, or if Mama had borrowed five dollars from Kate, and +forgotten to return it, you know that would be enough to account for all +this excitement." + +"Yes, I know!" Annie admitted, with her favourite look of intolerant, +yet indulgent, scorn. + +"Well, it seems the girl is in Biretta's Bookshop, and Chris has often +bought books of her. So to quiet Mama he promised that he would bring +her out here to have tea with me some day soon. Mama was delighted, and +I think she hopes that a friendship will come of it." Alice threw +herself back into the pillows, and drew a great breath as if she were +weary. "I only want to please Mama!" she finished. + +"You're an angel," Annie said, absently. "I suppose I could get the +truth out of Mama in five seconds," she mused. "It looks to me rather +like blackmail!" + +"No; she said not!" Alice contradicted, quickly. + +"Well, it's all so silly," the elder sister said, impatiently. "And +coming just now----" she added, significantly. + +"Yes. I know!" Alice agreed, with a comprehending look. And in lowered +tones they began to talk of Leslie's possible engagement. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Norma Sheridan saw the engagement announced in a morning paper two weeks +later, and carried the picture of pretty Miss Melrose home, to entertain +the dinner table. The news had been made known at a dinner given to +forty young persons, in the home of the débutante's aunt, Mrs. Hendrick +von Behrens. Miss Melrose, said the paper, was the daughter and heiress +of the late Theodore Melrose, and made her home with her grandmother. +Mr. Liggett was the brother of Christopher Liggett, whose marriage to +Miss Alice Melrose was a social event some years ago. A number of +dinners and dances were already planned in honour of the young pair. + +Norma looked at the pictured face with a little stir of feelings so +confused that she could not define them, at her heart. But she passed +the paper to her aunt with no comment. + +"You might send them two dozen kitchen towels, Mother," Wolf suggested, +drily, and Rose laughed joyously. Her own engagement present from her +mother had been this extremely practical one, and Rose loved to open her +lower bureau drawer, and gloat over the incredible richness of +possessing twenty-four smooth, red-striped, well-hemmed glass-towels, +all her own. Norma had brought her two thick, dull gray Dedham bowls, +with ducks waddling around them, and these were in the drawer, too, +wrapped in tissue paper. And beside these were the length of +lemon-coloured silk that Rose had had for a year, without making up, and +six of her mother's fine sheets of Irish linen, and two glass +candlesticks that Rose had won at a Five-hundred party. Altogether, Rose +felt that she was making great strides toward home-making, especially as +she and Harry must wait for months, perhaps a year. Norma had promised +her two towels a month, until there were a whole dozen, and Wolf, +prompted by the same generous little heart, told her not to give the +gas-stove a thought, for she was to have the handsomest one that money +could buy, with a stand-up oven and a water-heater, from her brother. +Rose walked upon air. + +But Norma was in a mood that she herself seemed unable to understand or +to combat. She felt a constant inclination toward tears. She didn't hate +the Melroses--no, they had been most friendly and kind. But--but it was +a funny world in which one girl had everything, like Leslie, and another +girl had no brighter prospect than to drudge away in a bookstore all her +life, or to go out on Sundays with her cousin. Norma dreamed for hours +of Leslie's life, the ease and warmth and beauty of it, and when Leslie +was actually heralded as engaged the younger girl felt a pang of the +first actual jealousy she had ever known. She imagined the beautiful +drawing-room in which Acton Liggett--perhaps as fascinating a person as +his brother!--would clasp pearls about Leslie's fair little throat; she +imagined the shining dinner tables at which Leslie's modestly dropped +blonde head would be stormed with compliments and congratulations. + +And suddenly molasses peppermints and dish-washing became odious to +her, and she almost disliked Rose for her pitiable ecstasies over china +bowls and glass-towels. All the pleasant excitement of her call upon +Mrs. Melrose, with Aunt Kate, died away. It had seemed the beginning of +some vaguely dreamed-of progress toward a life of beauty and +achievement, but it was two weeks ago now, and its glamour was fading. + +True, Christopher Liggett had come into Biretta's bookstore, with +Leslie, and he and Norma had talked together for a few minutes, and +Leslie had extended her Aunt Alice's kind invitation for tea. But no day +had been set for the tea, Norma reflected gloomily. Now, she supposed, +the stir of Leslie's engagement would put all that out of Christopher's +head. + +Wolf was not particularly sympathetic with her, she mused, +disconsolately. Wolf had been acting in an unprecedented manner of late. +Rose's engagement seemed to have completely turned his head. He laughed +at Norma, hardly heard her words when she spoke to him, and never moved +his eyes from her when they were together. Norma could not look up from +her book, or her plate, or from the study of a Broadway shop window, +without encountering that same steady, unembarrassed, half-puzzled +stare. + +"What's the matter with you, Wolf?" she would ask, impatiently. But Wolf +never told her. + +As a matter of fact, he did not know. He was a silent, thoughtful +fellow, old for his years in many ways, and in some still a boy. Norma +and Rose had known only the more prosperous years of Kate's life, but +Wolf remembered many a vigil with his mother, remembered her lonely +struggles to make a living for him and for the girls. He himself was the +type that inevitably prospers--industrious, good, intelligent, and +painstaking, but as a young boy in the working world he had early seen +the terrors in the lives of men about him: drink, dirt, unemployment and +disease, debt and dishonour. Wolf was not quick of thought; he had +little imagination, rather marvelling at other men's cleverness than +displaying any of his own, and he had reached perhaps his twenty-second +or twenty-third summer before he realized that these terrors did not +menace him, that whatever changes he made in his work would be +improvements, steps upward. For actual months after the move to New York +Wolf had pondered it, in quiet gratitude and pleasure. Rent and bills +could be paid, there might be theatre treats for the girls, and chicken +for Sunday supper, and yet the savings account in the Broadway bank +might grow steadily, too. Far from being a slave to his employer, Wolf +began to realize that this rather simple person was afraid of him, +afraid that young Sheridan and some of the other smart, ingenious, +practically educated men in his employ might recognize too soon their +own independence. + +And when the second summer in New York came, and Wolf could negotiate +the modest financial deal that gave him and the girls a second-hand +motor-car to cruise about in on Sundays and holidays, when they could +picnic up in beautiful Connecticut, or unpack the little fringed red +napkins far down on the Long Island shore, life had begun to seem very +pleasant to him. Debt and dirt and all the squalid horrors of what he +had seen, and what he had read, had faded from his mind, and for awhile +he had felt that his cup could hold no more. + +But now, just lately, there was something else, and although the full +significance of it had not yet actually dawned upon him, Wolf began to +realize that a change was near. It was the most miraculous thing that +had ever come to him, although it concerned only little Norma--only the +little cousin who had been an actual member of his family for all these +years. + +He had heard his mother say a thousand times that she was pretty; he had +laughed himself a thousand times at her quick wit. But he had never +dreamed that it would make his heart come up into his throat and +suffocate him whenever he thought of her, or that her lightest and +simplest words, her most casual and unconscious glance, would burn in +his heart for hours. + +During his busy days Wolf found himself musing about this undefined and +nebulous happiness that began to tremble, like a growing brightness +behind clouds, through all his days and nights. Had there ever been a +time, he wondered, when he had taken her for granted, helped her into +her blessed little coat as coolly as he had Rose? Had it been this same +Norma who scolded him about throwing his collars on the floor, and who +had sent his coat to the cleaner with a ten-dollar bill in the pocket? + +Wolf remembered summer days, and little Norma chattering beside him on +the front seat, as the shabby motor-car fled through the hot, dry city +toward shade and coolness. He remembered early Christmas Mass, and Norma +and Rose kneeling between him and his mother, in the warm, fir-scented +church. He remembered breakfast afterward, in a general sense of hunger +and relaxation and well-being, and the girls exulting over their +presents. And every time that straight-shouldered, childish figure came +into his dream, that mop of cloudy dark hair and flashing laugh, the +new delicious sense of some unknown felicity touched him, and he would +glance about the busy factory self-consciously, as if his thoughts were +written on his face for all the world to read. + +Wolf had never had a sweetheart. It came to him with the blinding flash +of all epoch-making discoveries that Norma was his girl--that he wanted +Norma for his own, and that there was no barrier between them. And in +the ecstasy of this new vision, which changed the whole face of his +world, he was content to wait with no special impatience for the hour in +which he should claim her. Of course Norma must like him--must love him, +as he did her, unworthy as he felt himself of her, and wonderful as this +new Norma seemed to be. Wolf, in his simple way, felt that this had been +his destiny from the beginning. + +That a glimpse of life as foreign and unnatural as the Melrose life +might seriously disenchant Norma never occurred to him. Norma had always +been fanciful, it was a part of her charm. Wolf, who worked in the great +Forman shops, had felt it no particular distinction when by chance one +day he had been called from his luncheon to look at the engine of young +Stanley Forman's car. He had left his seat upon a pile of lumber, bolted +the last of his pie, and leaned over the hood of the specially designed +racer interested only in its peculiarities, and entirely indifferent to +the respectful young owner, who was aware that he knew far less about it +than this mechanic did. Sauntering back to his work in the autumn +sunlight, Wolf had followed the youthful millionaire by not even a +thought. If he had done so, it might have been a half-contemptuous +decision that a man who knew so little of engines ought not to drive a +racer. + +So Norma's half-formed jealousies, desires, and dreams were a sealed +book to him. But this very unreasonableness lent her an odd exotic charm +in his eyes. She was to Wolf like a baby who wants the moon. The moon +might be an awkward and useless possession, and the baby much better +without it, still there is something winning and touching about the +little imperious mouth and the little upstretched arms. + +One night, when he had reached home earlier than either of the girls, +Wolf was in the warm bright kitchen, alone with his mother. He was +seated at the end of the scrubbed and bleached little table; Kate at the +other end was neatly and dexterously packing a yellow bowl with bread +pudding. + +"Do you remember, years and years ago, Mother," Wolf said, chewing a +raisin, thoughtfully, "that you told me that Norma isn't my real +cousin?" + +Kate's ruddy colour paled a little, and she looked anxious. Not Perseus, +coming at last in sight of his Gorgon, had a heart more sick with fear +than hers was at that instant. + +"What put that into your head, dear?" + +"Well, I don't know. But it's true, isn't it?" + +Kate scattered chopped nuts from the bowl of her spoon. + +"Yes, it's true," she said. "There's not a drop of the same blood in +your veins, although I love her as I do you and Rose." + +She was silent, and Wolf, idly turning the egg-beater in an empty dish, +smiled to himself. + +"But what made you think of that, Wolf?" his mother asked. + +"I don't know!" Wolf did not look at her, but his big handsome face was +suffused with happy colour. "Harry and Rose, maybe," he admitted. + +Kate sat down suddenly, her eyes upon him. + +"Not the Baby?" she half whispered. + +Her son leaned back in his chair, and folded his big arms across his +chest. When he looked at her the smile had faded from his face, and his +eyes were a trifle narrowed, and his mouth set. + +"I guess so!" he said, simply. "I guess it's always been--Norma. But I +didn't always know it. I used to think of her as just another +sister--like Rose. But I know now that she'll never seem that +again--never did, really." + +He was silent, and Kate sat staring at him in silence. + +"Has she any relatives, Mother?" + +"Has--what?" + +"Has she people--who are they?" + +Kate looked at the floor. + +"She has no one but me, Son." + +"Of course, she's not nineteen, and I don't believe it's ever crossed +her mind," Wolf said. "I don't think Norma ever had a real affair--just +kid affairs, like Paul Harrison, and that man at the store who used to +send her flowers. But I don't believe those count." + +"I don't think she ever has," Kate said, heavily getting to her feet, +and beginning to pour her custard slowly through the packed bread. +Presently she stopped, and set the saucepan down, her eyes narrowed and +fixed on space. Then Wolf saw her press the fingers of one hand upon +her mouth, a sure sign of mental perturbation. + +"I know I'm not worthy to tie her little shoes for her, Mother," he +said, suddenly, and very low. + +"There's no woman in the world good enough for you," his mother +answered, with a troubled laugh. And she gave the top of his head one of +her rare, brisk kisses as she passed him, on her way out of the room. + +Wolf was sufficiently familiar with the domestic routine to know that +every minute was precious now, and that she was setting the table. But +his heart was heavy with a vague uneasiness; she had not encouraged him +very much. She had not accepted this suggestion as she did almost all of +the young people's ideas, with eager cooperation and sympathy. He sat +brooding at the kitchen table, her notable lack of enthusiasm chilling +him, and infusing him with her own doubts. + +When she came back, she stood with her back turned to him, busied with +some manipulation of platters and jars in the ice-box. + +"Wolf, dear," she said, "I want to ask you something. The child's too +young to listen to you--or any one!--now. Promise me--_promise me_, that +you'll speak to me again before you----" + +"Certainly I'll promise that, Mother!" Wolf said, quickly, hurt to the +soul. She read his tone aright, and came to lay her cheek against his +hair. + +"Listen to me, Son. Since the day her mother gave her to me I've hoped +it would be this way! But there's nothing to be gained by hurry. +You----" + +"But you would be glad, Mother! You do think that she might have me?" +poor Wolf said, eagerly and humbly. He was amazed to see tears brimming +his mother's eyes as she nodded and turned away. + +Before either spoke again a rush in the hall announced the home-coming +girls, who entered the kitchen gasping and laughing with the cold. + +"Whew!" panted Norma, catching Wolf's hands in her own half-frozen ones. +"I'm dying! Oh, Wolf, feel my nose!" She pressed it against his +forehead. "Oh, there's a wind like a knife--and look at my shoe--in I +went, right through the ice! Oh, Aunt Kate, let me stay here!" and +locking both slender arms about the older woman's neck, she dropped her +dark, shining head upon her breast like a storm-blown bird. "It's four +below zero in Broadway this minute," she added, looking sidewise under +her curling lashes at Wolf. + +"Who said so?" Wolf demanded. + +"The man I bought that paper from said so; go back and ask him. Oh, joy, +that looks good!" said Norma, eyeing the pudding that was now being +drawn, crackling, bubbling, and crisp, from the oven. "Rose and I fell +over the new lineoleum in the hall; I thought it was a dead body!" she +went on, cheerfully. "I came _down_ on my family feature with such a +noise that I thought the woman downstairs would be rattling the +dumb-waiter ropes again long before this!" She stepped to the +dumb-waiter, and put her head into the shaft. "What is it, darling?" she +called. + +"Norma, behave yourself. It would serve you good and right if she heard +you," Mrs. Sheridan said, in a panic. "Go change your shoes, and come +and eat your dinner. I believe," her aunt added, pausing near her, "that +you _did_ skin your nose in the hall." + +"Oh, heavens!" Norma exclaimed, bringing her face close to the dark +window, as to a mirror. "Oh, say it will be gone by Friday! Because on +Friday I'm going to have tea with Mrs. Liggett--her husband came in +to-day and asked me. Oh, the darling! He certainly is the--well, the +most--well, I don't know!----His voice, and the quiet, _quiet_ way----" + +"Oh, for pity's sake go change your shoes!" Rose interrupted. "You are +the biggest idiot! I went into the store to get her," Rose explained, +"and I've had all this once, in the subway. How Mr. Liggett picks up his +glasses, on their ribbon, to read the titles of books----" + +"Oh, you shut up!" Norma called, departing. And unashamed, when dinner +was finished, and the table cleared, she produced a pack of cards and +said that she was going to play _The Idle Year_. + +"... and if I get it, it'll mean that the man I marry is going to look +exactly like Chris Liggett." + +She did not get it, and played it again. The third time she interrupted +Wolf's slow and patient perusal of the _Scientific American_ to announce +that she was now going to play it to see if he was in love with Mary +Redding. + +"Think how nice that would be, Aunt Kate, a double wedding. And if Wolf +or Rose died and left a lot of children, the other one would always be +there to take in whoever was left--you know what I mean!" + +"You're the one Wolf ought to marry, to make it complete," Rose, who was +neatly marking a cross-stitch "R" on a crash towel, retaliated neatly. + +"I can't marry my cousin, Miss Smarty." + +"Oh, don't let a little thing like that worry you," Wolf said, looking +across the table. + +"Our children would be idiots--perhaps they would be, anyway!" Norma +reminded him, in a gale of laughter. Her aunt looked up disapprovingly +over her glasses. + +"Baby, don't talk like that. That's not a nice way to talk at all. Wolf, +you lead her on. Now, we'll not have any more of that, if you please. I +see the President is making himself very unpopular, Wolf--I don't know +why they all make it so hard for the poor man! Mrs. McCrea was in the +market this morning----" + +"If I win this game, Rose, by this time next year," Norma said, in an +undertone, "you'll have----" + +"Norma Sheridan!" + +"Yes, Aunt Kate!" + +"Do you want me to speak to you again?" + +"No, ma'am!" + +Norma subsided for a brief space, Rose covertly watching the game. +Presently the younger girl burst forth anew. + +"Listen, Wolf, I'll bet you that I can get more words out of the letters +in Christopher than you can!" + +Wolf roused himself, smiled, took out his fountain pen, and reached for +a sheet of paper. He was always ready for any sort of game. Norma, +bending herself to the contest, put her pencil into her mouth, and +stared fixedly at the green-shaded drop light. Rose, according to +ancient precedent, was permitted to assist evenly and alternately. + +And Kate, watching them and listening, even while she drowsed over the +Woman's Page, decided that after all they were nothing but a pack of +children. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +To Leslie Melrose had come the very happiest time of her life. She had +always had everything she wanted; it had never occurred to her to +consider a fortunate marriage engagement as anything but a matter of +course, in her case. She was nineteen, she was "mad," in her own terms, +about Acton Liggett, and the engagement was the natural result. + +But the ensuing events were far more delightful than Leslie had dreamed, +even in her happy dreams. All her world turned from its affairs of +business and intrigue and amusement to centre its attention upon her +little person for the moment, and to shower her with ten times enough +flattery and praise to turn a much steadier head. Presents rained upon +Leslie, and every one of them was astonishingly handsome and valuable; +newspapers clamoured for her picture, and wherever she went she was +immediately the focus for all eyes. That old Judge Lee should send her +some of his mother's beautiful diamonds; that Christopher and Alice +should order for her great crates of specially woven linen that were +worthy of a queen; that Emanuel Massaro, the painter of the hour, should +ask her to sit for him, were all just so much sheer pleasure added to +the sum total of her happiness in loving the man of her choice and +knowing herself beloved by him. + +Leslie found herself, for the first time in her life, a person of +importance with Aunt Annie, too. The social leader found time to advise +her little niece in the new contingencies that were perpetually arising, +lent Leslie her private secretary for the expeditious making of lists or +writing of notes, and bullied her own autocratic modiste into promising +at least half of the trousseau. It was Annie who decided that the +marriage must be at a certain Park Avenue church, and at a certain hour, +and that the reception at the house must be arranged in a certain +manner, and no other. Hendrick or Judge Lee would give away the bride, +Christopher would be his brother's best man, and Leslie would be given +time to greet her guests and change her gown and be driven to Alice's +house for just one kiss before she and Acton went away. + +Acton had begged for an Easter wedding, but Leslie, upon her aunt's +advice, held out for June. If the war was over by that time--and +everyone said it must be, for so hideous a combat could not possibly +last more than six or eight months--then they would go to England and +the Continent, but otherwise they might drift through Canada to the +Pacific Coast, and even come back by San Francisco and the newly opened +Canal. + +Meanwhile, Annie entertained her niece royally and untiringly. Formal +dinners to old family friends must come first, but when spring arrived +Leslie was promised house parties and yachting trips more after her own +heart. The girl was so excited, so bewildered and tired, even after the +first two weeks, that she remained in bed until noon every day, and had +a young maid especially detailed to take her dressmaker's fittings for +her. But even so she lost weight, her cheeks burned and her eyes +glittered feverishly, and her voice took an unnaturally high key, her +speech a certain shallow quickness. Acton's undeviating adoration she +took with a pretty, spoiled acquiescence, and with old family friends +she was charmingly dutiful and deferential, but always with the air of +sparing a few glittering drops to their age and dulness from the +overflowing cup of her youth and beauty and power. But with her +grandmother and aunts she had a new attitude of self-confidence, and to +her girl friends she was no longer the old intimate and equal, but a +being who had, for the moment at least, left them all behind. She would +show them the new silver, the new linens, the engagement-time frocks +that were in themselves a trousseau, and wish that Doris or Marion or +Virginia were engaged, too; it was such fun! And with older women, the +débutantes of six and eight and ten years ago, who had failed of all +this glory, who could only listen sweetly to the chatter of plans and +honours, and look in uncomplaining admiration at the blazing ring, +Leslie was quite merciless. The number of times that she managed to +mention her age, the fact that Madame Modiste had tried to give her +fittings after three o'clock under the impression that she was a +schoolgirl, and the "craziness" of "little me" going over all the late +Mrs. Liggett's chests of silver and china, perhaps only these +unsuccessful candidates for matrimony could estimate. Certainly Leslie +herself was quite unconscious of it, and truly believed what she heard +on all sides, that she was "adorable," and "not changed one bit," and +"just as unconscious that there was anything else in the world but +Acton, as a little girl with her first doll." + +Christopher and Alice, in the first years of their married life, had +built a home at Glen Cove, and Christopher made this his wedding +present to his brother. Necessarily, even the handsomest of country +homes, if ten years old, needs an almost complete renovation, and this +renovation Acton and Leslie, guided by a famous architect, began +rapturously to plan, reserving a beautiful apartment not far from Alice +in Park Avenue for autumn furnishing and refitting. + +All these activities and interests kept the lovers busy, and kept them +apart indeed, or united them only in groups of other people. But Acton +could bring his pretty sweetheart home from a dinner now and then, and +come into the old Melrose house for a precious half hour of murmuring +talk, or could sometimes persuade her to leave a tea or a matinée early +enough to walk a few blocks with him. + +In this fashion they slipped away from a box party one Friday afternoon, +and found themselves walking briskly northward, into the neighbourhood +of Alice's house. Leslie had had, for several days, a rather guilty +feeling in regard to this lovely aunt. It was really hard, rising at +noon, and trying to see and please so many persons, to keep in close +touch with the patient and uncomplaining invalid, who had to depend +wholly upon the generosity of those she loved for knowledge of them. So +Leslie was glad to suggest, and Acton glad to agree, that they had +better go in and see Aunt Alice for a few minutes. + +As usual, Mrs. Liggett had company, although it proved only to be the +pretty Miss Sheridan who had called upon Leslie's grandmother on the +first day of that mysterious indisposition that had kept the old lady +bedridden almost ever since. + +Alice looked oddly tired, but her eyes were shining brightly, and Norma +was charmingly happy and at ease. She jumped up to shake hands with +Acton with a bright comment that he was not in the _least_ like his +brother, and recalled herself to Leslie before offering her all sorts of +good wishes. Norma, hoping that it would some day occur, had indeed +anticipated this meeting with Leslie by a little mental consideration of +what she should say, but the effect was so spontaneous and sincere that +the four were enabled to settle down comfortably to tea, in a few +moments, like old friends. + +"Miss Sheridan--or Norma, rather--and I have been having a perfectly +delicious talk," said Alice. "She loves Christina Rossetti, and she knew +the 'Hound of Heaven' by heart, and she has promised to send me a new +man's work that sounds delightful--what was it? Something about General +Booth?" + +"If I haven't chattered you to death!" Norma said, penitentially. And +Leslie added: "Aunt Alice, you _do_ look tired! Not that talking poetry +ever would tire you!" she hastened to add, with a smile for Norma. + +"No, I'm not--or rather, I was, but I feel wonderfully!" Alice said. +"Pour the tea, Kitten. What have you two little adventurers been doing +with yourselves?" + +"Mrs. Dupré's party--Yvette Guilbert," Leslie said. "She is quite too +wonderful!" + +"I've always wanted to see her, and I've always known I would adore +her," Norma interpolated, dreamily. + +Alice glanced at her quickly. + +"Does she give another matinée, Leslie?" + +"Two----" Leslie looked at Acton. "Is it two weeks from to-day?" she +questioned. + +"I'll send you seats for it," Alice said, making a little note on her +ivory memoranda pages, as she nodded to Norma. The colour rushed into +Norma's face, and she bit her lip. + +"But, Mrs. Liggett--honestly--I truly didn't mean--I only meant----" she +began to stammer, half laughing. Alice laid her hand upon Norma's +reassuringly. + +"My dear, you know I don't think you hinted! But I want to do it. I +can't"--Alice said, smiling--"I can't do anything for little Miss +Aladdin here, and it gives me the greatest pleasure, now and then----" + +"I want to tell you something about Mrs. Liggett," Acton said; "she's +got a grasping nature and a mean soul--you can see that! She's the +limit, all right!" He smiled down at her as he gave her her teacup, and +Leslie laughed outright. Acton was a person of few words, but when he +chose to talk, Leslie found his manner amusing. Christopher, coming up +to join them fifteen minutes later, said that from the noise they made +he had supposed at least fifty persons to be in his wife's room. + +Did Norma, as she gave the master of the house her hand, have sudden +memory of all her recent absurd extravagances in his name--the games, +the surmises, the wild statements that had had Chris Liggett as their +inspiration? If she did, she gave no sign of it beyond the bright flush +with which she greeted her oldest acquaintance in this group. +Christopher sat down, content to be a listener and an onlooker, as he +sipped his tea, but Norma saw that his wife's look of white fatigue made +him uneasy, and immediately said that she must go. + +He made no protest, but said that the car was at the door, and she must +let him send her home. Norma agreed, and Acton asked if he and Leslie +might not use it, too. The three departed in high spirits, Alice +detaining the radiant and excited Norma long enough to exact from her +the promise of another visit soon, and to send an affectionate message +to Mrs. Sheridan from "Miss Alice." Then they went down to the big car, +an exciting and delightful experience to Norma. + +Leslie was left first, and Acton, pleading that he was already late for +another engagement, was dropped at his club. Then Norma had the car to +herself, and as it smoothly flew toward the humble doorway of the +Sheridans, could giggle, almost aloud, in her pleasure and exhilaration +at an afternoon that had gone without a single awkward minute, all +pleasant, harmonious, and vaguely flattering. And the wonderful Mrs. +Liggett had asked her to come soon again, and had made that delightful +suggestion about the concert. The name of Yvette Guilbert meant little +to Norma, but the thought that Alice Liggett really wanted to hold her +friendship was nothing less than intoxicating. + +She looked out of the car, the streets were bare of snow now, there was +not a leaf showing in the park, and the ground was dark and unpromising. +But a cool, steady wind was blowing through the lingering twilight, men +were running after rolling hats, and at least the milliners' windows +were radiant with springtime bloom. Children were playing in Norma's +street, wrapped and muffled children, wild with joy to be out of doors +again, and a tiny frail little moon was floating in the opal sky just +above the grim line of roofs. Norma looked up at it, and the pure +blowing air touched her hot face, and her heart sang with the sheer joy +of living. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Christopher had gone down to the door with his brother and the girls, +and had sent a glance up and down the quiet, handsome block, feeling in +the moving air what Norma felt, what all the city felt--the bold, wild +promise of spring. He turned back into the house with something like a +sigh; Acton and Leslie in their young happiness were somehow a little +haunting to-night. + +The butler was starting upstairs with the papers; Christopher took them +from him, and went back to Alice's room with his eyes idly following the +headlines. The pretty apartment was somewhat disordered, and looked dull +and dark in the half light. Christopher walked to a window, and pushed +it open upon its railed balcony. + +"Chris!" whispered his wife's voice, thick and dry in the gloom. + +Aghast in the instant apprehension of something wrong, he sprang to her +couch, dropped to his knees, and put an arm about her. + +"Alice! What is it, my darling?" + +She struggled for speech, and he could see that her face was ashen. + +"Chris--no, don't ring. Chris, _who is that girl_?" + +Christopher touched the chain that flooded the couch with rosy light. He +bent in eager sympathy over his wife's relaxed form. + +"Alice, what is it?" he asked, tenderly. "Don't worry, dear, don't try +to talk too fast! Just tell Chris what frightened you----" + +Alice laughed wretchedly as she detached the fingers he had pressed +anxiously upon her forehead. + +"No, I'm not feverish!" she assured him, holding tight to his hand. "But +I want you to tell me, Chris, I must know--and no matter what promise +you have given Mother--or given any one----" + +"Now, now, now!" he soothed her. "I'll tell you anything, sweetheart, +only don't let yourself get so excited. Just tell me what it is, Alice, +and I'll do anything in the world for you, of course!" + +"Chris," she said, swallowing with a dry throat, and sitting up with an +air of regaining self-control, "you must tell me. You know you can trust +me, you _know_----! That girl----" + +"But _what_ girl--what are you talking about, dear? Do--do try to be +just a little clearer, and calmer----" + +"Who"--said Alice, with a ghastly look, sweeping the hair back from her +damp forehead--"who is that Norma Sheridan?" + +"Why, I told you, dear, that I don't know," her husband protested. "I +told you weeks ago, after your mother made that scene, the night of +Hendrick's speech, that I couldn't make head or tail of it!" + +"Chris"--Alice was regarding him fixedly--"you _must_ know!" + +"Dearest, couldn't your mother simply wish to befriend a girl whose +parents----" + +Alice flung her loosened hair back, and at her gesture and her glance at +the little carafe on her table he poured her a glass of cold water. +Drinking it off, and raising herself in her cushions, she stretched her +hand to touch the chair beside her, and still without a word indicated +that he was to take it. With a face of grave concern Christopher sat +down beside her, holding her hands in both his own. + +"Chris," she said, clearly and quickly, if with occasional catches of +breath, "the minute that girl came into the room I knew that--I knew +that _horror_ had come upon us all! I knew that she was one of us--one +of us Melroses, somehow----" + +"Alice!" he said, pleadingly. + +"But Mama," she said, with a keen look, "didn't tell you that?" + +"She told me only what I told you that night, on my honour as a +gentleman! Alice, what makes you say what you do?" + +"Ah, Chris," his wife cried, almost frantically, "look at her! _Look_ at +her! Why, her voice is Annie's, the same identical voice--she looks like +my father, like Theodore--she looks like us all! She and Leslie were so +much alike, as they sat there, in spite of the colouring, that I almost +screamed it at them! Surely--surely, you see it--everyone sees it!" + +He stared at her, beginning to breathe a little quickly in his turn. + +"By George!" she heard him whisper, as if to himself. + +"Do you see it, Chris?" Alice whispered, almost fearfully. + +"But--but----" He got up and walked restlessly to the window, and came +back to sit down again. "But there's a cousinship somewhere," he said, +sensibly. "There's no reason to suppose that the thing can't be +explained. I do think you're taking this thing pretty hard, my dear. +What can you possibly suppose? There might be a hundred girls----" + +His voice fell. Alice was watching him expectantly. + +"Mama felt it--saw it--as I do," she said. "You may be very sure that +Mama wouldn't have almost lost her mind, as she did, unless something +had given her cause!" + +They looked at each other in silence, in the utter silence of the +lovely, cool-toned room. + +"Alice," Chris said in a puzzled voice after awhile, "you suspect me of +keeping something from you. But on my honour you know all that your +mother told me--all that I know!" + +"Oh, Chris," she said, with a sort of wail. "If I don't know more!" + +Her husband's slow colour rose. + +"How could you know more?" he asked, bewilderedly. + +Alice was unhappily silent. + +"Chris, if I tell you what I'm afraid of--what I fear," she said, +presently, after anxious thought, "will you promise me never, never to +speak of it--never even to think of it!--if it--if it proves not to be +true?" + +"I don't have to tell you that, Alice," he said. + +"No, of course you don't--of course you don't!" she echoed with a +nervous laugh. "I'll tell you what I think, Chris--what has been almost +driving me mad--and you can probably tell me a thousand reasons why it +can't be so! You see, I've never understood Mama's feverish distress +these last weeks. She's been to see me, she's done what had to be done +about Leslie's engagement, but she's not herself--you can see that! +Yesterday she began to cry, almost for nothing, and when I happened to +mention--or rather when I mentioned very deliberately--that Miss +Sheridan was coming here, she almost shrieked. Well, I didn't know what +to make of it, and even then I rather wondered---- + +"Even then," Alice began again, after a painful pause, and with her own +voice rising uncontrollably, "I suspected something. But not this! Oh, +Chris, if I'm wrong about this, I shall be on my knees for gratitude for +the rest of my life; I would die, I would die to have it just--just my +wretched imagination!--A thing like this--to us--the Melroses--who have +always been so straight--so respected!" + +"Now, Alice--now, Alice!" + +"Yes, I know!" she said, quickly. "I know!" And for a moment she lay +back quietly, stroking his hand. "Chris," she resumed, composedly, after +a moment, "you know the tragedy of Annie's life?" + +Chris, taken by surprise, frowned. + +"Why, yes, I suppose so," he admitted, unwillingly. + +"Chris, did it ever occur to you that she might have had a child--by +that fiend?" + +Chris looked at his wife a moment, and his eyes widened, and his mouth +twitched humorously. + +"Oh, come now, Alice--come now!" + +"You think it's folly!" she asked, eagerly. + +"Worse!" he answered, briefly, his eyes smiling reproach. + +Alice's whole tense body relaxed, and she stared at him with light +dawning in her eyes. + +"Well, probably it is," she said, very simply. + +"Of course it is," Chris said. "Now, you are dead tired, dear, and you +have let the thing mill about in your head until you can't see anything +normally. I confess that I don't understand your mother's mysterious +nervousness, but then I am free to say that I don't by any means always +understand your mother! You remember the pearl episode, and the time +that she had Annie and Hendrick cabling from Italy--because Hendrick +Junior had a rash! And then there was Porter--a boy nineteen years old, +and she actually had everyone guessing exactly what she felt toward +him----" + +"Oh, Chris, no, she didn't! She simply felt that he was a genius, and he +hadn't a penny," Alice protested, reproachful and hurt. + +"Well, she had him there at the house until his mother came after him, +and then, when he finally was sent abroad, she asked me seriously if I +thought two hundred dollars a month was enough for his musical +education!" + +"Yes, I know!" Alice said, ruefully, shaking her head. + +"Now this comes along," said Christopher, encouraged by the effect of +his words, "and you begin to fret your poor little soul with all sorts +of wild speculations. I wish to the Lord that your mother was a little +bit more trusting with her confidences, but when it all comes out it'll +prove to be some sister of your grandfather who married a tailor or +something, and left a line of pretty girls to work in Biretta's----" + +"But, Chris, she reminded me so of Annie to-day I almost felt _sick_," +Alice said, still frightened and dubious. + +"Well, that merely shows that you're soft-hearted; it's no reflection on +Annie!" Chris said, giving her her paper, and opening his own. But +Alice did not open her paper. + +A maid came in, and moved about noiselessly setting chairs and rugs in +order. Another soft light was lighted and the little square table set +before the fire. The cool fresh air drifted in at the half-open window, +and sent a delicate breath, from Alice's great bowl of freesia lilies, +through the peaceful room. The fire snapped smartly about a fresh log, +and Alice's great tortoise-shell cat came to make a majestic spring into +her lap. + +"Chris--I'm so worried!" said his wife. + +"As a matter of fact," said Christopher, quietly, after a while, +"did----Annie was very ill, I know, but was there--was there any reason +to suppose that there might have been--that such a situation as to-day's +might have arisen?" + +Alice looked at him with apprehension dawning afresh. + +"Oh, yes--that is, I believe so. I didn't know it then, of course." + +"I never knew that," Christopher said, thoughtfully. + +"Well, I didn't at the time, you know. It was--of course it was +sixteen--eighteen years ago," Alice said. And in a whisper she added, +"Chris, that girl is eighteen!" + +Christopher pursed his lips to whistle, but made no sound, and looked +into the fire. + +"You see I was only about thirteen or fourteen," Alice said. "I was +going to Miss Bennet's school, and we were all living in the Madison +Avenue house. Papa had been dead only a year, or less, for I remember +that Annie was eighteen, and wasn't going out much, because of mourning. +Theodore had been worrying Mama to death, and had left the house then, +and Mama was sending him and his wife money, I believe, but of course +lots of that was kept from me. Annie was terribly wild and excitable +then, always doing reckless things; I can remember when she and Belle +Duer dressed up as boys and had their pictures taken, and once they put +a matrimonial advertisement in the papers--of course they were just +silly--at least that was. But then she began to rave about this man +Müller----" + +"The acrobat!" Christopher, who was listening intently, supplied. + +"No, dearest! He was their riding master--I suppose that isn't much +better, really. But he was an extremely handsome man--really stunning. +Carry Winchester's mother forbade her taking any more lessons because +_she_ was so wild about him, and Annie told me once that that was why +Ida Burnett was popped into a boarding school. He was big, and dark, and +he had a slight foreign accent, and he was ever so much older than +Annie--forty, at least. She began to spend all her time at the riding +club; it used to make Mama wild--especially as Annie was so headstrong +and saucy about it! Poor Mama, I remember her crying and complaining!" + +"And how long did this go on?" Christopher asked. + +"Oh, weeks! Well, and then one hot day, just before Easter vacation it +was, I remember, I came home early from school with a headache, and when +I reached the upper hall I could hear Mama crying, and Annie shouting +out loud, and this Kate--this very same Kate Sheridan!--trying to quiet +Mama, and everything in an uproar! Finally I heard Annie sobbing--I was +frightened to death of course, and I sat down on the stairs that go up +to the nursery--and I heard Annie say something about being +eighteen--and she was eighteen the very day before; and she ran by me, +in her riding clothes, with the derby hat that girls used to wear then, +and her hair clubbed on her neck, and she ran downstairs, and I could +hear her crying, and saying to herself: 'I'll show them; I'll show +them!' And that was the last I saw of her," Alice finished sadly, "for +almost two years." + +"She went out?" Christopher asked. + +"Yes; she slammed the door. Mama fainted." + +"Of course!" + +"Oh, Chris," said his wife, half crying, "wasn't that enough to make any +one faint?--let alone Mama. Anyway, she was dreadfully ill, and they +rather shut me up about it, and told everyone that Annie had gone +abroad. We had been living very quietly, you know, and nobody cared much +what Annie did, then. And she really had gone abroad, she wrote Mama +from Montreal, and she had been married to Emil Müller in Albany. They +had taken a train there, and were married that same afternoon. They went +to London, and they were in Germany, and then--then it all broke up, you +know about that!" + +"How much later was that?" + +Alice considered. + +"It was about Christmas time. Don't you remember that I went to your +mother, and Acton and I got measles? Mama was abroad then." + +"And this Kate went with her?" + +"Yes. That was--that was one of the things I was--just thinking about! +Annie wrote Mama that she was very ill, in Munich, and poor Mama just +flew. Müller had left her; indeed there was a woman and two quite big +girls that had a claim on him, and if Mama hadn't been so anxious to +shut it all up, she might have proved that he was a bigamist--but I +don't know that she was ever sure. Judge Lee put the divorce through for +Annie, and Mama took her to the Riviera and petted her, and pulled her +through. But all her hair came out, and for weeks they didn't think she +would live. She had brain fever. You see, Annie had had some money +waiting for her on her eighteenth birthday, and your own father, who was +her guardian, Chris, had given her the check--interest, it was, about +seven or eight thousand dollars. And he told her to open her own +account, and manage her own income, from then on. And we thought--Mama +and I--that in some way Müller must have heard of it. Anyway, she never +deposited the check, and when her money gave out he just left her." + +"But what makes you think that her illness didn't commence--or wasn't +entirely--brain fever?" + +"That she might have had a baby?" Alice asked, outright. + +Christopher nodded, the point almost insufferably distasteful to him. + +"Oh, I know it!" Alice said. + +"You _know_ it?" the man echoed, almost in displeasure. + +"Yes, she told me herself! But of course that was years later. At the +time, all I knew was that Kate Sheridan came home, and came to see me at +school, and told me that Mama and Annie were very well, but that Annie +had been frightfully sick, and that Mama wouldn't come back until Annie +was much stronger. As a matter of fact, it was nearly two +years--Theodore took me over to them a year from that following summer, +and then Annie stayed with some friends in England; she was having a +wonderful time! But years afterward, when little Hendrick was coming, in +fact, she was here one day, and she seemed to feel blue, and finally I +happened to say that if motherhood seemed so hard to a person like +herself, whose husband and whose whole family were so mad with joy over +the prospect of a baby, what on earth must it be to the poor girls who +have every reason to hate it. And she looked at me rather oddly, and +said: 'Ah, I know what _that_ is!' Of course I guessed right away what +she meant, and I said: 'Annie--not really!' And she said: 'Oh, yes, that +was what started my illness. I had been so almost crazy--so blue and +lonesome, and so sick with horror at the whole thing, that it all +happened too soon, the day after Mama and Kate got there, in fact!' And +then she burst out crying and said: 'Thank God it was that way! I +couldn't have faced _that_.' And she said that she had been too +desperately ill to realize anything, but that afterward, at Como, when +she was much better, she asked Mama about it, and Mama said she must +only be glad that it was all over, and try to think of it as a terrible +dream!" + +"Well, there you are," said Chris, "she herself says that no child was +born!" + +"Yes, but, Chris, mightn't it be that she didn't know?" Alice submitted, +timidly. + +Her husband eyed her with a faint and thoughtful frown. + +"It seems to me that that is rather a fantastic theory, dear! Where +would this child be all this time?" + +"Kate" Alice said, simply. + +"Kate!" he echoed, struck. And Alice saw, with a sinking heart, that he +was impressed. After a full moment of silence he said, simply: "You +think this is the child?" + +"Chris," his wife cried, appealingly, "I don't say I think so! But it +occurred to me that it might be. I hope, with all my soul, that you +don't think so!" + +"I'm afraid," he answered, thoughtfully, "that I do!" + +Alice's eyes filled with tears, and she tightened her fingers in his +without speaking. + +"The idea being," Christopher mused, "that Mrs. Sheridan brought the +baby home, and has raised her. That makes Miss Sheridan--Norma--the +child of Annie and that German blackguard!" + +"I suppose so!" Alice admitted, despairingly. + +"But why has it been kept quiet all this time!" + +"Well, that," Alice said, "I don't understand. But this I _am_ sure of: +Annie hasn't the faintest suspicion of it! She supposes that the whole +thing ended with her terrible illness. She was only eighteen, and +younger and more childish even than Leslie is! Oh, Chris," said Alice, +her eyes watering, "isn't it horrible! To come to us, of all people! +Will everybody know?" + +"Well, it all depends. It's a nasty sort of business, but I suppose +there's no help for it. How much does Hendrick know?" + +"About Annie? Oh, everything that she does; I know that. Annie told him, +and Judge Lee told him about Müller and the divorce, or nullification, +or whatever it was! There was nothing left unexplained there. But if the +child lived, she didn't know that--only Mama did, and Kate. Oh, poor +Annie, it would kill her to have all that raked up now! Why Kate kept it +secret all these years----" + +"I must say," Christopher exclaimed, "that----By George, I hate this +sort of thing! No help for it, I suppose. But if it gets out we shall +all be in for a sweet lot of notoriety. We shall just have to make terms +with these Sheridans, and keep our mouths shut. I didn't get the idea +that they were holding your mother up. I believe it's more that she +wants justice done; she would, you know, for the sake of the family. The +girl herself, this Norma, evidently hasn't been raised on any +expectations--probably knows nothing about it!" + +"Oh, I'm sure of that!" Alice agreed, eagerly. "And if she has Melrose +blood in her, you may be sure she'll play the game. But, Chris, I can't +stand the uncertainty. Mama's coming to have luncheon with me to-morrow, +and I'm going to ask her outright. And if this Norma is really--what we +fear, what do you think we ought to do?" + +"Well, it's hard to say. It's all utterly damnable," Christopher said, +distressed. "And Annie, who let us all in for it, gets off scot free! I +wish, since she let it go so long, that your mother had forgotten it +entirely. But, as it is, this child isn't, strictly speaking, +illegitimate. There was a marriage, and some sort of divorce, whether +Müller deceived Annie as to his being a bachelor or not!" + +A maid stood in the doorway. + +"Mrs. Melrose, Mrs. Liggett." + +"Oh," Alice said, in an animated tone of pleasure, "ask her to come +upstairs!" But the eyes she turned to her husband were full of +apprehension. "Chris, here's Mama now! Shall we----? Would you dare?" + +"Use your own judgment!" he had time to say hastily, before his wife's +mother came in. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Mrs. Melrose frequently came in to join Alice for dinner, especially +when she was aware, as to-night, that Christopher had an evening +engagement. She was almost always sure of finding Annie alone, and +enjoying the leisurely confidences that were crowded out of the daytime +hours. + +She had had several weeks of nervous illness now, but looked better +to-night, looked indeed her handsome and comfortable self, as she +received Chris's filial kiss on her forehead, and bent to embrace her +daughter. Freda carried away her long fur-trimmed cloak, and she pushed +her veil up to her forehead, and looked with affectionate concern from +husband to wife. + +"Now, Chris, I'm spoiling things! But I thought Carry Pope told me that +you were going to her dinner before the opera!" + +"I'm due there at eight," he said, reassuringly. "And by the same token, +I ought to be dressing! But Alice and I have been loafing along here +comfortably, and I'd give about seven dollars to stay at home with my +wife!" + +"He always says that!" Alice said, smilingly. "But he always has a nice +time; and then the next night he plays over the whole score, and tells +me who was there, and so I have it, too!" + +Chris had walked to the white mantelpiece, and was lighting a +cigarette. + +"Alice had that little protégée of yours here, to-day, Aunt Marianna," +he said, casually. + +There was no mistaking the look of miserable and fearful interest that +deepened instantly in the older woman's eyes. + +"Miss Sheridan?" she said. + +"Mama," Alice exclaimed, suddenly, clasping a warm hand over her +mother's trembling one, and looking at her with all love and +reassurance, "you know how Chris and I love you, don't you?" + +Tears came into Mrs. Melrose's eyes. + +"Of course I do, lovey," she faltered. + +"Mama, you know how we would stand behind you--how anxious we are to +share whatever's worrying you!" Alice went on, pleadingly. "Can't +you--I'm not busy like Annie, or young like Leslie, and Chris is your +man of business, after all! Can't you tell us about it? Two heads--three +heads," said Alice, smiling through a sudden mist of tears, "are better +than one!" + +"Why," Mrs. Melrose stammered, with a rather feeble attempt at +lightness, "have I been acting like a person with something on her mind? +It's nothing, children, nothing at all. Don't bother your dear, generous +hearts about it another second!" + +And she looked from one to another with a gallant smile. + +Chris eyed his wife with a faint, hopeless movement of the head, and +Alice correctly interpreted it to mean that the situation was worse +instead of better. + +"You remember the night you sent for me, some weeks ago, Aunt Marianna?" +he ventured. Mrs. Melrose moistened her lips, and swallowed with a dry +throat, looking at him with a sort of alert defiance. + +"I confess that I was all upset that night," she admitted, bravely. "And +to tell you children the truth, Kate Sheridan coming upon me so +unexpectedly----" + +"Joseph quite innocently told me that evening that you had anticipated +her coming!" Christopher said, quietly, as she paused. + +"Joseph was mistaken!" Mrs. Melrose said, warmly, with red colour +beginning to burn in her soft, faded old face. "Kate had been associated +with a terrible time in my life," she went on, almost angrily. "And it +was quite natural--or at least it seems so to me!--I don't know what +other people would feel, but to _me_----But what are you two +cross-examining me for?" she interrupted herself to ask, with a sudden +rush of tears, as Chris looked unconvinced, and Alice still watched her +sorrowfully. "Little do you know, either of you, what I have been +through----" + +"Mama," entreated Alice, earnestly, "will you answer me one question? I +promise you that I won't ask another. You know how anxious we are only +to help you, to make everything run smoothly. You know what the family +is--to us. Don't you _see_ we are?" Alice asked suddenly, seeing that +the desire for sympathy and advice was rapidly breaking up the ice that +had chilled her mother's heart for long weeks. "Won't you tell me just +this--it's about Annie, Mama. When she was so ill in Munich. Was--was +her little baby born there?" + +"Yes!" Mrs. Melrose whispered, with fascinated eyes fixed on her +daughter's face. + +Alice, ashen faced, fell back against her pillows without speaking. + +"Kate Sheridan brought the child home," Christopher stated, rather than +asked, very quietly. His mother-in-law looked at him apathetically. + +"Kate--yes!" + +"Does Annie know it, Mama?" Alice whispered, after a silence. + +"Annie? Oh, my God, no!" The mother's voice rose almost to a wail. "Oh, +Chris--Alice--if you love me, Annie must not know! So proud, so happy; +and she would never bear it! I know her--I know her! She would kill +herself before----" + +"Darling, you must be quiet!" Alice said, commandingly. "No one shall +know it. What we do for this child shall be done for--well, our cousin. +Chris will help you manage everything, and no one shall ever suspect it +from me. It will all work out right, you'll see. Other people aren't +watching us, as we always think they are; it's nobody's business if a +cousin of ours suddenly appears in the family. No one would dare whisper +one word against the Melroses. Only be quiet, Mama darling, and don't +worry. Now that we know it, we will never, never allude to it again, +will we, Chris? You can trust us." + +Mrs. Melrose had sunk back into her chair; her face was putty-coloured, +beads of water stood on her forehead. + +"Oh, the relief--the relief!" she kept whispering, as she clung to +Alice's hand. "Alice, for the sake of the name--dear--for all our +sakes!----" + +"Now, if you two girls will take my advice!" Christopher suggested, +cheerfully, "you'll stop talking about all this, and let it wait until +to-morrow. Then we'll consult, and see just what proposition we can make +to little Miss Sheridan, and what's best to be done. Alice, why don't +you go over that wedding list of Leslie's with your mother? And ring for +dinner. I'm going to dress." + +"We will!" Alice agreed, sensibly. "As a family we've always faced +things courageously. We're fighters--we Melroses--and we'll stand +together!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +This was on Friday, and it was on the following Monday that Wolf and +Rose Sheridan came home to find news awaiting them. The day before had +been surprisingly sunny and sweet, and Wolf and Harry Redding had taken +the girls to Newark, where Wolf's motor-car had been stored all winter, +and they had laughed, and joked, and chattered all the way like the +care-free young things they were. Mrs. Sheridan, urged to join them, had +pleaded business: she had promised old Mrs. Melrose to go and see her. +So she had left them at the church door, after Mass, and they had gone +their way rejoicing in sunshine and warm breezes, a part of the +streaming holiday crowds that were surging and idling along the drying +pavements. + +Wolf was neither of an age nor type for piety, but to-day he had prayed +that this little Norma kneeling beside him, with the youth and fire and +audacity shining in her face even while she prayed, might turn that same +mysterious and solemn smile upon him again some day, as his wife. And +all day long, as she danced along by his side, as she eagerly debated +the question of luncheon, as she enslaved the aged coloured man in the +garage, the new thrill of which he had only recently become so +pleasantly conscious, stirred in his heart, and whatever she touched, or +said, or looked, was beautified almost beyond recognition. + +He had thought, coming home Monday night, that he and she would take a +little walk, in the lingering dusk of the cool spring evening, and +perhaps see the twelfth installment of "The Stripe-Faced Terror," which +was playing in the near-by moving-picture house. + +But he found her in a new mood, almost awed with an unexpected ecstasy +in which he had no part--would never have a part. She and Aunt Kate had +been to see Mrs. Melrose again. + +"And, Wolf, what do you think! They want me to go live there--with the +Liggetts, to help with lists and things for Leslie's wedding. Mrs. +Melrose kissed me, Wolf, and said--didn't she, Aunt Kate?--that I must +try to feel that I belong to them; and she was so sweet--she put her arm +about me, and said that I must have some pretty clothes! And the car is +coming for me on Wednesday; isn't it like a dream? Oh, Rose, if I'm +thankful enough! And I'm to come back here for dinner once a week, and +of course you and Rose are to come there! Oh, Rose, but I wish it was us +both--I wish it was you, you're so good!" + +"I wouldn't have it, Norma," Rose said, in her honest, pleasant voice. +"You know I'd feel like a fool." + +"Oh, but I am so happy!" And Norma, who had gotten into Aunt Kate's lap, +as the marvellous narrative progressed, dug her face into Aunt Kate's +motherly soft shoulder, and tightened her arms about her neck, and cried +a little, for sheer joy. + +But Wolf said almost nothing, and when he went to wash his hands for +supper he went slowly, and found himself staring absently at the towel, +and stopping short in the hall, still staring. He seemed himself at +dinner, and his mother, at first watching him anxiously, could resume +her meal, and later, could fall asleep, in the confident hope that it +would all come right, after all. But Wolf slipped from the house after +awhile, and walked the streets until almost dawn. + +It was almost dawn, too when the old mistress of the Melrose mansion +fell asleep. She had called Regina more than once, she had tried the +effect of reading, and of hot milk, and of a cold foot-bath. But still +the crowded, over-furnished room was filled with ghosts, and still she +watched them, pleaded with them, blamed them. + +"I've done all I could!" she whispered at last, into the heavy dark +before the dawn. "It isn't my fault if they think she's Annie's child! +I've never said so--it was Alice and Chris who said so. Annie and Leslie +will never know anything more, and the girl herself need never know +anything at all. Perhaps, as Kate said yesterday, it will all work out +right, this way! At least it's all we can do now!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +So it came about quite naturally that the little unknown cousin of the +Melroses was made a familiar figure in their different family groups, +and friends of the house grew accustomed to finding pretty little Norma +Sheridan lunching with Leslie, reading beside Alice's couch in the late +summer afternoons, or amusing and delighting the old head of the family +in a hundred charming ways. Norma called Mrs. Melrose "Aunt Marianna" +now, as Chris and Acton did. She did not understand the miracle, it +remained a marvel still, but it was enough that it continued to deepen +and spread with every enchanted hour. + +She had longed--what girl in Biretta's Bookstore did not?--to be rich, +and to move and have her being "in society." And now she had her wish, a +hundred times fulfilled, and of course she was utterly and absolutely +happy. + +That is, except for the momentary embarrassments and jealousies and +uncertainties, and for sometimes being bored, she thought that she might +consider herself happy. And there were crumpled rose-leaves everywhere! +she reminded herself sternly. She--Norma Sheridan--could spend more +money upon the single item of shoes, for example, than Miss Smith, head +of Biretta's Bookshop, could earn in a whole long year of hot months and +cold, of weary days and headachy days. + +That part of it was "fun", she admitted to herself. The clothes were +fun, the boxes and boxes and boxes that came home for her, the +petticoats and stockings, the nightgowns heavy with filet lace, and the +rough boots for tramping and driving, and the silk and satin slippers +for the house. Nothing disappointing there! Norma never would forget the +ecstasies of those first shopping trips with Aunt Marianna. Did she want +them?--the beaded bag, the woolly scarf, the little saucy hat, were all +to be sent to Miss Sheridan, please. Norma lost her breath, and laughed, +and caught it again and lost it afresh. They had so quickly dropped the +little pretence that she was to make herself useful, these wonderful and +generous Melroses; they had so soon forgotten everything except that she +was Leslie's age, and to be petted and spoiled as if she had been +another Leslie! + +And now, after more than half a year, she knew that they liked her; that +all of them liked her in their varying degrees. Old Mrs. Melrose and +Alice--Mrs. Christopher Liggett--were most warmly her champions, +perhaps, but Leslie was too unformed a character to be definitely +hostile, and the little earlier jealousies and misunderstandings were +blown away long ago, and even the awe-inspiring Annie had shown a real +friendliness of late. Acton Liggett and Hendrick von Behrens were always +kind and admiring, and Norma had swiftly captivated Annie's little boys. +But of them all, she still liked Chris Liggett the best, and felt +nearest Chris even when he scolded her, or hurt her feelings with his +frank advice. And she knew that Chris thoroughly liked her, in spite of +the mistakes that she was continually making, and the absurd ways in +which her ignorance and strangeness still occasionally betrayed her. + +It had been a time full of mistakes, of course. Chris often told her +that she had more brains in her little finger than most of the girls of +her set had in their whole bodies, but that had not saved her. If she +was pretty, they were all pretty, too. If she wore beautiful clothes, +they wore clothes just as beautiful, and with more assurance. If her wit +was quick, and her common sense and human experience far greater than +theirs, these were just the qualities they neither needed nor trusted. +They spoke their own language, the language of youthful arrogance and +ignorance, the language of mutual compliments and small personalities, +and Norma could not speak this tongue any more than she could join them +when they broke easily into French or German or Italian. She could ride, +because she was not afraid of the mild-mannered cobs that were used at +the riding school and in the park, but she knew little of correct +posture and proper handling of reins. She could swim, as Wolf had taught +her, in the old river years ago, but she knew nothing of the terms and +affectations of properly taught swimming. When she went to see Aunt +Kate, she was almost ashamed of the splendour of her clothing and the +utter luxury of the life she led, but with Leslie and her friends she +often felt herself what perhaps they thought her, an insignificant +little poor relation of the Melroses, who had appeared from nobody knew +where, and might return unchallenged at any moment to her original +obscurity. + +This phase of the new life was disappointing, and Norma realized herself +that she spent a quite disproportionate amount of time in thinking about +it. Wasn't it enough, she would ask herself impatiently, to be one of +them at all, to see one's picture in the fashionable weeklies, as a +member of the family, at the Liggett-Melrose wedding; to have clothes +and motor-cars, and a bedroom that was like a picture; to know Newport +at first-hand; to have cruised for a week in the Craigies' yacht, and +have driven to Quebec and back in the Von Behrens' car? A year ago, she +reminded herself, it would have seemed Paradise to have had even a +week's freedom from the bookshop; now, she need never step into +Biretta's again! + +But it was not enough, and Norma would come impatiently to the end of +her pondering with the same fretted sense of dissatisfaction. It was not +enough to be tremulously praised by old Aunt Marianna, to be joked by +Chris, greeted by Alice, his wife, with a friendly smile. Norma wanted +to belong to this life, to be admired and sought by Leslie, rather than +endured; to have the same easy familiarity with Duers, and Alexanders, +and Rutgers that Leslie had. + +As was quite natural, she and Leslie had eyed each other, from the very +beginning, somewhat as rivals. But Leslie, even then preparing for her +marriage, had so obviously held all the advantages, that her vague +resentment and curiosity concerning the family's treatment of the +unknown newcomer were brief. If Aunt Alice liked Norma to come in and +talk books and write notes, if Chris chose to be gallant, if Grandma +lavished an unusual affection upon this new protégée, well, it robbed +Leslie of nothing, after all. + +But with Norma it was different. She was brought into sharp contact with +another girl, only slightly her senior, who had everything that this new +turn of fortune had given Norma herself, and a thousand times more. +Norma saw older women, the important and influential matrons of the +social world, paying court to the promised wife of Acton Liggett. Norma +knew that while Alice and Chris were always attentive to her own little +affairs, the solving of Leslie's problems they regarded as their own +sacred obligation. Norma had hours and hours of this new enchanting +leisure to fill; she could be at anybody's beck and call. But Leslie, +she saw, was only too busy. Everybody was claiming Leslie; she was +needed in forty places at once; she must fly from one obligation to +another, and be thanked for sparing just a few minutes here and there +from her crowded days. + +Mrs. Melrose had immediately made Norma an allowance, an allowance so +big that when Norma first told Aunt Kate about it, it was with a sense +of shame. Norma had her check-book, and need ask nobody for spending +money. More than that her generous old patron insisted that she use all +the family charge accounts freely: "You mustn't think of paying in any +shop!" said Aunt Marianna and Aunt Alice, earnestly. + +But Leslie was immensely rich in her own right. The hour in which Norma +realized this was one of real wretchedness. Chris was her innocent +informant. + +It was only two or three days before the wedding, a warm day of rustling +leaves and moving shadows, in late May. The united families were still +in town, but plans for escape to the country were made for the very day +after the event. Norma had been fighting a little sense of hurt pride +because she was not to be included among Leslie's wedding attendants. +She knew that Aunt Marianna had suggested it to Leslie, some weeks +before, and that the bride had quite justifiably reminded her +grandmother that the eight maids, the special maid and matron of honour, +and the two little pages, had all been already asked to perform their +little service of affection, and that a readjustment now would be +difficult. So Norma had been excluded from the luncheons, the +discussions of frocks and bouquets, and the final exciting rehearsals in +the big Park Avenue church. + +She had chanced to be thinking of all these things on the day when Chris +made a casual allusion to "needing" Leslie. + +"The poor kid has got a stupid morning coming to-morrow, I'm afraid!" he +had said, adding, in answer to Norma's raised eyebrows, "Business. She +has to sign some papers, and alter her will--and I want all that done +before they go away!" + +"Has Leslie a will?" Norma had asked. + +"My child, what did you suppose she had? Leslie inherited practically +all of her Grandfather Melrose's estate. At least, her father, Theodore, +did, and Leslie gets it direct through him. Of course your Aunt Annie +got her slice, and my wife hers, but the bulk was left to the son. Poor +Teddy! he didn't get much out of it. But during her minority the +executors--of which I happen to be one--almost doubled it for Leslie. +And to-morrow Judge Lee and I have got to go over certain matters with +her." + +He had been idling at the piano, while Alice dozed in the heat, and +Norma played with a magazine. Now he had turned back to his music, and +Norma had apparently resumed her reading. But she really had been shaken +by a storm of passionate jealousy. + +Jealousy is in its nature selfish, and the old Norma of Aunt Kate's +little group had not been a selfish girl. But Norma had had a few weeks +now of a world governed by a different standard. There was no necessity +here, none of the pure beauty of sacrifice and service and +insufficiency. This was a world of superfluities, a standard of excess. +To have merely meals, clothing, comfort, and ease was not enough here. +All these must be had in superabundance, and she was the best woman and +the happiest who had gowns she could not wear, jewels lying idle, money +stored away in banks, and servants standing about uselessly for hours, +that the momentary needs of them might be instantly met. + +The poison of this creed had reached Norma, in spite of herself. She was +young, and she had always been beloved in her own group for what she +honestly gave of cheer and service and friendship. It hurt her that +nobody needed what she could give now, and she hated the very memory of +Leslie's wedding. + +But when that was over, Mrs. Melrose had taken her to Newport, whither +Alice was carefully moved every June. Leslie was gone now, and Norma +free from pricking reminders of her supremacy, and as old friends of +Mrs. Melrose began to include her in the summer's merrymaking, she had +some happy times. But even here the cloven hoof intruded. + +Norma had always imagined this group as being full of friendly women and +admiring men, as offering her a hundred friendships where the old life +had offered one. She discovered slowly, and with pained surprise, that +although there were plenty of girls, they were not especially anxious +for intimacy with her, and that the men she met were not, somehow, +"real." They were absorbed in amusement, polo and yachting, they moved +about a great deal, and they neither had, nor desired to have, any +genuine work or interest in life. She began to see Leslie's wisdom in +making an early and suitable marriage. As a matron, Leslie was +established; she could entertain, she had dignified duties and +interests, and while Norma felt awkward and bashful in asking young men +to dine with Aunt Marianna, Acton brought his friends to his home, and +Leslie had her girl friends there, and the whole thing was infinitely +simpler and pleasanter. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Norma had indeed chanced to make one girl friend, and one of whom Leslie +and Alice, and even Annie, heartily approved. Caroline, the +seventeen-year-old daughter of the Peter Craigies, was not a débutante +yet, but she would be the most prominent, because the richest, of them +all next winter. Caroline was a heavy-lidded, slow-witted girl, whose +chief companions in life had been servants, foreign-born governesses, +and music-masters. Norma had been seated next to her at the +international tennis tournament, and had befriended the squirming and +bashful Caroline from sheer goodness of heart. They had criticized the +players, and Caroline had laughed the almost hysteric, shaken laugh that +so worried her mother, and had blurted confidences to Norma in her +childish way. + +The next day there had been an invitation for Norma to lunch with +Caroline, and Mrs. von Behrens had promptly given another luncheon for +both girls. Norma was pleased, for a few weeks, with her first social +conquest, but after that Caroline became a dead weight upon her. She +hated the flattery, the inanities, the utter dulness of the great +Craigie mansion, and she began to have a restless conviction that time +spent with Caroline was time lost. + +The friendship had cost her dear, too. Norma hated, even months later to +remember just what she had paid for it. + +In August a letter from Rose had reached her at Newport, announcing +Rose's approaching marriage. Harry Redding's sister Mary was engaged to +a most satisfactory young man of Italian lineage, one Joe Popini, and +Mrs. Redding would hereafter divide her time between the households of +her daughter and her son. Harry, thus free to marry, had persuaded Rose +to wait no longer; the event was to be on a Monday not quite two weeks +ahead, and Norma was please, _please_, PLEASE to come down as soon as +she could. + +Norma had read this letter with a sensation of pain at her heart. She +felt so far away from them nowadays; she felt almost a certain +reluctance to dovetail this life of softness and perfume and amusement +in upon the old life. But she would go. She would go, of course! + +And then she had suddenly remembered that on the Monday before Rose's +wedding, the Craigies' splendid yacht was to put to sea for a four- or +five-days' cruise, and that Caroline had asked her to go--the only other +young person besides the daughter of the house. And great persons were +going, visiting nobility from England, a young American Croesus and his +wife, a tenor from the Metropolitan. Annie had been delighted with this +invitation; even Leslie, just returned from California and Hawaii, had +expressed an almost surprised satisfaction in the Craigies' +friendliness. + +If they got back Friday night, then Norma could go down to the city +early Saturday morning, and have two days with Rose and Aunt Kate. But +if the yacht did not return until Saturday--well, even then there would +be time. She and Rose could get through a tremendous lot of talking in +twenty-four hours. And the voyage certainly would not be prolonged over +Saturday, for had not Mrs. Craigie said, in Norma's hearing, that +Saturday was the very latest minute to which she could postpone the +meeting for the big charity lawn party? + +So Norma and the enslaved Caroline continued to plan for their sea trip, +and Norma commissioned Chris to order Rose's wedding present at +Gorham's. + +Mrs. von Behrens had been a trifle distant with the newcomer in the +family until now, but the day before the cruise began she extended just +a little of her royal graciousness toward Norma. Like Leslie, Norma +admired her Aunt Annie enormously, and hungered for her most casual +word. + +"You've plenty of frocks, Kiddie?" asked Annie. "One uses them up at the +rate of about three a day!" + +"Oh!"--Norma widened her innocent eyes--"I've a wardrobe trunk full of +them: white skirts and white shoes and hats!" + +"Well, I didn't suppose you had them tied in a handkerchief!" Annie had +responded, with her quiet smile. "See if that fits you!" + +They had been up in Mrs. von Behrens's big bedroom, where that lady was +looking at a newly arrived box of gowns. "That" was the frail, +embroidered coat of what Norma thought the prettiest linen suit she had +ever seen. + +"It's charming on you, you little slender thing," Annie had said. "The +skirt will be too long; will you pin it, Keating? And see that it goes +at once to my mother's house." + +Keating had pinned, admired. And Norma, turning herself before the +mirror, with her eyes shy with pleasure and gratitude, had known that +she was gaining ground. + +So they had started radiantly on the cruise. But after the first few +miraculous hours of gliding along beneath the gay awnings that had all +been almost astonishingly disappointing, too. Caroline, to begin with, +was a dreadful weight upon her young guest. Caroline for breakfast, +luncheon, and dinner; Caroline retiring and rising, became almost +hateful. Caroline always wanted to do something, when Norma could have +dreamed and idled in her deck chair by the hour. It must be deck golf or +deck tennis, or they must go up and tease dignified and courteous +Captain Burns, "because he was such an old duck," or they must harass +one or two of the older people into bridge. Norma did not play bridge +well, and she hated it, and hated Caroline's way of paying for her +losses almost more than paying them herself. + +Norma could not lie lazily with her book, raising her eyes to the +exquisite beauty of the slowly tipping sea, revelling in coolness and +airiness, because Caroline, fussing beside her, had never read a book +through in her life. The guest did not know, even now, that Caroline had +been a mental problem for years, that Caroline's family had consulted +great psycho-analysts about her, and had watched the girl's +self-centredness, her odd slyness, her hysteric emotions, with deep +concern. She did not know, even now, that the Cragies were anxious to +encourage this first reaching out, in Caroline, toward a member of her +own sex, and that her fancies for members of the opposite sex--for +severely indifferent teachers, for shocked and unresponsive +chauffeurs--were among the family problems, a part of the girl's +unfortunate under-development. Caroline's family was innocently +surprised to realize that her mind had not developed under the care of +maids who were absorbed in their own affairs, and foreigners who would +not have been free to attend her had they not been impecunious and +unsuccessful in more lucrative ways. They had left her to Mademoiselles +and Fräuleins quite complacently, but they did not wish her to be like +these too-sullen or too-vivacious ladies. + +So they welcomed her friendship with Norma, and Caroline's passionate +desire to be with her friend was not to find any opposition on the part +of her own family. Little Miss Sheridan had an occasional kindly word +from Caroline's mother, a stout woman, middle-aged at thirty-five, and +good-natured smiles from Caroline's father, a well-groomed young man. +And socially, this meant that the Melroses' young protégée was made. + +But Norma did not realize all this. She only knew that all the charm and +beauty of the yacht were wasted on her. Everyone ate too much, talked +too much, played, flirted, and dressed too much. The women seldom made +their appearance until noon; in the afternoons there was bridge until +six, and much squabbling and writing of checks on the forward deck, with +iced drinks continually being brought up from the bar. At six the women +loitered off to dress for dinner, but the men went on playing for +another half hour. The sun sank in a blaze of splendour; the wonderful +twilight fell; but the yacht might have been boxed up in an armoury for +all that her passengers saw of the sea. + +After the elaborate dinner, with its ices and hot rolls, its warm wines +and chilled champagne, cards began again, and unless the ocean was so +still that they might dance, bridge continued until after midnight. + +Norma's happiest times had been when she arose early, at perhaps seven, +and after dressing noiselessly in their little bathroom, crept upstairs +without waking Caroline. Sunshine would be flooding the ocean, or +perhaps the vessel would be nosing her way through a luminous fog--but +it was always beautiful. The decks, drying in the soft air, would be +ordered, inviting, deserted. Great waves of smooth water would flow +evenly past, curving themselves with lessening ripples into the great +even circle of the sea. A gentle breeze would stir the leaves of the +potted plants on the deck and flap the fringes of the awnings. + +Norma, hanging on the railing, would look down upon a group of maids and +stewards laughing and talking on the open deck below. These were happy, +she would reflect, animated by a thousand honest emotions that never +crept to the luxurious cabins above. They would be waiting for +breakfast, all freshly aproned and brushed, all as pleased with the +_Seagirl_ as if they had been her owners. + +On the fifth day, Friday, she had been almost sick with longing to hear +some mention of going back. Surely--surely, she reasoned, they had all +said that they must get back on Friday night! If the plan had changed, +Norma had determined to ask them to run into harbour somewhere, and put +her on shore. She was so tired of Caroline, so tired of wasting time, so +headachy from the heavy meals and lack of exercise! + +Late on Friday afternoon some idle remark of her hostess had assured her +that the yacht would not make Greble light until Monday. They were +ploughing north now, to play along the Maine coast; the yachting party +was a great success, and nobody wanted to go home. + +Norma, goaded out of her customary shyness, had pleaded her cousin's +marriage. Couldn't they run into Portland--or somewhere?--and let her go +down by train? But Caroline had protested most affectionately and +noisily against this, and Caroline's mother said sweetly that she +couldn't think of letting Norma do that alone--Annie von Behrens would +never forgive her! However, she would speak to Captain Burns, and see +what could be done. Anyway, Mrs. Craigie had finished, with her +comfortable laugh, Norma had only to tell her cousin that she was out +with friends on their yacht, and they had been delayed. Surely that was +excuse enough for any one? + +It was with difficulty that Norma had kept the tears out of her eyes. +She had not wanted an excuse to stay away from Rose's wedding. Her heart +had burned with shame and anger and helplessness. She could hardly +believe, crying herself to sleep on Friday night, that two whole days +were still to spare before Monday, and that she was helpless to use +them. Her mind worked madly, her thoughts rushing to and fro with a +desperation worthy an actual prisoner. + +On Saturday evening, after a day of such homesickness and +heavy-heartedness as she had never known before in her life, she had +realized that they were in some port, lying a short half mile from +shore. + +It was about ten o'clock, warm and star-lighted; there was no moon. +Norma had slipped from the deck, where Caroline was playing bridge, and +had gone to the lowered gang-plank. Captain Burns was there, going over +what appeared to be invoices, with the head steward. + +"Captain," Norma had said, her heart pounding, "can't you put me on +shore? I must be in New York to-morrow--it's very important! If I get a +coat, will you let me go in when you go?" + +He had measured her with his usual polite, impersonal gaze. + +"Miss Sheridan, I really could not do it, Miss! If it was a telegram, or +something of that sort----But if anything was to happen to you, Miss, it +would be--it really would be most unfortunate!" + +Norma had stood still, choking. And in the starlight he had seen the +glitter of tears in her eyes. + +"Couldn't you put it to Mrs. Craigie, Miss? I'm sure she'd send +someone--one of the maids----" + +But Norma shook her head. It would anger Caroline, and perhaps +Caroline's mother, and Annie, too, to have her upset the cruise by her +own foolish plans. There was no hope of her hostess's consent. +What!--send a girl of eighteen down to New York for dear knows what +fanciful purpose, without a hint from parent or guardian? Mrs. Craigie +knew the modern girl far too well for that, even if it had not been +personally extremely inconvenient to herself to spare a maid. They were +rather short of maids, for two or three of them had been quite ill. + +The launch had put off, with Captain Burns in the stern. Norma had stood +watching it, with her heart of lead. Oh, to be running away--flying--on +the train--in the familiar streets! They could forgive her later--or +never---- + +"Norma, aren't you naughty?" Caroline had interrupted her thoughts, and +had slipped a hand through her arm. "Buoso is going to sing--do come in! +My dear, you know that last hand? Well, we made it----!" + +The next two days were the slowest, the hardest, the bitterest of +Norma's life. She felt that nobody had ever had to bear so aching a +heart as hers, as the most beautiful yacht in the world skimmed over the +blue ocean, and the sun shone down on her embroidered linen suit, and +her white shoes, and the pearl ring that Caroline had given her for her +birthday. + +What were they doing at Aunt Kate's? What were they saying as the hours +went by? At what stage was the cake--and the gown? Was Rose really to be +married to-morrow--to-day? + +In New Brunswick she had managed to send a long wire, full of the +disappointment and affection and longing she truly felt, and after that +she had been happier. But it was a very subdued little Norma who had +come quietly into Aunt Kate's kitchen three weeks later, and had +relieved her over-charged heart with a burst of tears on Aunt Kate's +shoulder. + +Aunt Kate had been kind, kind as she always was to the adored +foster-child. And Norma had stayed to dinner, and made soft and penitent +eyes at Wolf until the agonized resolutions of the past lonely months +had all melted out of his heart again, and they had all gone over to +Rose's, for five minutes of kissing and crying, before the big car came +to carry Norma away. + +So the worst of that wound was healed, and life could become bright and +promising to Norma once more. Autumn was an invigorating season, anyway, +full of hope and enchantment, and Caroline Craigie, by what Norma felt +to be a special providence, was visiting her grandmother in Baltimore +for an indefinite term. The truth was that there was a doctor there +whose advice was deemed valuable to Caroline, but Norma did not know +that. Norma did not know the truth, either, about Mrs. von Behrens's +sudden graciousness toward her, but it made her happy. Annie had become +friendly and hospitable toward the newcomer in the family for only one +reason. As a social dictator, she was accustomed to be courted and +followed by scores of women who desired her friendship for the prestige +it gave them. Annie was extremely autocratic in this respect, and could +snub, chill, and ignore even the most hopeful aspirants to her favour, +with the ease of long practice. It made no difference to Annie that +dazzling credentials were produced, or that past obscurity was more than +obliterated by present glory. + +"One truly must be firm," Annie frequently said. "It devolves upon a few +of us, as an actual duty, to see that society is maintained in its true +spirit. Let the bars down once----!" + +Norma, a negligible factor in Annie's life when she first appeared, had +quite innocently become a problem during that first summer. While not a +Melrose, she was a member of the Melrose family, making her home with +one of the daughters of the house. Annie might ignore Norma, but there +were plenty of women, and men, too, who saw in the girl a valuable +social lever. To become intimate with little Miss Sheridan meant that +one might go up to her, at teas and dinners, while she was with Mrs. +Melrose, or young Mrs. Liggett, or even Mrs. von Behrens herself, in a +casual, friendly manner that indicated, to a watching world, a +comfortable footing with the family. Norma was consequently selected +for social attention. + +Annie saw this immediately, and when all the families were settled in +town again, she decided to take Norma's social training in hand, as she +had done Leslie's, and make sure that no undesirable cockle was sown +among the family fields. She would have done exactly the same if Norma +had been the least attractive of girls, but Norma fancied that her own +qualities had won Annie's reluctant friendship, and was accordingly +pleased. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Eight months later, in the clear sunshine of a late autumn morning, a +slender young woman came down the steps of the Melrose house, after an +hour's call on the old mistress, and turned briskly toward Fifth Avenue. +In figure, in carriage, and even in the expression of her charming and +animated face, she was different from the girl who had come to that same +house to make a call with Aunt Kate, on the day after the big blizzard, +yet it was the same Norma Sheridan who nodded a refusal to the driver of +the big motor-car that was waiting, and set off by herself for her walk. + +The old Norma, straight from Biretta's Bookshop, had been pretty in +plain serge and shabby fur. But this Norma--over whose soft thick belted +coat a beautiful silver-fox skin was linked, whose heavy, ribbed silk +hose disappeared into slim, flat, shining pumps that almost caressed the +slender foot, whose dark hair had the lustre that comes from intelligent +care, and whose handsome little English hat was the only one of its +special cut in the world--was a conspicuously attractive figure even in +a world of well-groomed girls, and almost deserved to be catalogued as a +beauty. From the hat to the shoes she was palpably correct, and Norma +knew, and never could quite sufficiently revel in the knowing, that the +blouse and the tailored skirt that were under the coat were correct, +too, and that under blouse and skirt were cobwebby linens and perfumed +ribbons and sheerest silks that were equally perfect in their way. +Leslie's bulldog, pulling on his strap, kept her moving rapidly, and +girl and dog exacted from almost all the passers-by that tribute of +glances to which Norma was now beginning to be accustomed. + +She was walking to Mrs. von Behrens's after an unusually harmonious +luncheon with old Mrs. Melrose. This was one of Norma's happy times, and +she almost danced in the crisp November air that promised snow even now. +Leslie had asked her to come informally to tea; Annie had sent a message +that she wished to see Norma; and Alice, who, like all invalids, had +dark moods of which only her own household was aware, had been her +nicest self for a week. Then Christopher was coming home to-night, and +Norma had missed him for the three weeks he had been away, duck-shooting +in the South, and liked the thought that he was homeward bound. + +She found Leslie with Annie to-day, in Annie's big front bedroom. Leslie +was in a big chair by the bed where Annie, with some chalky preparation +pasted in strips on those portions of her face that were most inclined +to wrinkle, was lying flat. Her hair, rubbed with oils and packed in +tight bands, was entirely invisible, and over her arms, protruding from +a gorgeous oriental wrap, loose chamois gloves were drawn. Annie had +been to a luncheon, and was to appear at two teas, a dinner, and the +theatre, and she was making the most of an interval at home. She looked +indescribably hideous, as she stretched a friendly hand toward Norma, +and nodded toward a chair. + +"Look at the child's colour--Heavens! what it is to be young," said +Annie. "Sit down, Norma. How's Alice?" + +"Lovely!" Norma said, pulling off her gloves. "She had a wire from +Chris, and he gets back to-night. I had luncheon with your mother, and I +am to go to stay with her for two or three nights, anyway. But Aunt +Alice said that she would like to have me back again next week for her +two teas." + +"How old are you, Norma?" Annie asked, suddenly. Any sign of interest on +her part always thrilled the girl, who answered, flushing: + +"Nineteen; twenty in January, Aunt Annie." + +"I'm thinking, if you'd like it, of giving you a little tea here next +month," Annie said, lazily. "You know quite enough of the youngsters now +to have a thoroughly nice time, and afterward we'll have a dinner here, +and they can dance!" + +"Oh, Aunt Annie--if I'd like it!" Norma exclaimed, rosy with pleasure. + +"You would?" Annie asked, looking at a hand from which she had drawn the +glove, and smiling slightly. "It means that you don't go anywhere in the +meantime. You're not out until then, you know!" + +"Oh, but I won't be going anywhere, anyway," Norma conceded, +contentedly. + +"You'll have a flood of invitations fast enough after the tea," Annie +assured her, pleased at her excitement, "and until then, you can simply +say that you are not going out yet." + +"Chris said he might take me to the opera on the first night; I've never +been," Norma said, timidly. "But I can explain to him!" + +"Oh, that won't count!" Annie assured her, carelessly. "We'll all be +there, of course! Have you worn the corn-coloured gown yet?" + +"Oh, no, Aunt Annie!" + +"Well, keep it for that night. And you and Chris might----No, he'll want +to dine with Alice, and she'll want to see you in your new gown. I was +going to say that you might dine here, but you'd better not." + +"I think Leslie and Acton are going to be asked to dine with us," Norma +said. "Aunt Alice said something about it!" + +"Well," Annie agreed indifferently. "Ring that bell, Norma--I've got to +get up! Where are you girls going now?" + +"Some of the girls are coming to my house for tea," Leslie answered, +listlessly. "I've got the car here. Come on, Norma!" + +"But you're not driving, Kiddie?" her aunt asked, quickly. + +Leslie, who neither looked nor felt well, raised half-resentful eyes. + +"Oh, no, I'm not driving, and I'm lying in bed mornings, and I don't +play squash, or ride horseback, or go in for tennis!" she drawled, half +angrily. "I'm having a perfectly _lovely_ time! I wish Acton had a +little of it; he wouldn't be so pleased! Makes me so mad," grumbled +Leslie, as she wandered toward the door, busily buttoning her coat. +"Grandma crying with joy, and Aunt Alice goo-gooing at me, and +Acton----" + +"Come, now, be a little sport, Leslie!" her aunt urged, affectionately, +with her arm about her. "It's rotten, of course, but after all, it does +mean a lot to the Liggetts----" + +"Oh, now, don't _you_ begin!" Leslie protested, half-mollified, with her +parting nod. "Don't--for pity's sake!--talk about it," she added, +rudely, to Norma, as Norma began some consolatory murmur on the stairs. +But when they were before her own fire, waiting for the expected girls, +she made Norma a rather ungracious confidence. + +"I don't want Aunt Alice or any one to know it, but if Acton Liggett +thinks I am going to let him make an absolute fool of me, he's +mistaken!" Leslie said, in a sort of smouldering resentment. + +"What has Acton done?" Norma asked, flattered by the intimation of trust +and not inclined to be apprehensive. She had seen earlier differences +between the young married pair, and now, when Leslie was physically at a +disadvantage, she and Alice had agreed that it was not unnatural that +the young wife should grow exacting and fanciful. + +"Acton is about the most selfish person I ever knew," Leslie said, +almost with a whimper. "Oh, yes, he is, Norma! You don't see it--but I +do! Chris knows it, too; I've heard Chris call him down a thousand times +for it! I am just boiling at Acton; I have been all day! He leaves +everything to me, everything; and I'm not well, now, and I can't stand +it! And I'll tell him I can't, too." + +"I suppose a man doesn't understand very well," Norma ventured. + +"_He_ doesn't!" Leslie said, warmly. "All Acton Liggett thinks of is his +own comfort--that's all! I do everything for him--I pay half the +expenses here, you know, more than half, really, for I always pay for my +own clothes and Milly, and lots of other things. And then he'll do some +_mean_, ugly thing that just makes me furious at him--and he'll walk out +of the house, perfectly calm and happy!" + +"He's always had his own way a good deal," Norma who knew anything +except sympathy would utterly exasperate Leslie conceded, mildly. + +"Yes," Leslie agreed, flushing, and stiffening her jaw rather ominously, +"and it's just about time that he learned that he isn't always going to +have it, too! It's very easy for him to have me do anything that is hard +and stupid----Do you suppose," she broke off, suddenly, "that _I'm_ so +anxious to go to the Duers' dinner? I wouldn't care if I never saw one +of them again!" + +Norma gathered that a dinner invitation from the Duers had been the main +cause of the young Liggetts' difference, and framed a general question. + +"That's Saturday night?" + +"Friday," Leslie amended. "And what does he do? He meets Roy Duer at the +club, and says oh, no, he can't come to the dinner Friday, but _Leslie_ +can! He has promised to play bridge with the Jeromes and that crowd. But +Leslie would _love_ to go! So there I am--old lady Duer called me up the +next morning, and was so sorry Acton couldn't come! But she would expect +me at eight o'clock. It's for her daughter, and she goes away again on +Tuesday. And then"--Leslie straightened herself on the couch, and fixed +Norma with bright, angry eyes;--"then Spooky Jerome telephoned here, and +said to tell Acton that if he couldn't stir up a bridge party for +Friday, he'd stir up something, and for Acton to meet him at the club!" + +Norma laughed. + +"And did you give Acton that message?" she inquired. + +"No, indeed, I didn't--that was only this morning!" Leslie said, in +angry satisfaction. "I telephoned Mrs. Duer right away, and said that +Acton would be so glad to come Friday, and if Acton Liggett doesn't like +it, he knows what he can do! You laugh," she went on with a sort of +pathetic dignity, "but don't you think it's a rotten way for a man to +treat his wife, Norma? Don't you, honestly? There's nothing--nothing +that I don't give way in--absolutely nothing! And I don't believe most +men----Oh, hello, Doris," Leslie broke off, gaily, as there was a stir +at the door; "come in! Come in, Vera--aren't you girls angels to come in +and see the poor old sick lady!" + +Norma was still lingering when Acton came home, an hour later. She heard +his buoyant voice in the hall, and began to gather her wraps and gloves +as he came to the tea table. + +"Acton," Leslie said, firmly, "the bridge party is off for Friday, and +you're going to Mrs. Duer's with me, and you ought to be ashamed of +yourself!" + +"Whew! I can see that I'm popular in the home circle, Norma!" Acton +said, leaning over the big davenport to kiss his wife. "How's my baby? +All right, dear, anything you say goes! I was going to cancel the game, +anyway. Look what Chris brought you, Cutey-cute! Say, Norma, has she +been getting herself tired?" + +Leslie, instantly mollified, drew his cold, firm cheek against hers, and +looked sidewise toward Norma. + +"Isn't he the nice, big, comfy man to come home to his mad little old +wife?" she mumbled, luxuriously. + +"Yes," Acton grumbled, still half embracing her, "but you didn't talk +that way at breakfast, you little devil!" + +"Am I a devil?" Leslie asked, lazily. And looking in whimsical penitence +at Norma, she added, "I _am_ a devil. But you were just as mean as you +could be," she told him, widening her eyes and shaking her head. + +"I know it. I felt like a dog, walking down town," her husband admitted +promptly. "I tried to telephone but you weren't here!" + +"I was at Aunt Annie's," Leslie said, softly. Her husband had slipped in +beside her on the wide davenport, and she was resting against his +shoulder, and idly kissing the little rebel lock of hair that fell +across one temple. "He's a pretty nice old husband!" she murmured, +contentedly. + +"And she's a pretty nice little wife, if she did call me some mean +names!" Acton returned, kissing the top of her head without altering her +position. Norma looked at them with smiling contempt. + +"You're a great pair!" she conceded, indulgently. + +Leslie now was free to examine, with a flush and a laugh, the +microscopic pair of beaded Indian moccasins that Chris had brought from +Florida. Norma asked about Chris. + +"Oh, he's fine," Acton answered, "looks brown and hard; he had a +gorgeous time! He said he might be round to see Grandma to-morrow +morning!" + +"I'll tell her," Norma said, getting up to go. She left them still +clinging together, like a pair of little love-birds, with peace fully +restored for the time being. + +Mrs. Melrose's car had been waiting for some time, and she was whirled +home through the dark and wintry streets without the loss of a second. +Lights were lighted everywhere now, and tempered radiance filled the old +hall as she entered it. It was just six o'clock, but Norma knew that she +and the old lady were to be alone to-night, and she went through the +long drawing-room to the library beyond it, thinking she might find her +still lingering over the teacups. Dinner under these circumstances was +usually at seven, and frequently Mrs. Melrose did not change her gown +for it. + +There was lamplight in the library, but the old lady's chair was empty, +and the tea table had been cleared away. Norma, supposing the room +unoccupied, gave a little gasp of surprise and pleasure as Chris +suddenly got to his feet among the shadows. + +She was so glad to see him, so much more glad than she would have +imagined herself, that for a few minutes she merely clung tight to the +two hands she had grasped, and stood laughing and staring at him. Chris +back again! It meant so much that was pleasant and friendly to Norma. +Chris advised her, admired her, sympathized with her; above all, she +knew that he liked her. + +"Chris; it's so nice to see you!" she exclaimed. + +The colour came into his face, and with it an odd expression that she +had never seen there before. Without speaking he put his arm about her, +and drew her to him, and kissed her very quietly on the mouth. + +"Hello, you dear little girl!" he said, freeing her, and smiling at her, +somewhat confusedly. "You're not half so glad to see me as I am to be +back! You're looking so well, Norma," he went on, with almost his usual +manner, "and Alice tells me you are making friends everywhere. What's +the news?" + +He threw himself into a large leather chair, and, hardly knowing what +she was doing, in the wild hurrying of her senses, Norma sat down +opposite him. Her one flurried impulse was not to make a scene. Chris +was always so entirely master of a situation, so utterly unemotional and +self-possessed, that if he kissed her, upon his return from a +three-weeks' absence, it must be a perfectly correct thing to do. + +Yet she felt both shaken and protestant, and it was with almost +superhuman control that she began to carry on a casual conversation, +giving her own report upon Alice and Leslie, Acton and the world in +general. + +When Mrs. Melrose, delighted at the little attention from her +son-in-law, came smilingly in, five minutes later, Norma escaped +upstairs. She had Leslie's old room here when she spent the night, but +it was only occasionally that Alice spared her, for her youth and high +spirits, coupled with the simplicity and enthusiasm with which she was +encountering the new world, made her a really stimulating companion for +the sick woman. + +Regina came in to hook her into a simple dinner gown, but Norma did not +once address her, except by a vague smile of greeting. Her thoughts were +in a whirl. Why had he done that? Was it just brotherly--friendliness? +He was much older than she--thirty-seven or eight; perhaps he had felt +only an older man's kindly---- + +But her face blazed, and she flung this explanation aside angrily. He +had no business to do it! He had no right to do it! She was furious at +him! + +She stood still, staring blankly ahead of her, in the centre of the +room. The memory came over her in a wave; the odd, half-hesitating, +half-confident look in his eyes as his arms enveloped her, the faint +aroma of talcum powder and soap, the touch of his smoothly shaven cheek. + +It was almost an hour later that she went cautiously downstairs. He was +gone--had been gone since half-past six o'clock, Joseph reported. Norma +went in to dinner with Mrs. Melrose, and they talked cheerfully of +Chris's return, of Leslie and Annie. + +By eight o'clock, reading in Mrs. Melrose's upstairs sitting-room, that +first room that she had seen in this big house, eight months ago, Norma +began to feel just a trifle flat. Chris Liggett was one of the most +popular men in society, in demand everywhere, spoiled by women +everywhere. He had quite casually, and perhaps even absent-mindedly, +kissed his wife's young protégée upon meeting her after an absence, and +she had hastily leaped to conclusions worthy of a schoolgirl! He would +be about equally amused and disgusted did he suspect them. + +"He likes you, you little fool," Norma said to herself, "and you will +utterly spoil everything with your idiocy!" + +"What did you say, lovey?" the old lady asked, half closing her book. + +"Nothing!" Norma said, laughing. She reopened her novel, and tried to +interest herself in it. But the thought of that quarter hour in the +study came back over and over again. She came finally to the conclusion +that she was glad Chris liked her. + +The room was very still. A coal fire was glowing pink and clear in the +grate, and now and then the radiators hissed softly. Norma had one big +brilliant lamp to herself, and over the old lady's chair another +glowed. Everything was rich, soft, comfortable. Regina was hovering in +the adjoining room, folding the fat satin comforters, turning down the +transparent linen sheets with their great scroll of monogram, and behind +Regina were Joseph and Emma, and all the others, and behind them the +great city and all the world, eager to see that this old woman, who had +given the world very little real service in her life, should be shielded +and warmed and kept from the faintest dream of need. + +Money was a strange thing, Norma mused. What should she do, if--as her +shamed and vague phrase had it--if "something happened" to Aunt +Marianna, and she was not even mentioned in her will? Of course it was a +hateful thing to think of, and a horrible thing, sitting here opposite +Aunt Marianna in the comfortable upstairs sitting-room, but the thought +would come. Norma wished that she knew. She would not have shortened the +old lady's life by a single second, and she would have died herself +rather than betray this thought to any one, even to Wolf--even to Rose! +But it suddenly seemed to her very unjust that she could be picked out +of Biretta's bookstore to-day, by Aunt Marianna's pleasure, and perhaps +put back there to-morrow through no fault of her own. They were all +kind, they were all generous, but this was not just. She wanted the +delicious and self-respecting feeling of being a young woman with +"independent means." + +Such evenings as this one, even in the wonderful Melrose house, were +undeniably dull. She and Rose had often grumbled, years ago, because +there were so many of these quiet times, in between the Saturday and +Sunday excitements. But Norma, in those days, had never supposed that +dulness was ever compatible with wealth and ease. + +"Cards?" said old Mrs. Melrose, hopefully, as the girl made a sudden +move. She loved to play patience, but only when she had an audience. +Norma, who had just decided to give her French verbs a good hour's +attention, smiled amiably, and herself brought out the green table. She +sat watching the fall of kings and aces, reminding her companion of at +least every third play. But her thoughts went back to Chris, and the +faint odour of powder and soap, and the touch of his shaved cheek. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Norma met Chris again no later than the following afternoon. It was +twilight in Alice's room, and she and Norma were talking on into the +gloom, discussing the one or two guests who had chanced to come in for +tea, and planning the two large teas that Alice usually gave some time +late in November. + +Chris came in quietly, kissed his wife, and nodded carelessly to Norma. +The girl's sudden mad heartbeats and creeping colour could subside +together unnoticed, for he apparently paid no attention to her, and +presently drifted to the piano, leaving the women free to resume their +conference. + +Alice was a person of more than a surface sweetness; she loved harmony +and serenity, and there was almost no inclination to irritability or +ugliness in her nature. Her voice was always soothing and soft, and her +patience in the unravelling of other people's problems was +inexhaustible. Alice was, as all the world conceded, an angel. + +But Norma had not been a member of her household for eight months +without realizing that Alice, like other household angels, did not wish +an understudy in the rôle. She did not quite enjoy the nearness of +another woman who might be all sweet and generous and peace-making, too. +That was her own sacred and peculiar right. She could gently and +persistently urge objections and find inconsistencies in any plan of +her sister or of Norma, no matter how advantageous it sounded, and she +could adhere to a plan of her own with a tenacity that, taken in +consideration with Alice's weak body and tender voice, was nothing less +than astonishing. + +Norma, lessoned in a hard school, and possessing more than her share of +adaptability and common sense, had swiftly come to the conclusion that, +since it was not her part to adjust the affairs of her benefactors, she +might much more wisely constitute herself a sort of Greek chorus to +Alice's manipulations. Alice's motives were always of the highest, and +it was easy to praise them in all honesty, and if sometimes the younger +woman had mentally arrived at a conclusion long before Alice had +patiently and sweetly reached it, the little self-control was not much +to pay toward the comfort of a woman as heavily afflicted as Alice. + +For Norma knew in her own heart that Alice was heavily afflicted, +although the invalid herself always took the attitude that her +helplessness brought the best part of life into her room, and shut away +from her the tediousness and ugliness of the world. + +"'Aïda' two weeks from to-night!" Alice said this evening, with her +sympathetic smile. + +"Oh, Aunt Alice--if you could go! Didn't you love it?" + +"Love the opera? Do you hear her, Chris? But I didn't love people +talking all about me--and they will do it, you know! And that makes one +furious!" + +"I see you getting furious," Norma observed, incredulously. + +"You don't know me! But I was a bashful, adoring sort of little person, +on my first night----" + +"Yes, you were," Chris teased her, over a lazy ripple of thirds. "She +was such a bashful little person at the Mardi Gras dance she promised +Artie Peyton her first cotillion the following season." + +"Oh, Aunt Alice--you didn't!" + +Alice's rather colourless face flushed happily, and she half lowered her +lids. + +"Chris thinks that is a great story on me. As a matter of fact, I did do +that; I was just childish enough. But I can't think how the story got +out, for I was desperately ashamed of it." + +"I told Aunt Annie and Leslie to-day that you wanted the Liggetts to +dine here that night," Norma said, suddenly. Instantly she realized that +she had made a mistake. And there was no one in the world whose light +reproof hurt her as Alice's did. + +"You--you gave my invitation to Leslie?" Alice asked, quietly. + +"Well--not quite that. But I told her that you had said that you meant +to ask them," Norma replied, uncomfortably. + +"But, Norma, I did not ask you to mention it." Alice was even smiling, +but she seemed a little puzzled. + +"I'm so sorry--if you didn't want me to!" + +"It isn't that. But one feels that one----" + +"What is Norma sorry about?" Chris asked, coming back to the fire. +"Norma, you're up against a terrible tribunal, here! Alice has been +known--well, even to give new hats to the people who make her angry!" + +This fortunate allusion to an event now some months old entirely +restored Alice's good humour. Norma had accepted a certain almost-new +hat from Leslie just before the wedding, and Alice, burning with her +secret suspicion as to Norma's parentage, and in the first flush of her +affection for the girl, had told Norma that in her opinion Leslie should +not have offered it. It was not for Norma to take any patronage from her +cousin, Alice said to herself. But Norma's distress at having +disappointed Alice was so fresh and honest that the episode had ended +with Alice's presenting her with a stunning new hat, to wipe out the +terrible effect of her mild criticism. + +"You're a virago," said Chris, seating himself near his wife. "Tell me +what you've been doing all day. Am I in for that dinner at Annie's +to-night? I wish I could stay here and gossip with you girls." + +"Dearest, you'd get so stupid, tied here to me, that you wouldn't know +who was President of the United States!" Alice smiled. "Yes, I promised +you to Annie two weeks ago. To-morrow night Norma goes to Leslie, and +you and I have dinner all alone, so console yourself with that." + +"_Très bien_," Christopher agreed. And as if the phrase suggested it, he +went on to test Norma's French. Norma was never self-conscious with him, +and in a few seconds he and Alice were laughing at her earnest +absurdities. When husband and wife went on into a conversation of their +own, Norma sat back idly, conscious that the atmosphere was always easy +and pleasant when Chris was at home, there were no petty tensions and no +sensitive misconstructions while Chris was talking. Sometimes with Annie +and Alice, and even with Leslie, Norma could be rapidly brought to the +state of feeling prickly all over, afraid to speak, and equally +uncomfortable in silence. But Chris always smoothed her spirit into +utter peace, and reëstablished her sense of proportion, her sense of +humour. + +Neither he nor Alice noticed her when she presently went away to change +her gown for dinner, but when she came out of her room, half an hour +later, Chris was just coming up to his. Their rooms were on the same +floor--his the big front room, and hers one of the sunny small ones at +the back of the house. Norma's and that of Miss Slater, Alice's nurse, +were joined by a bathroom; Chris had his own splendid dressing-room and +bath, fitted, like his bedroom, with rugs and chests and highboys worthy +of a museum. + +"Aren't you going to be late, Chris?" Norma asked, when they met at the +top of the stairs. Fresh from a bath, with her rich dark hair pushed +back in two shining wings from her smooth forehead, and her throat +rising white and soft from the frills of a black lacy gown, she was the +incarnation of youth and sweetness as she looked up at him. "Seven +o'clock!" she reminded him. + +For answer he surprised her by catching her hand, and staring gravely +down at her. + +"Were you angry at me, Norma?" he asked, in a quiet, businesslike voice. + +"Angry?" she echoed, surprised. But her colour rose. "No, Chris. Why +should I be?" + +"There is no reason why you should be, of course," he answered, simply, +almost indifferently. And immediately he went by her and into his room. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +On the memorable night of her first grand opera Norma and Chris dined at +Mrs. von Behrens's. It was Alice who urged the arrangement, urged it +quite innocently, as she frequently did the accidental pairing of Norma +and Chris, because her mother was going for a week to Boston, the +following day, and they wanted an evening of comfortable talk together. + +Norma, with Freda and Miss Slater as excited accomplices, laid out the +new corn-coloured gown at about five o'clock in the afternoon, laid +beside it the stockings and slippers that exactly matched it in colour, +and hung over the foot of her bed the embroidered little stays that were +so ridiculously small and so unnecessarily beautiful. On a separate +chair was spread the big furred wrap of gold and brown brocade, the high +carriage shoes, and the long white gloves to which the tissue paper +still was clinging. The orchids that Annie had given Norma that morning +were standing in a slender vase on the bureau, and as a final touch the +girl, regarding these preparations with a sort of enchanted delight, +unfurled to its full glory the great black ostrich-feather fan. Norma +amused Alice and Mrs. Melrose by refusing tea, and disappeared long +before there was need, to begin the great ceremony of robing. + +Miss Slater manicured her hands while Freda brushed and dressed the dark +thick hair. Between Norma and the nurse there had at first been no +special liking. Both were naturally candidates for Alice's favour. But +as the months went by, and Norma began to realize that Miss Slater's +position was not only far from the ideally beautiful one it had seemed +at first, but that the homely, elderly, good-natured woman was actually +putting herself to some pains to make Norma's own life in the Liggett +house more comfortable than it might have been, she had come genuinely +to admire Alice's attendant, and now they were fast friends. It was +often in Norma's power to distract Alice's attention from the fact that +Miss Slater was a little late in returning from her walk, or she would +make it a point to order for the invalid something that Miss Slater had +forgotten. They stood firmly together in many a small domestic +emergency, and although the nurse's presence to-night was not, as Norma +thought with a little pang, like having Rose or Aunt Kate with her, +still it was much, much better than having no one at all. + +She sat wrapped luxuriously in a brilliant kimono, while Freda brushed +and rolled busily, and Miss Slater polished and clipped. Then ensued a +period of intense concentration at the mirror, when the sparkling pins +were put in her hair, and the little pearl earrings screwed into her +ears, and when much rubbing and greasing and powdering went on, and even +some slight retouching of the innocent, red young mouth. + +"Shall I?" Norma asked, dubiously eyeing the effect of a trace of rouge. + +"Don't be an idiot, Miss Sheridan!" Miss Slater said. "You've got a +lovely colour, and it's a shame to touch it!" + +"Oh, but I think I look so pale!" Norma argued. + +"Well, when you've had your dinner----Now, you take my advice, my dear, +and let your face alone." + +"Well, all the girls do it," Norma declared, catching up the little +girdle, and not unwilling to be over-persuaded. She gave an actual +shiver of delight as Freda slipped the gown over her head. + +It fell into shape about her, a miracle of cut and fit. The little +satiny underskirt was heavy with beads, the misty cloud of gauze that +floated above it was hardly heavy enough to hold its own embroideries. +Little beaded straps held it to the flawless shoulders, and Norma made +her two attendants laugh as she jerked and fussed at the gold lace and +tiny satin roses that crossed her breast. + +"Leave it alone!" Miss Slater said. + +"Oh, but it seems so low!" + +"Well, you may be very sure it isn't--Lenz knows what he's doing when he +makes a gown.... Here, now, what are you going to do with your flowers?" + +"Oh, I'm going to wrap the paper round them, and carry them until just +before I get to Aunt Annie's. Wouldn't you?" + +"Wouldn't I? I like that!" said Miss Slater, settling her eyeglasses on +the bridge of her nose with a finger and thumb. Norma had a momentary +pang of sympathy; she could never have been made to understand that a +happy barnyard duck may look contentedly up from her pool at the peacock +trailing his plumes on the wall. + +"Norma--for the love of Allah!" Chris shouted from downstairs. + +Norma gave a panicky laugh, snatched her fan, wrap, and flowers, and +fled joyously down to be criticized and praised. On the whole, they were +pleased with her: Alice, seizing a chance for an aside to tell her not +to worry about the lowness of the gown, that it was absolutely correct +she might be very sure, and Mrs. Melrose quite tremulously delighted +with her ward. Chris did not say much until a few minutes before they +planned to start, when he slipped a thin, flat gold watch from his vest +pocket, and asked speculatively: + +"Norma, has your Aunt Kate ever seen you in that rig?" + +"No!" she answered, quickly. And then, with less sparkle, "No." + +"Well, would you like to run in on her a moment?--she'd probably like it +tremendously!" said Chris. + +"Oh, Chris--I would love it!" Norma exclaimed, soberly, over a disloyal +conviction that she would rather not. "But have we time?" + +"Tons of time. Annie's dinners are a joke!" + +Norma glanced at the women; Mrs. Melrose looked undecided, but Alice +said encouragingly: + +"I think that would be a sweet thing to do!" + +So it was decided: and Norma was bundled up immediately, and called out +excitedly laughing good-byes as Chris hurried her to the car. + +"You know, it means a lot to your own people, really to see you this +way, instead of always reading about it, or hearing about it!" Chris +said, in his entirely prosaic, big-brotherly tone, as the car glided +smoothly toward the West Sixties. + +"I know it!" Norma agreed. "But I don't know how you do!" she added, in +shy gratitude. + +"Well, I'm nearly twice your age, for one thing," he replied, +pleasantly. And as the car stopped unhesitatingly at the familiar door +he added: "Now make this very snappy!" + +She protested against his getting out, but he accompanied her all the +way upstairs, both laughing like conspirators as they passed somewhat +astonished residents of the apartment house on the way. + +Aunt Kate and Wolf, and Rose and Harry, as good fortune would have it, +were all gathered under the dining-room lamp, and there was a burst of +laughter and welcome for Norma and "Mister Chris." Norma's wrap was +tossed aside, and she revolved in all her glory, waving her fan at arm's +length, pleasantly conscious of Wolf's utter stupefaction, and +conscious, too, a little less pleasantly, that Aunt Kate's maternal eye +did not agree with Aunt Annie's in the matter of _décolletage_. + +Then she and Chris were on their way again, and the legitimate delights +of being young and correctly dressed and dining with the great Mrs. von +Behrens, and going to Grand Opera at the Metropolitan, might begin. +Norma had perhaps never in her life been in such wild spirits as she was +to-night. It was not happiness, exactly, not the happiness of a serene +spirit and a quiet mind, for she was too nervous and too much excited to +be really happy. But it was all wonderful. + +She was the youngest person at the long dinner table, at which eighteen +guests sat in such stately and such separated great carved chairs as +almost to dine alone. Everyone was charmingly kind to the little Melrose +protégée, who was to be introduced at a formal tea next week. The men +were all older than Leslie's group and were neither afraid nor too +selfishly wrapped up in their own narrow little circle to be polite. +Norma had known grown young men, college graduates, and the sons of +prominent families, who were too entirely conventional to be addressed +without an introduction, or to turn to a strange girl's rescue if she +spilled a cup of tea. But there was none of that sort of thing here. + +To be sure, Annie's men were either married, divorced, or too old to be +strictly eligible in the eyes of unsophisticated nineteen, but that did +not keep them from serving delightfully as dinner partners. Then Aunt +Annie herself was delightful to-night, and joined in the general, if +unexpressed, flattery that Norma felt in the actual atmosphere. + +"Heavens--do you hear that, Ella?" said Annie, to an intimate and +contemporary, when Norma shyly asked if the dress was all as it should +be--if the--well, the neck, wasn't just a little----? "Heavens!" said +Mrs. von Behrens, roundly, "if I had your shoulders--if I were nineteen +again!--you'd see something a good deal more sensational than that!" + +This was not the sort of thing one repeated to Aunt Kate. It was, like +much of Annie's conversation, so daring as to be a little shocking. But +Annie had so much manner, such a pleasant, assured voice, that somehow +Norma never found it censurable in her. + +To-night, for the first time, Hendrick von Behrens paid her a little +personal attention. Norma had always liked the big, blond, silent man, +with his thinning fair hair, and his affection for his sons. It was of +his sons that he spoke to her, as he came up to her to-night. + +"There are two little boys up in the nursery that don't want to go to +sleep until Cousin Norma comes up to say good-night," said Hendrick, +smiling indulgently. Norma turned willingly from Chris and two or three +other men and women; it was a privilege to be sufficiently at home in +this magnificent place to follow her host up to the nursery upstairs, +and be gingerly hugged by the little silk-pajamed boys. + +Chris watched her go, the big fan and the blue eye and the delightful +low voice all busy as she and Hendrick went away, and an odd thought +came to him. That was her stepfather upon whom she was turning the +battery of those lovely eyes; those little boys who were, he knew, +jumping up and down in their little Dutch colonial beds, and calling +"Norma--Norma--Norma!" were her half-brothers. + +He glanced toward Annie; her beautiful figure wrapped in a sparkling +robe that swept about her like a regal mantle, her fair hair scalloped +like waves of carved gold, her fingers and throat and hair and ears +sparkling with diamonds. Annie had on the famous Murison pearls, too, +to-night; she was twisting them in her fingers as her creditable Italian +delighted the ears of the Italian ambassador. Her own daughter to-night +sat among her guests. Chris liked to think himself above surprise, but +the strangeness of the situation was never absent a second from his +thoughts. He drifted toward his hostess; he was proud of his own +languages, and when Norma came back she came to stand wistfully beside +them, wondering if ever--ever--ever--she would be able to do that! + +It was all thrilling--exhilarating--wonderful! Norma's heart thumped +delightfully as the big motor-cars turned into Broadway and took their +place in the slowly moving line. She pressed her radiant face close to +the window; snow was fluttering softly down in the darkness, and men +were pushing it from the sidewalks, and shouting in the night. There +was the usual fringe of onlookers in front of the opera house, and it +required all Norma's self-control to seem quite naturally absorbed in +getting herself safely out of the motor-car, and quite unconscious that +her pretty ankles, and her pretty head, and the great bunched wrap, were +not being generally appraised. + +Women were stepping about gingerly in high heels; lights flashed on +quivering aigrettes, on the pressed, intense faces of the watchers, and +on the gently turning and falling snow, against the dark street. Norma +was caught in some man's protecting arm, to push through into the +churning crowd in the foyer; she had a glimpse of uniformed ushers and +programme boys, of furred shoulders, of bared shoulders, of silk hats, +of a sign that said: "Footmen Are Not Allowed in This Lobby." + +Then somehow through, criss-crossed currents in the crowd, they reached +the mysterious door of the box, and Norma saw for the first time the +great, dimly lighted circle of the opera house, the enormous rise of +balcony above balcony, the double tiers of boxes, and the rows of seats +downstairs, separated by wide aisles, and rapidly filling now with the +men and women who were coming down to their places almost on a run. + +The orchestra was already seated, and as Norma stood awed and ecstatic +in the front of the Von Behrens box, the conductor came in, and was met +with a wave of applause, which had no sooner died away than the lights +fanned softly and quickly down, there was the click of a baton on wood, +and in the instantly ensuing hush the first quivering notes of the opera +began. + +"Sit down, you web-foot!" Acton Liggett whispered, laughing, and Norma +sank stiffly upon her chair, risking, as the curtain had not yet risen, +a swift, bewildered smile of apology toward the dim forms that were +rustling and settling behind her. + +"Oo--oo--ooo!" was all that she could whisper when presently Chris +murmured a question in her ear. And when the lights were on again, and +the stars taking their calls, he saw that her face was wet, and her +lashes were caught together with tears. + +"It _is_ wonderful music; the best of Verdi!" he said to Annie; and +Annie, agreeing, sent him off with "that baby," to have her dry her +eyes. Norma liked his not speaking to her, on her way to the great +parlour where women were circling about the long mirrors, but when she +rejoined him she was quite herself, laughing, excited, half dancing as +he took her back to the box. + +She sat down again, her beautiful little head, with its innocent sweep +of smooth hair, visible from almost every part of the house, her +questions incessant as the blue eyes and the great fan swept to and fro. +Once, when she turned suddenly toward him, in the second entr'acte, she +saw a look on Chris's face that gave her an odd second of something like +fear, but the house darkened again before she could analyze the emotion, +and Norma glued her eyes to the footlights. + +What she did not see was a man, not quite at ease at his own first grand +opera, not quite comfortable in his own first evening dress, lost--and +willingly lost, among the hundreds who had come in just to stand far at +the back, behind the seats, edging and elbowing each other, changing +feet, and resting against any chair-back or column that offered itself, +and sitting down, between acts, on the floor. + +Wolf was not restless. He was strong enough to stand like an Indian, and +tall enough to look easily over the surrounding heads. More than that, +"Aïda" did not interest him in itself, and at some of its most brilliant +passages he was guilty of slipping away to pace the hallways in +solitude, or steal to the foyer for a brief cigarette. But when the +house was lighted again, he went back into the auditorium, and then his +eyes never left the little dark head of the girl who sat forward in one +of the lower tier of boxes, waving her big fan, and talking over her +bare shoulder to one or another of the persons beside or behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +It was long afterward that Norma dated from the night of "Aïda" a new +feeling in herself toward Chris, and the recognition of a new feeling in +Chris toward her. She knew that a special sort of friendship existed +between them from that time on. + +He had done nothing definite that night; he had never done or said +anything that could be held as marking the change. But Norma felt it, +and she knew that he did. And somehow, in that atmosphere of fragrant +flowers and women as fragrant, of rustling silks and rich furs, of music +and darkness, and the old passion of the story, it had come to her for +the first time that Chris was not only the Chris of Alice's room, Aunt +Marianna's son-in-law and Leslie's brother-in-law, but her own Chris, +too, a Chris who had his special meaning for her, as well as for the +rest. + +She liked him, it was natural that she should especially and truly like +him. Almost all women did, for he was of the type that comes closest to +understanding them, and he had made their favour an especial study. +Chris could never be indifferent to any woman; if he did not actively +dislike her, he took pains to please her, and, never actively disliking +Norma, he had from the first constituted himself her guide and friend. + +Long before he was conscious that there was a real charm to this little +chance member of their group, Norma had capitulated utterly. His +sureness, his pleasant suggestions, his positive approval or kindly +protests, had done more to make her first months among the Melroses +happy than any other one thing. Norma loved him, and was grateful to +him, even when he hurt her. In the matter of a note of acceptance, of a +little act of thanks, of a gown or hat, his decision was absolute, and +she had never known it mistaken. + +Besides this, she saw him everywhere welcome, everywhere courted and +admired, and everywhere the same Chris--handsome, self-possessed, +irreproachably dressed whether for golf or opera, adequate to the claims +of wife, mother, family, or the world. She had heard Acton turn to him +for help in little difficulties; she knew that Leslie trusted him with +all her affairs, and he was as close as any man could be to an intimacy +with Hendrick von Behrens. Quietly, almost indifferently, he would +settle his round eyeglasses on their black ribbon, narrow his fine, keen +eyes and set his firm jaw, and take up their problems one by one, always +courteous, always interested, always helpful. + +Then Chris had charm, as visible to all the world as to Norma. He had +the charm of race, of intelligence and education, the charm of a man who +prides himself upon his Italian and French, upon his knowledge of books +and pictures, and his capacity for holding his own in any group, on any +subject. He was quite frankly a collector, a connoisseur, a dilettante +in a hundred different directions, and he had had leisure all his life +to develop and perfect his affectations. In all this new world Norma +could not perhaps have discovered a man more rich in just what would +impress her ignorance, her newness, to the finer aspects of +civilization. + +For a few weeks after "Aïda," as other operas and Annie's tea, and the +opening social life of the winter softened the first impression, Norma +tried to tell herself that she had imagined a little tendency, on +Chris's part, too--well, to impress her with his friendliness. She had +seen him flirt with other women, and indeed small love affairs of all +sorts were constantly current, not only in Annie's, but in Leslie's +group. A certain laxity was in the air, and every month had its +separation or divorce, to be flung to the gossips for dissection. + +Norma was not especially flattered at first, and rather inclined to +resent the assurance with which Chris carried his well-known tendency +for philandering into his own family, as it were. But as the full days +went by, and she encountered in him, wherever they met, the same grave, +kindly attention, the same pleasant mouth and curiously baffling eyes, +in spite of herself she began to experience a certain breathless and +half-flattered and half-frightened pride in his affection. + +He never kissed her again, never tried to arrange even the most casual +meeting alone with her, and never let escape even a word of more than +brotherly friendliness. But in Leslie's drawing-room at tea time, or at +some studio tea or Sunday luncheon in a country house, he always quietly +joined her, kept, if possible, within the sound of her voice, and never +had any plan that would interfere with possible plans of hers. If she +was ready to go, he would drive her, perhaps to discourse impersonally +upon the quality of the pictures, or the countryside mantled with snow, +upon the way. If she wanted a message telephoned, a telegram sent, even +a borrowed book returned, it was "no trouble at all"; Chris would of +course attend to it. + +At dinner parties he was rarely placed beside her; hers was naturally +the younger set. But he found a hundred ways to remind her that he was +constantly attentive. Norma would feel her heart jump in her side as he +started toward her across a ball-room floor, handsome, perfectly poised, +betraying nothing but generous interest in her youthful good times as he +took his place beside her. + +So Christmas came and went, and the last affairs of the brief season +began to be announced: the last dances, the last dinners, the +"pre-Lenten functions" as the papers had it. Norma, apologizing, in one +of her flying calls on Aunt Kate, for the long intervals between visits, +explained that she honestly did not know where the weeks flew! + +"And are you happy, Baby?" her aunt asked, holding her close, and +looking anxiously into her eyes. + +"Oh--happy!" the girl exclaimed, with a sort of shallow, quick laugh +that was quite new. "Of course I am. I never in my life dreamed that I +could be so happy. I've nothing left to wish for. Except, of course, +that I would like to know where I stand; I would like to have my own +position a little more definite," she added. But the last phrases were +uttered only in her own soul, and Mrs. Sheridan, after a rather +discontented scrutiny of the face she loved so well, was obliged to +change the subject. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +In mid-Lent, when an early rush of almost summery warmth suddenly poured +over the city, Chris and Norma met on the way home from church. Norma +walked every Sunday morning to the big cathedral, but Chris went only +once or twice a year to the fashionable Avenue church a few blocks away. +This morning he had joined her as she was quietly leaving the house, and +instantly it flashed into her mind that he had deliberately planned to +do so, knowing that Miss Slater, who usually accompanied her, was away +for a week's vacation. + +Their conversation was impersonal and casual, as always, as they walked +along the drying sidewalks, in the pleasant early freshness, but as +Chris left her he asked her at about what time she would be returning, +and Norma was not surprised, when she came out of the cathedral, a +little later than the great first tide of the outpouring congregation, +to see him waiting for her. + +The thought of him had been keeping her heart beating fast, and her mind +in confusion, even while she tried to pray. And she had thought that she +might leave the church by one of the big side doors, and so at least run +a fair risk of missing him. But Norma half feared an act that would +define their deepening friendship as dangerous, and half longed for the +fifteen minutes of walking and chatting in the sunshine. So she came +straight to him, and with no more than a word of greeting they turned +north. + +It was an exquisite morning, and the clean, bare stretches of the Avenue +were swimming in an almost summerlike mist of opal and blue. Such +persons as were visible in the streets at all were newsboys, idle +policemen, or black-clad women hurrying to or from church, and when they +reached the Park, it was almost deserted. The trees, gently moving in a +warm breeze, were delicately etched with the first green of the year; +maples and sycamores were dotted with new, golden foliage, and the grass +was deep and sweet. A few riders were ambling along the bridle-path, the +horses kicking up clods of the damp, soft earth. + +Norma and Christopher walked slowly, talking. The girl was hardly +conscious of what they said, realizing suddenly, and almost with terror, +that just to be here, with Chris, was enough to flood her being with a +happiness as new and miraculous as the new and miraculous springtime +itself. There was no future and no past to this ecstasy, no Alice, no +world; it was enough, in its first bloom, that it existed. + +"You've had--what is it?--a whole year of us, Norma," Chris said, "and +on the whole, it's been happy, hasn't it?" + +"Fourteen months," she corrected him. "Fourteen months, at least, since +Aunt Kate and I called on Aunt Marianna. Yes, it's been like a miracle, +Chris. I never will understand it. I never will understand why a +friendless girl--unknown and having absolutely no claim--should have +been treated so wonderfully!" + +"And you wouldn't want to go back?" he mused, smiling. + +"No," she said, quickly. "I am afraid, when I think of ever going back!" + +"I don't see why you should," Chris said. "You will inherit, through +your grandmother's will----" + +He had been following a train of thought, half to himself. Norma's round +eyes, as she stopped short in the path, arrested him. + +"My _grandmother_!" she exclaimed. + +"Your Aunt Marianna," he amended, flushing. But their eyes did not move +as they stared at each other. + +A thousand remembered trifles flashed through Norma's whirling brain; a +thousand little half-stilled suspicions leaped to new life. She had +accepted the suggested kinship in childish acquiescence, but doubt was +aflame now, once and for all. The man knew that there was no further +evading her. + +"Chris, do you know anything about me?" she asked, directly. + +"Yes, I think--I know everything," he answered, after a second's +hesitation. + +Norma looked at him steadily. "Did you know my father and mother?" she +demanded, presently, in an odd, tense voice. + +There was another pause before Chris said, slowly: + +"I have met your father. But I knew--I know--your mother." + +"You _know_ her?" The world was whirling about Norma. "Is Aunt Kate my +mother?" she asked, breathing hard. + +"No. I don't know why you should not know. You call her Aunt Annie," +Chris said. + +Norma's hands dropped to her sides. She breathed as if she were +suffocating. + +"_Aunt Annie!_" she whispered, in stupefaction. + +And she turned and walked a few steps blindly, her eyes wide and vacant, +and one hand pressed to her cheek. "My God!--my God!" he heard her say. + +"Annie eloped when she was a girl," Chris began presently, when she was +dazedly walking on again. "She was married, and the man deserted her. +She was ill, in Germany----But shall I talk now? Would you rather not?" + +"Oh, no--no! Go on," Norma said, briefly. + +"Alice was the first to guess it," Christopher pursued. "Her sister +doesn't know it, or dream it!" + +"Aunt Annie doesn't! She does not know that I'm her own daughter!... But +what _does_ she think?" + +"She supposes that her baby died, dear. I'm sorry to tell you, Norma, +but I couldn't lie to you! You'll understand everything, now--why your +grandmother wants to make it all up to you----" + +"Does Leslie know?" Norma demanded, suddenly, from a dark moment of +brooding. + +"Nobody knows! Your Aunt Kate, your grandmother, Alice, and I, are +absolutely the only people in the world! And Norma, _nobody else must +know_. For the sake of the family, for everyone's sake----" + +"Oh, I see that!" she answered, quickly and impatiently. And for awhile +she walked on in silence, and apparently did not hear his one or two +efforts to recommence the conversation. "Aunt Annie!" she said once, +half aloud. And later she added, absently: "Yes, I should know!" + +They had walked well up into the Park, now they turned back; the sun was +getting hot, first perambulators were making their appearance, and +Norma loosened her light furs. + +"So I am a Melrose!" she mused. And then, abruptly: "Chris, what _is_ my +name?" + +"Melrose," he answered, flushing. + +Her eyes asked a sudden, horrified question, and she took the answer +from his look without a word. He saw the colour ebb from her face, +leaving it very white. + +"You said--they--my parents--were married, Chris?" she asked, painfully. + +"Annie supposed they were. But he was not free!" + +Norma did not speak again. In silence they crossed the Avenue, and went +on down the shady side street. Chris, with chosen words and quietly, +told her the story of Annie's girlhood, who and what her father had +been, the bitter grief of her grandmother, the general hushing up of the +whole affair. He watched her anxiously as he talked, for there was a +drawn, set look to her face that he did not like. + +"Why did Aunt Kate ever decide to bring me to my--my grandmother, after +so many years?" she asked. + +"I'm sure I don't know that. Alice and I have fancied that Kate might +have kept in touch with your father all this time, and that he might be +dead now, and not likely to--make trouble." + +"That is it," Norma agreed, quickly. "Because not long before she came +to see Aunt Marianna she _had_ had some sort of news--from Canada, I +think. An old friend was dead; I remember it as if it were yesterday." + +"Then that fits in," Chris said, glad she could talk. + +"But I can't believe it!" she cried in bewilderment. And suddenly she +burst out angrily: "Oh, Chris, is it fair? Is it fair? That one girl, +like Leslie, should have so--so much! The name, the inheritance, the +husband and position and the friends--and that another, through no fault +of hers, should be just--just--a nobody?" + +She choked, and Christopher made a little protestant sound. + +"Oh, yes, I am!" she insisted, bitterly. "Not recognized by my own +mother--she's _not_ my mother! No mother could----" + +"Listen, dear," Chris begged, really alarmed by the storm he had raised. +"Your grandmother, for reasons of her own, never told Annie there was a +baby. It is obvious why she kept silent; it was only kindness--decency. +Annie was young, younger than you are, and poor old Aunt Marianna only +knew that her child was ill, and had been ill-treated, and most cruelly +used. You were brought up safely and happily, with good and loving +people----" + +"The best in the world!" Norma said, through her teeth, fighting tears. + +"The best in the world. Why, Norma, what a woman they've made you! +You--who stand alone among all the girls I know! And then," Chris +continued quickly, seeing her a little quieter, "when you are growing +up, your aunt brings you to your grandmother, who immediately turns her +whole world topsy-turvy to make you welcome! Is there anything so unfair +in that? Annie made a terrible mistake, dear----" + +"And everyone but Annie pays!" Norma interrupted, bitterly. + +"Norma, she is your mother!" Chris reminded her, in the tone that, +coming from him, always instantly affected her. Her eyes fell, and her +tone, when she spoke, was softer. + +"Just bearing a child isn't all motherhood," she said. + +"No, my dear; I know. And if Annie were ever to guess this, it isn't +like her not to face the music, at any cost. But isn't it better as it +is, Norma?" + +The wonderful tone, the wonderful manner, the kindness and sympathy in +his eyes! Norma, with one foot on the lowest step, now raised her eyes +to his with a sort of childish penitence. + +"Oh, yes, Chris! But"--her lips trembled--"but if Aunt Kate had only +kept me from knowing for ever!" she faltered. + +"She wouldn't take that responsibility, dear, and one can't blame her. A +comfortable inheritance comes from your grandmother; it isn't the +enormous fortune Leslie inherited, of course, but it is all you would +have had, even had Annie brought you home openly as her daughter. It is +enough to make a very pretty wedding-portion for me to give away with +you, my dear, in a few years," Chris added more lightly. The suggestion +made her face flame again. + +"Who would marry me?" she said, under her breath, with a scornful look, +under half-lowered lids, into space. + +For answer he gave her an odd glance--one that lived in her memory for +many and many a day. + +"Ah, Norma--Norma--Norma!" he said--quickly, half laughingly. Then his +expression changed, and his smile died away. "I have something to bear," +he said, with a glance upward toward Alice's windows. "Life isn't roses, +roses, all the way for any one of us, my dear! Now, you've got a bad bit +of the road ahead. But let's be good sports, Norma. And come in now, +I'm famished; let's have breakfast. My honour is in your hands," he +added, more gravely, "perhaps I had no right to tell you all this! You +mustn't betray me!" + +"Chris," she responded, warmly, "as if I could!" + +He watched her eating her breakfast, and chatting with Alice, a little +later, and told himself that some of Annie's splendid courage had +certainly descended to this gallant little daughter. Norma was pale, and +now and then her eyes would meet his with a certain strained look, or +she would lose the thread of the conversation for a few seconds, but +that was all. Alice noticed nothing, and in a day or two Chris could +easily have convinced himself that the conversation in the spring +greenness of the Sunday morning had been a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +However, that hour had borne fruit, and in two separate ways had had its +distinct effect upon Norma's mind and soul. In the first place, she had +a secret now with Chris, and understanding that made her most casual +glance at him significant, and gave a double meaning to almost every +word they exchanged. It was at his suggestion that she decided to keep +the revelation from Alice, even though she knew what Alice knew, for +Alice was not very well, and Chris was sure that it would only agitate +and frighten the invalid to feel that the family's discreditable secret +was just that much nearer betrayal. So she and Chris alone shared the +agitation, strain, and bewilderment of the almost overwhelming +discovery; and Norma, in turning to him for advice and sympathy, +deepened tenfold the tie between them. + +But even this result was not so far-reaching as the less-obvious effect +of the discovery upon her character. Everything that was romantic, +undisciplined, and reckless in Norma was fostered by the thought that so +thrilling and so secret a history united her closely to the Melrose +family. That she was Leslie's actual cousin, that the closest of all +human relationships bound her to the magnificent Mrs. von Behrens, were +thoughts that excited in her every dramatic and extravagant tendency to +which the amazing year had inclined _her_. With her growing ease in her +changed environment, and the growing popularity she enjoyed there, came +also a sense of predestination, the conviction that her extraordinary +history justified her in any act of daring or of unconventionality. +There was nothing to be gained by self-control or sanity, Norma might +tell herself, at least for those of the Melrose blood. + +Her shyness of the season before had vanished, and she could plunge into +the summer gaiety with an assurance that amazed even herself. Her first +meeting with Annie, after the day of Chris's disclosures, was an ordeal +at which he himself chanced to be a secretly thrilled onlooker. Norma +grew white, and her lips trembled; there was a strained look in her +blue, agonized eyes. But Annie's entire unconsciousness that the +situation was at all tense, and the presence of three or four total +outsiders, helped Norma to feel that this amazing and dramatic moment +was only one more in a life newly amazing and dramatic, and she escaped +unnoticed from the trial. The second time was much less trying, and +after that Norma showed no sign that she ever thought of the matter at +all. + +Mrs. von Behrens took Norma to her Maine camp in July, and when the girl +joined the Chris Liggetts in August, it was for a season of hard tennis, +golf, polo, dancing, yachting, and swimming. Norma grew lean and tanned, +and improved so rapidly in manner and appearance that Alice felt, +concerning her, certain fears that she one day confided to her mother. + +It was on an early September day, dry and airless, and they were on the +side porch of the Newport cottage. + +"You see how pretty she's growing, Mama," Alice said. And then, in a +lower tone, with a quick cautious glance about: "Mama, doesn't she +often remind you of Annie?" + +Mrs. Melrose, who had been contentedly rocking and drowsing in the heat, +paled with sudden terror and apprehension, and looked around her with +sick and uneasy eyes. + +"Alice--my darling," she stammered. + +"I know, Mama--I'm not going to talk about it, truly!" Alice assured +her, quickly. "I never even _think_ of it!" she added, earnestly. + +"No--no--no, that's right!" her mother agreed, hurriedly. Her soft old +face, under the thin, crimped gray hair, was full of distress. + +"Mama, there is no reason why it should worry you," Alice said, +distressed, too. "Don't think of it; I'm sorry I spoke! But sometimes, +even though she is so dark, Norma is so like Annie that it makes my +blood run cold. If Annie ever suspected that she is--well, her own +daughter----" + +Mrs. Melrose's face was ashen, and she looked as if touched by the heat. + +"No--no, dear!" she said, with a sort of terrified brevity. "You and +Chris were wrong there. I can't talk to you about it, Alice," she broke +off, pleadingly; "you mustn't ask me, dear. You said you wouldn't," she +pleaded, trembling. + +Alice was stupefied. For a full minute she lay in her pillows, staring +blankly at her mother. + +"_Isn't_----!" she whispered at last, incredulous and bewildered. + +"No, dear. Poor Annie----! No, no, no; Norma's mother is dead. But--but +you must believe that Mama is acting as she believes to be for the +best," she interrupted herself, in painful and hesitating tones, "and +that I can't talk about it now, Alice; I can't, indeed! Some day----" + +"Mama darling," Alice cried, really alarmed by her leaden colour and +wild eyes, "please--I'll never speak of it again! Why, I know that +everything you do is for us all, darling! Please be happy about it. Come +on, we'll talk of something else. When do you leave for +town--to-morrow?" + +"Poole drives us as far as Great Barrington to-morrow, Norma and me," +the old lady began, gaining calm as she reviewed her plans. Chris needed +her for a little matter of business, and Norma was anxious to see her +Cousin Rose's new baby. The conversation drifted to Leslie's baby, the +idolized Patricia who was now some four months old. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Two days later found Norma happily seated beside the big bed she and +Rose had shared less than two years ago, where Rose now lay, with the +snuffling and mouthing baby, rolled deep in flannels, beside her. Rose +had come home to her mother, for the great event, and Mrs. Sheridan was +exulting in the care of them both. Just now she was in the kitchen, and +the two girls were alone together, Norma a little awed and a little +ashamed of the emotion that Rose's pale and rapt and radiant face gave +her; Rose secretly pitying, from her height, the woman who was not yet a +mother. + +"And young Mrs. Liggett was terribly disappointed that her baby was a +girl," Rose marvelled. "I didn't care one bit! Only Harry is glad it's a +boy." + +"Well, Leslie was sure that hers was going to be a boy," Norma said, +"and I wish you could have heard Aunt Annie deciding that the Melroses +usually had sons----" + +"She'll have a boy next," Rose suggested. + +Norma glanced at her polished finger-tip, adjusted the woolly tan bag +she carried. + +"She says never again!" she remarked, airily. Rose's clear forehead +clouded faintly, and Norma hastened to apologize. "Well, my dear, that's +what she _said_," she remarked, laughingly, with quick fingers on Rose's +hand. + +"It's sad that Mrs. Chris Liggett didn't have just one, before her +accident. It would make such a difference in her life," Rose mused, with +her eyes fixed thoughtfully on Norma's face. There was something about +Norma to-day that she did not understand. + +"Oh, it's frightfully sad," Norma agreed, easily. And because she liked +the mere sound of his name, she added: "Chris is fond of children, too!" +Then, with a sudden change of manner that even unsuspicious Rose thought +odd, she said, gaily: "Isn't Aunt Kate perfectly delicious about the +nurse? I knew she would be. Of course, she does everything, and Miss +Miller simply looks on." + +"Well, almost," Rose said, with an affectionate laugh. "She didn't want +a nurse at all, but Harry and Wolf insisted. And then--night before +last--when I was so ill, it almost made me laugh in spite of feeling so +badly, to hear Mother with Miss Miller. 'You'd better get out of here, +my dear,' I heard her say, 'this is no place for a girl like you----'" + +Norma's laugh rang out. But Rose noticed that her face sobered +immediately almost into sadness, and that there was a bitter line about +the lovely mouth, and a shadow of something like cynicism in her blue +eyes. + +"Norma," she ventured, suddenly storming the fortress, "what is it, +darling? Something's worrying you, Nono. Can't you tell me?" + +With the old nursery name Norma's gallant look of amusement and +reassurance faltered. She looked suddenly down at the hand Rose was +holding, and Rose saw the muscles of her throat contract, and that she +was pressing her lips together to keep them from trembling. + +A tear fell on the locked hands. Norma kept her eyes averted, shook her +head. + +"Is it a man, Nono?" + +Norma looked up, dashed away the tears, and managed a rueful smile. + +"Isn't it always a man?" she asked, bravely. + +Rose still looked at her anxiously, waiting for further light. + +"But, dearest, surely he likes you?" + +The other girl was silent, rubbing her thumb slowly to and fro across +Rose's thin hand. + +"I don't know," she answered, after a pause. + +"But of course he does!" Rose said, confidently. "It'll all come right. +There's no reason why it shouldn't!" And with all the interest of their +old days of intimacy she asked eagerly: "Nono, is he handsome?" + +"Oh, yes--tremendously." + +"And the right age?" + +Norma laughed, half protestant. + +"Rose, aren't you a little demon for the third degree!" But she liked +it, in spite of the reluctance in her manner, and presently added: "I +don't think age matters, do you?" + +"Not in the least," Rose agreed. "Norma, does Mrs. Melrose know?" + +"Know what?" Norma parried. + +"Know that--well, that you like him?" + +Norma raised serious eyes, looked unsmilingly into Rose's smiling face. + +"Nobody knows. It--it isn't going right, Rose. I can't tell you about +all of it----" She paused. + +"Well, I wouldn't know the people if you did," Rose said, sensibly. And +suddenly she added, timidly, "Norma, there isn't another girl?" + +"Well, yes, there is, in a way," Norma conceded, after thought. + +"That he likes better?" Rose asked, quickly. + +"No, I don't think he likes her better!" Norma answered. + +"Well, then----?" Rose summarized, triumphantly. + +But there was no answering flash from Norma, who was looking down again, +and who still wore a troubled expression, although, as Rose rejoiced to +see, it was less bitter than it had been. + +"Rose," she said, gravely, "if he was already bound in honour; if he +was--promised, to her?" + +Rose's eyes expressed quick sympathy. + +"Norma! You mean engaged? But then how did he ever come to care for +you?" she followed it up anxiously. + +"I don't know!" Norma said, with a shrug. + +"But, Nono, why do you think he _does_ like you? Has he said so?" + +Norma had freed her hand, and pulled on her rough little cream-coloured +gloves. Now she spread her five fingers, and looked at them with +slightly raised brows and slightly compressed lips. + +"No," she said, briefly and quietly. + +Rose's face was full of distress. Again she reached for Norma's fingers. + +"Dearest--I'm so sorry! But--but it doesn't make you feel very badly, +does it, Norma?" + +Norma did not answer. + +"Ah, it does!" Rose said, pitifully. "Are you so sure you care?" + +At this Norma laughed, glanced for a moment into far space, shook her +head. And for a few minutes there was utter silence in the plain little +bedroom. Then the baby began to fuss and grope, and to make little +sneezing faces in his cocoon of blankets. + +"Just one more word, dear," Rose said, later, when Aunt Kate had come +flying in, and carried off the new treasure, and when Norma was standing +before the mirror adjusting her wide-brimmed summer hat. "If he cares +for you, it's much, much better to make the change now, Norma, than to +wait until it's too late! No matter how hard, or how unpleasant it +is----" + +"I know," Norma agreed, quickly, painfully, stooping to kiss her. "We'll +be down next month, Rose, and then I'll see you oftener!" + +"When do you go?" Rose said, clinging to her hand. + +"Go back to Newport? To-morrow. Or at least we get to Great Barrington +to-morrow, and we may stay there with the Richies a few days. Aunt +Marianna hates to make the trip in one day, so we stayed there last +night. But she had to come down to sign some papers. Chris has been down +all the week and he wired for her, so she and I drove down together." + +"And is the country lovely now?" Rose asked. + +"Well--dry. But it is beautiful, too; so hot and leafy and thunderous." + +"And where are you--at the old house?" + +"No; at a hotel, up near the Park. I wish you and little Peter Pan could +get away somewhere, Rose, for we'll have another three weeks of the +heat!" + +"Oh, my dear, Mother Redding and the baby and I are going to the +Berkshires for at least two whole weeks," Rose announced, happily. "And +I thought that my bad boy was coming in early August," she added, of +the baby, "or I would have gone first. Try to come oftener, Norma," she +pleaded, "for we all love you so!" + +And again, Norma's manner worried her. What was there in the sisterly +little speech to bring the tears again to Norma's eyes? + +"I know you do, Rosy," Norma said, very low. "I wish I could go up to +the Berkshires with you." + +"Well, then, why don't you, dear?" + +"Oh"--Norma flung back her head--"I don't know!" she said, with an +attempt at lightness. And two minutes later she had kissed Aunt Kate, +and greeted Wolf, in the kitchen, and Rose heard their laughter, and +then the closing of the front door. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Wolf walked with her to the omnibus. He had come in tired with the heat +of the long day, but Norma thought him his sweetest self, brotherly, +good, unsuspicious, and unaffected. He complimented her on her +appearance; he had a kind word for Harry Redding, for the baby; he told +Norma that he and his mother had gone to Portland by water a few weeks +before and had a great spree. Norma, tired and excited, loved him for +his very indifference to her affairs and her mood, for the simplicity +with which he showed her the book he was reading, and the amusement he +found all along the dry and dusty and dirty street. Everything was +interesting to Wolf, and he made no apologies for the general wiltedness +and disorder of the neighbourhood. + +Norma looked down at him, from the top of the omnibus, and thought that +he was a friendly and likable big young man, with his rumpled bare head +shining reddish-brown in the streaming, merciless sunlight. She had no +idea that his last look at her was like some precious canvas that a +collector adds to his treasures, that to the thousands of little-girl +Normas, and bookshop Normas, and to the memorable picture of a débutante +Norma at her first opera, Wolf carried away with him to-night one more +Norma: a brown, self-possessed, prettier-than-ever Norma, in a wide +English hat and a plain linen suit, and transparent green silk stockings +that matched her green silk parasol. + +She got down from the omnibus, a few blocks farther away, and walked +slowly along the shady side of the burning cross-streets, thinking, +thinking, thinking. It was the hottest hour of the afternoon; there +would be a storm to-night, but just now the air hung motionless, and the +shadows were almost as dazzling, in their baking dimness, as the +sunshine. Houses were closed and silent, show windows bare; the +omnibuses creaked by loaded with passengers, trying to get cool. There +was an odour of frying potatoes; other odours, stale and lifeless, crept +through the stale and lifeless air. + +Norma was entirely familiar with this phase of city life, for, except +for Sundays at Coney Island, or picnicking on some beach or in some +meadow or wood of Connecticut, she and the Sheridans had weathered two +successive hot seasons very comfortably within two hundred yards of +Broadway. It held no particular horrors for her; she reflected that in +another hour or two the sun would quite have died away, and then every +flight of old brownstone steps would hold its chatting group, and every +street its scores of screaming and running children. + +Wherever her thoughts carried her, they began and ended with +Christopher. He had never kissed her again after the night of his return +from Miami; he had hardly touched even her hand, and he had said no word +of love. But, as the summer progressed, these two had grown steadily to +live more and more for each other, for just the casual friendly looks +and words of ordinary intercourse in the presence of other persons, and +for the chance hours that Fate now and then permitted them alone. + +Norma, in every other relationship grown more whimsical and more +restless, showing new phases of frivolity and shallowness to the world, +had deepened and developed, under Chris's eyes, into her own highest +possibility of womanhood. To him she was earnest, honest, only anxious +to be good and to be true. He knew the viewpoint of that wiser self that +was the real Norma; he knew how wide open those blue eyes were to what +was false and worthless in the world around her. + +And Norma had seen him change, too, or perhaps more truly become +himself. Still apparently the old Chris, handsome, poised, cynical, and +only too ready to be bored, he went his usual course of golf and polo, +gave his men's dinners, kissed Alice good-bye and departed for yachting +or motoring trips. Even Alice, shut away from reality in her own world +of music and sweet airs, flowers and friendship, saw no change. + +But Norma saw it. She knew that Chris was no longer ready to respond to +every pretty woman's idle challenge to a flirtation; she knew that there +was a Chris of high ideals, a Chris capable even of heroism, a Chris who +loved simplicity, who loved even service, and who was not too spoiled +and too proud to give his time as well as his money, to give himself +gladly where he saw the need. + +Their hours alone together were hours of enchanting discovery. Memories +of the little boy that had been Chris, the little girl that had been +Norma, their hopes and ambitions and joys and sorrows, all were +exchanged. And to them both every word seemed of thrilling and absorbing +interest. To Norma life now was a different thing when Chris merely was +in the room, however distant from her, however apparently interested in +someone, or something, else. She knew that he was conscious of her, +thinking of her, and that presently she would have just the passing +word, or smile, or even quiet glance that would buoy her hungry soul +like a fresh and powerful current. + +It was not strange to her that she should have come to feel him the most +vital and most admirable of all the persons about her, for many of the +men and women who loved Chris shared this view. Norma had not been in +the Melrose house a month before she had heard him called "wonderful", +"inimitable", "the only Chris", a hundred times. Even, she told herself +sometimes, even the women that Chris quite openly disliked would not +return coldness for coldness. And how much less could she, so much +younger, resist the generous friendship he offered to her ignorance, and +awkwardness, and strangeness? + +That he saw in her own companionship something to value she had at first +been slow to believe. Sheer pride had driven her to reluctance, to +shyness, to unbelief. But that was long ago, months ago. Norma knew now +that he truly liked her, that the very freshness and unconventionality +of her viewpoint delighted him, and that he gave her a frankness, a +simpleness, and an ardour, in his confidences, that would have +astonished Alice herself. + +Alice! Norma was thinking of Alice, now. Just where did Alice come in? +Alice had always been the most generous of wives. But she could not be +generous here; no human woman could. She liked Norma, in a sense she +needed Norma, but Chris was all her world. + +"But, good heavens!" Norma mused, as she walked slowly along, "isn't +there to be any friendship for a man but his men friends, or any for a +woman except unmarried men? Isn't there friendship at all between the +sexes? Must it always be sneaking and subterfuge, unless it's marriage? +I don't want to marry Chris Liggett----" + +She stopped short, and the blood left her heart suddenly, and rushed +back with a pounding that almost dizzied her. + +"_I don't want to marry Chris Liggett_," she whispered, aloud. And then +she widened her eyes at space, and walked on blindly for a little way. +"Oh, Chris, Chris, Chris!" she said. "Oh, what shall I do?" + +An agony almost physical in its violence seized her, and she began to +move more rapidly, as if to wear it out, or escape it. + +"No, no, no; I can't care for him in that way," said Norma, feeling her +throat dry and her head suddenly aching. "We can't--we cannot--like each +other that way!" + +The rest of the walk was a blank as far as her consciousness was +concerned. She was swept far away, on a rushing sea of memories, +memories confused and troubled by a vague apprehension of the days to +come. That was it; that was it; they loved each other. Not as +kinspeople, not as friends, not as the Chris and Norma of Alice's and +Leslie's and Annie's lives, but as man and woman, caught at last in the +old, old snare that is the strongest in life. + +Bewildered and sick, she reached the cool, great colonnaded doorway of +the hotel. And here she and Christopher came face to face. + +He was coming out, was indeed halfway down the stone steps. They stood +still and looked at each other. + +Norma thought that he looked tired, that perhaps the hot week in +streets and offices had been hard for him. He was pale, and the smile he +gave her was strained and unnatural. They had not seen each other for +ten days, and Norma, drinking in every expression of the firm mouth, the +shrewd, kindly eyes, the finely set head, felt sudden confidence and +happiness flood her being again. It was all nonsense, this imagining of +hers, and she and Chris would always be the best friends in the world! + +"Alice is perfectly splendid," Norma said, in answer to his first +questions, "and Leslie's baby is much less fat and solid looking, and +getting to be so cunning. Where is Aunt Marianna?" + +"Upstairs," he answered with a slight backward inclination of his head. +"We had a most satisfactory day, and you and she can get off to Great +Barrington to-morrow without any trouble." + +"She and I?" Norma said, distressed by something cold and casual in his +manner. "But aren't you coming, too? Alice depends upon your coming!" + +"I can't, I'm sorry to say. I may get up on Friday night," Chris said, +with an almost weary air of politeness. + +"Friday! Why, then--then I'll persuade Aunt Marianna to wait," Norma +decided, eagerly. "You must come with us, Chris; it's quite lovely up +through Connecticut!" + +"I'm very sorry," the man repeated, glancing beyond her as if in a hurry +to terminate the conversation. "But I may not get up at all this week. +And I've arranged with Aunt Marianna that Poole drives you up to-morrow. +You'll find her," he added, lightly, "enthusiastic over the baby's +pictures. They're really excellent, and I think Leslie will be +delighted. And now I have to go, Norma----" + +"But you're coming back to have dinner with us?" the girl interrupted, +thoroughly uneasy at the change in him. + +"Not to-night. I have an engagement! Good-bye. I'll see you very soon. +The hat's charming, Norma, I think you may safely order more of them by +mail if you have to. Good-bye." + +And with another odd smile, and his usually courteous bow, he was gone, +and Norma was left staring after him in a state almost of stupefaction. + +What was the matter with him? The question framed itself indignantly in +Norma's mind as she automatically crossed the foyer of the hotel and +went upstairs. Mechanically, blindly, she took off the big hat, flung +aside the parasol, and went through the uniting bathroom into Mrs. +Melrose's room. What on earth had been the matter with Chris? What right +had he--how dared he--treat her so rudely? + +Mrs. Melrose was in a flowered chair near a wide-opened window. She had +put on a lacy robe of thin silk, after the heat and burden of the day, +and her feet were in slippers. Beside her was a tall glass, holding an +iced drink, and before her, on a small table, Regina had ranged the +beautiful photographs of Leslie's baby that were to be the young +mother's birthday surprise next week. + +"Hello, dear!" she said, in the pleasant, almost cooing voice with which +she almost always addressed the girls of the family, "isn't this just a +dreadful, dreadful day? Oh, my, so hot! Look here, Norma, just see my +little Patricia's pictures. Aren't they perfectly lovely? I'm _so_ +pleased with them. I was just----Regina, will you order Miss Norma +something cool to drink, please. Tea, dear? Or lemonade, like your old +aunty?--I was just showing them to Chris. Yes. And he thought they were +just perfectly lovely; see the little fat hand, and how beautifully the +lace took! There--that one's the best. You'll see, Leslie will like that +one." + +The topic, fortunately for Norma's agitation, was apparently +inexhaustible and all-absorbing. The girl could sink almost unnoticed +into an opposite chair, and while her voice dutifully uttered +sympathetic monosyllables, and her eyes went from the portraits of +little Patricia idly about the big room, noting the handsome old maple +furniture, and the costly old scrolled velvet carpet, and the aspect of +flaming roofs beyond the window in the sunset, her thoughts could turn +and twist agonizingly over this new mystery and this new pain. What had +been the matter with Chris? + +Anger gave way to chill, and chill to utter heartsickness. The cause of +the change was unimportant, after all; it was the change itself that was +significant. Norma's head ached, her heart was like lead. She had been +thinking, all the way down in the car--all to-day--that she would meet +him to-night; that they would talk. Now what? Was this endless evening +to drag away on his terms, and were they to return to Newport to-morrow, +with only the memory of that cool farewell to feed Norma's starving, +starving soul? + +"Chris couldn't stay and have dinner," Mrs. Melrose presently was +regretting, "but, after all, perhaps it's cooler up here than anywhere, +and I am so tired that I'm not going to change! You'll just have to +stand me as I am." + +And the tired, heat-flushed, wrinkled old face, under its fringe of gray +hair, smiled confidently at Norma. The girl smiled affectionately back. + +Five o'clock. Six o'clock. It was almost seven when Norma came forth +from a cold bath, and supervised the serving of the little meal. She +merely played with her own food, and the old lady was hardly more +hungry. + +"Oh, no, Aunt Marianna! I think that Leslie was just terribly nervous, +after Patricia was born. But I think now, especially when they're back +in their own house, they'll be perfectly happy. No reason in the world +why they shouldn't be," Norma heard herself saying. So they had been +talking of Acton and Leslie, she thought. Leslie was spoiled, and Acton +was extravagant, and the united families had been just a little worried +about their attitudes toward each other. Mrs. Melrose was sure that +Norma was right, and rambled along the same topic for some time. Then +Norma realized that they had somehow gotten around to Theodore, Leslie's +father. This subject was always good for half hours together, she could +safely ramble a little herself. The deadly weight fell upon her spirit +again. What had been the matter with Chris? + +At nine o'clock her tired old companion began preparations for bed, and +Norma, catching up some magazines, went into her own room. She could +hear Regina and Mrs. Melrose murmuring together, the running of water, +the opening and shutting of bureau drawers. + +Norma went to her open window, leaned out into the warm and brilliant +night. There was a hot moon, moving between clouds that promised, at +last, a break in the binding heat. Down the Avenue below her omnibuses +wheeled and rumbled, omnibuses whose upper seats were packed with thinly +clad passengers, but otherwise there was little life and movement +abroad. A searchlight fanned the sky, fell and wavered upward again. A +hurdy-gurdy, in the side street, poured forth the notes of the +"Marseillaise." + +Suddenly, and almost without volition, the girl snatched the telephone, +and murmured a number. Thought and senses seemed suspended while she +waited. + +"Is this the Metropolitan Club? Is Mr. Christopher Liggett there?... If +you will, please. Thank you. Say that it is a lady," said Norma, in a +hurried and feverish voice. The operator would announce presently, of +course, that Mr. Liggett was not there. The chance that he was there was +so remote---- + +"Chris!" she breathed, all the tension and doubt dropping from her like +a garment at the sound of his quiet tones. "Chris--this is Norma!" + +A pause. Her soul died within her. + +"What is it?" Chris asked presently, in a repressed voice. + +"Well--but were you playing cards?" + +"No." + +"You've had your dinner, Chris?" + +"No. Yes, I had dinner, of course. I dined with Aunt Marianna--no, that +was lunch! I dined here." + +"Chris," Norma faltered, speaking quickly as her courage ebbed, "I +didn't want to interrupt you, but you seemed so--so different, this +afternoon. And I didn't want to have you cross at me; and I +wondered--I've been wondering ever since--if I have done something that +made you angry--that was stupid and--and----" + +She stopped. The forbidding silence on his part was like a wall that +crossed her path, was like a veil that blinded and choked her. + +"Not at all," he said, quickly. "Where did you get that idea?... +Hello--hello--are you there, Norma?" he added, when on her part in turn +there was a blank silence. + +For Norma, strangled by an uprising of tears as sudden as it was +unexpected and overwhelming, could make no audible answer. Why she +should be crying she could not clearly think, but she was bathed in +tears, and her heart was heavy with unspeakable desolation. + +"Norma!" she heard him say, urgently. "What is it? Norma----?" + +"Nothing!" she managed to utter, in a voice that stemmed the flood for +only a second. + +"Norma," Chris said, simply, "I am coming out. Meet me downstairs in ten +minutes. I want to see you!" + +Both telephones clicked, and Norma found herself sitting blankly in the +sudden silence of the room, her brain filled with a confusion of shamed +and doubting and fearful thoughts, and her heart flooded with joy. + +Five minutes later she stepped from the elevator into the lobby, and +selected a big chair that faced obliquely on the entrance doors. The +little stir in the wide, brightly lighted place always interested her +and amused her; women drifting from the dining-room with their light +wraps over their arms, messengers coming and going, the far strains of +the orchestra mingling pleasantly with the nearer sounds of feet and +voices. + +To-night her spirit was soaring. Nothing mattered, nothing of her +doubts, nothing of his coldness, except that Chris was even now coming +toward her! Her mind followed the progress of his motor-car, up through +the hot, deserted streets. + +Suddenly it seemed to her that she could not bear the emotion of +meeting. With every man's figure that came through the wide-open doors +her heart thumped and pounded. + +His voice; she would hear it again. She would see the gray eyes, and +watch the firm, quick movement of his jaw. + +Other men, meeting other women, or parting from other women, came and +went. Norma liked the big, homely boy in olive drab, who kissed the +little homely mother so affectionately. + +She glanced at her wrist watch, twisted about to confirm its unwelcome +news by the big clock. Quarter to ten, and no Chris. Norma settled down +again to waiting and watching. + +Ten o'clock. Quarter past ten. He was not coming! No, although her sick +and weary spirit rose whenever there was the rush of a motor-car to the +curb or the footstep of a man on the steps outside, she knew now that he +was not coming. Hope deferred had exhausted her, but hope dead was far, +far worse. He was not coming. + +It was almost half-past ten when a bell-boy approached. Was it Miss +Sheridan? Mr. Christopher Liggett had been called out of town, and +would try to see Mrs. Melrose in a day or two. + +Norma turned upon him a white face of fatigue. + +"Is Mr. Liggett on the telephone?" + +"No, Miss. He just telephoned a message." + +The boy retired, and Norma went slowly upstairs, and slowly made her +preparations for sleep. But the blazing summer dawn, smiting the city at +four o'clock, found her still sitting at the window, twirling a tassel +of the old-fashioned shade in her cold fingers, and staring with haggard +eyes into space. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +More than a week later Annie gave a luncheon to a dozen women, and +telephoned Norma beforehand, with a request that the girl come early +enough to help her with name cards. + +"These damnable engagement luncheons," said Aunt Annie, limping about +the long table, and grumbling at everything as she went. Annie had +wrenched her ankle in alighting from her car, and was cross with nagging +pain. "Here, put Natalie next to Leslie, Norma; no, that puts the +Gunnings together. I'll give you Miss Blanchard--but you don't speak +French! Here, give me your pencil--and confound these things +anyway----Fowler," she said to the butler, "I don't like to see a thing +like that on the table--carry that away, please; and here, get somebody +to help you change this, that won't do! That's all right--only I want +this as you had it day before yesterday--and don't use those, get the +glass ones----" + +And so fussing and changing and criticizing, Annie went away, and Norma +followed her up to her bedroom. + +"I'm wondering when we're going to give _you_ an engagement luncheon, +Norma," said the hostess, in a whirl of rapid dressing. "Who's ahead +now?" + +"Oh--nobody!" Norma answered, with a mirthless laugh. She had been +listless and pale for several days, and did not seem herself at all. + +"Forrest Duer, is it?" + +"Oh, good heavens--Aunt Annie! He's twenty-one!" + +"Is that all--he's such a big whale!----Don't touch my hair, Phoebe, +it'll do very well!" said Annie to the maid. "Well, don't be in too much +of a hurry, Norma," she went on kindly. "Nothing like being sure! +That"--Annie glanced at the retiring maid--"that's what makes me nervous +about Leslie," she confessed. "I'm afraid we hurried the child into it +just a little bit. It was an understood thing since they were nothing +but kiddies." + +"Leslie is outrageously spoiled," Norma said, not unkindly. + +"Leslie? Oh, horribly. Mama always spoils everyone and poor Theodore +spoiled her, too," Annie conceded. + +"She told me herself yesterday," Norma went on, with a trace of her old +animation, "that they've overdrawn again. Now, Aunt Annie, I do think +that's outrageous! Chris straightened them all out last--when was +it?--June, after the baby came, and they have an enormous +income--thousands every month, and yet they are deep in again!" + +"The wretched thing is that they quarrel about that!" Annie agreed. + +"Well, exactly! That was what it was about day before yesterday, and +Leslie told me she cried all night. And you know the other day she took +Patricia and came home to Aunt Marianna, and it was terrible!" + +"How much do you suppose the servants know of that?" Annie asked, +frowning. + +"Oh, they _must_ know!" Norma replied. + +"Foolish, foolish child! You know, Norma," Annie resumed, "Leslie comes +by her temper naturally. She is half French; her mother was a +Frenchwoman--Louison Courtot." + +"It's a pretty name," Norma commented. "Did you know her?" + +"Know her? She was my maid when I was about seventeen, a very superior +girl. I used to practise my French with her. She was extremely pretty. +After my father died my mother and I went to Florida, and when we came +back the whole thing broke. I thought it would kill Mama! At first we +thought Theodore had simply gotten her into 'trouble,' to use the dear +old phrase. But _pas du tout_; she had 'ze _mar-ri-age_ certificate' all +safe and sound. But he was no more in love with her than I was--a boy +nineteen! Mama made her leave the house, and cut off Theodore's +allowance entirely, and for a while they were together--but it couldn't +last. Teddy got his divorce when he went with Mama to California, but he +was ill then, though we didn't know it, poor boy! He lived five years +after that." + +"But he saw Leslie?" + +"Oh, dear, yes!" Annie said, buffing her twinkling finger-nails, idly. +"Didn't Mama ever tell you about that?" + +"No, she never mentions it." + +"Well, that was awful, too--for poor Mama. About four years after the +divorce, one night when we were all at home--it was just after Mama and +I came back from Europe, and the year before Hendrick and I were +married--suddenly there was a rush in the hall, and in came Theodore's +wife--Louison Courtot! It seems Mama had been in touch with her ever +since we returned, but none of us knew that. And she had Leslie with +her, a little thing about four years old--Leslie just faintly remembers +it. She had fought Mama off, at first, about giving her baby up, but now +she was going to be married, and she had finally consented to do as Mama +wanted. Leslie came over to me, and got into my lap, and went to sleep, +I remember. Theodore was terribly ill, and I remember that Louison was +quite gentle with him--surprised us all, in fact, she was so mild. She +had been a wild thing, but always most self-respecting; a prude, in +fact. She even stooped over Theodore, and kissed him good-bye, and then +she knelt down and kissed Leslie, and went away. Mama had intended that +she should always see the child, if she wanted to, but she never came +again. She was married, I know, a few weeks later, and long afterward +Mama told me that she was dead. Ted came to adore the baby, and of +course she's been the greatest comfort to Mama, so it all turns out +right, after all. But we're a sweet family!" finished Annie, rising to +go downstairs. "And now," she added, on the stairs, "if there were to be +serious trouble between Acton and Leslie----Well, it isn't thinkable!" + +Leslie herself, charming in a flowered silky dress, with a wide flowery +hat on her yellow hair, was waiting for them in the big, shaded hallway. +The little matron was extremely attractive in her new dignities, and her +babyish face looked more ridiculously youthful than ever as she talked +of "my husband," "my little girl," "my house," and "my attorney." + +Leslie, like Annie and Alice, was habitually wrapped in her own affairs, +more absorbed in the question of her own minute troubles than in the +most widespread abuses of the world. When Leslie saw a coat, the +identity of the wearer interested her far less than the primary +considerations of the coat's cut and material, and the secondary +decision whether or not she herself would like such a garment. +Consequently, she glanced but apathetically at Norma; she had seen the +dotted blue swiss before, and the cornflower hat; she had seen Aunt +Annie's French organdie; there was nothing there either to envy or +admire. + +"How's the baby, dear; and how's Acton?" Annie asked, perfunctorily. +Leslie sighed. + +"Oh, they're both fine," she answered, indifferently. "I've been all +upset because my cook got married--just walked out. I told Acton not to +pay her, but of course he did; it's nothing to him if my whole house is +upset by the selfishness of somebody else. He and Chris are going off +this afternoon with Joe and Denny Page, for the Thousand Islands----" + +"I didn't know Chris was here!" Annie said, in surprise. + +"I didn't, myself. He came up with Acton, late last night. They'd +motored all the way; I was asleep when they got in. I didn't know it +until I found him at breakfast this morning----" + +Norma's heart stood still. The name alone was enough to shake her to the +very soul, but the thought that he was here--in Newport--this minute, +and that she might not see him, probably indeed would not see him, made +her feel almost faint. + +She had not seen him since the meeting on the hotel steps nearly two +weeks ago. It had been the longest and the saddest two weeks in Norma's +life. It was in vain that she reminded herself that her love for him +was weakness and madness, and that by no possible shift of +circumstances could it come to happy consummation. It was in vain that +she pondered Alice's claims, and all the family claims, and the general +claim of society as an institution. Deep and strong and unconquerable +above them all rose the tide of love and passion, the gnawing and +burning hunger for the sight of him, the sound of his voice, the touch +of his hand. + +Life had become for her a vague and changing dream, with his name for +its only reality. Somewhere in the fog of days was Chris, and she would +not live again until she saw him. He must forgive her; he must explain +his coldness, explain the change in him, and then she would be content +just with the old friendliness, just the old nearness and the occasional +word together. + +Every letter that Joseph brought her, every call to the telephone, meant +to her only the poignant possibility of a message from him. She sickened +daily with fresh despair, and fed herself daily with new hopes. + +To-day she was scarcely conscious of the hilarious progress of the +luncheon; she looked at the prospective bride, in whose honour Aunt +Annie entertained, only with a pang of wonder. What was it like, the +knowledge that one was openly beloved, the miraculous right to plan an +unclouded future together? The mere thought of being free to love Chris, +of having him free to claim her, almost dizzied Norma with its vista of +utter felicity. She had to drive it resolutely from her mind. Not +that--never that! But there must at least be peace and friendship +between them. + +At three o'clock the luncheon was over; it was half-past three when +Leslie and she drove to the Melrose "cottage"--as the fourteen-room, +three-story frame house was called. Norma had searched the drive with +her eyes as they approached. The gray roadster was not there. There was +no sign of Christopher's hat or coat in the hallway. Alice was alone, in +her downstairs sitting-room. Norma's heart sank like a lump of ice. + +"Did you see Chris?" the invalid began, happily. "We had the nicest +lunch together--just we two. And look at the books the angel brought +me--just a feast. You saw him, Leslie, didn't you, dear? He said he +caught you and Acton at breakfast. I was perfectly amazed. Miss Slater +moved me out here about eleven o'clock, and I heard someone walking +in----! He's off now, with the Pages; he told you that, of course!" + +"He looks rotten, I think," Leslie offered. "I told him he was working +too hard." + +"Well, Judge Lee is sick, and he hasn't been in to the office since +June," Alice said, "and that makes it very hard for Chris. But he says +his room at the club is cool, and now he'll have two or three lovely +days with the Page boys----" + +Norma, who had subsided quietly into a chair, was looking at the yellow +covers of the new French and Italian novels. + +"And then does he come back here Monday, for the tennis?" she asked, +clearing her throat. + +"He says not!" Alice answered, regretfully. "He's going straight on down +to the city. Then next week-end is the cruise with the Dwights; and +after that, I suppose we'll all be home!" + +She went on into a conversation with Leslie, relative to the move. After +a few moments Norma went out through the opened French window onto the +wide porch. It was rather a dark, old-fashioned side porch, with an +elaborate wooden railing, and potted hydrangeas under a striped awning. +The house had neither the magnificence of Annie's gray-stone mansion or +the beauty of Leslie's colonial white and green at Glen Cove; it had +been built in the late eighties, and was inflexibly ornate. + +Norma went down slowly through the garden, and walked vaguely toward the +hot glitter and roll of the blue sea. Her misery was almost unbearable. +Weeks--it would be weeks before she would see him! He had been here +to-day--here in the garden--in Alice's room, and she had not had a word +or a sign. + +Children and nurses were on the beach, grouped in the warm shade. The +season was over, there were yellow leaves in the hedges, Norma's feet +rustled among the dropped glory of the old trees. The world seemed hot, +dry, lifeless before her. + +"I wish I were dead!" she cried, passionately, for the first time in her +life. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Suddenly and smoothly they were all transported to town again, and the +vigour and sparkle of the autumn was exhilarating to Norma in spite of +herself. The Park was a glory of red and gold leaves; morning came late, +and the dew shone until ten o'clock; bright mists rose smoking into the +sunlight, and when Norma walked home from a luncheon, or from an hour of +furious squash or tennis at the club, the early winter dusk would be +closing softly in, the mists returning, and the lights of the long Mall +in the park blooming round and blue in the twilight. + +She was with Mrs. Melrose this winter, an arrangement extremely welcome +to the old lady, who was lonely and liked the stir of young life in the +house. Alice had quite charmingly and naturally suggested the change, +and Norma's belongings had been moved away from the little white room +next to Miss Slater's. + +One reason for it was that Alice had had two nurses all summer long, and +found the increased service a great advantage. Then Mama was all alone +and not so well as she had been; getting old, and reluctant to take even +the necessary exercise. + +"And then you're too young to be shut up with stupid home-loving folk +like Chris and me," Alice had told Norma, lightly. + +"Your stupidity is proverbial, Aunt Alice," Norma had laughed. She did +not care where she went any more. Chris had greeted her casually, upon +their meeting in October, and had studiously, if inconspicuously, +ignored her. But even to see him at all was so great a relief to her +over-charged heart that for weeks this was enough. She must meet him +occasionally, she heard his name every day, and she knew where he was +and what he was doing almost at every moment. She treasured every look, +every phrase of his, and she glowed and grew beautiful in the conviction +that, even though he was still mysteriously angry with her, he had that +old consciousness of her presence, too; he might hate her, but he could +not ignore her. + +And then, in December, the whole matter reached a sudden crisis, and +Norma came to feel that she would have been glad to have the matter go +back to this state of doubt and indecision again. + +Mrs. von Behrens was on the directorate of a working girls' club that +needed special funds every winter, and this year the money was to be +raised by an immense entertainment, at which generous professional +singers were to be alternated on a brilliant programme with society +girls and men, in tableaux and choruses. Norma, who had a charming if +not particularly strong voice, was early impressed into service, because +she was so good-natured, so dependable, and pretty and young enough to +carry off a delectable costume. The song she sang had been specially +written for the affair, and in the quaint dance that accompanied it she +was drilled by the dance authority of the hour. A chorus of eight girls +and eight men was added to complete the number, and the gaiety of the +rehearsals, and the general excitement and interest, carried the matter +along to the last and dress rehearsal with a most encouraging rush. + +Annie had originally selected Chris for Norma's companion in the song, +for Chris had a pleasant, presentable voice, and Chris in costume was +always adequate to any rôle. Theatricals had been his delight, all his +life long, and among the flattering things that were commonly said of +Chris was that he had robbed the stage of a great character actor. + +But Chris had begged off, to take a minor part in another _ensemble_, +and Norma had a youth named Roy Gillespie for her partner. Roy was a +big, fat, blond boy, good-natured and stupid and rather in love with +Norma, and as the girl was entirely unconscious of Annie's original +plan, she was quite satisfied with him. + +The dress rehearsal was on a dark Thursday afternoon before the Saturday +of the performance. It took place in the big empty auditorium, where it +was to drag along from twelve o'clock noon, until the preparations for +the regular evening performance drove the amateurs, protesting, away. +Snow was fluttering down over the city when Annie, with Norma, and a +limousine full of properties, reached the place at noon; motor-cars were +wheeling and crowding in the side street, and it seemed to Norma +thrilling to enter so confidently at the big, dirty, sheet-iron door +lettered: + + "STAGE DOOR. NO ADMITTANCE." + +As always to the outsider, the wings, the shabby dressing-rooms, the +novel feeling of sauntering across the big, dim stage, the gloom of the +great rising arch of the house, were full of charm. Voices and hammers +were sounding in the gloom; somebody was talking hard while he fitfully +played the piano; girls were giggling and fluttering about; footlights +flashed up and down, in the front rows of seats a few mothers and maids +had gathered. There was the sweet, strong smell of some spicy +disinfectant, and obscure figures, up the aisles, were constantly +sweeping and stooping. + +Annie had a chair in a wing. Her small fur hat and trim suit had been +selected for comfort; her knees were crossed, and she had a sheaf of +songs, a pencil, and various note-books in her hands. She was alert, +serious, authoritative; her manner expressed an anxious certainty that +everything that could possibly go wrong was about to do so. Men +protested jovially to Annie, girls whimpered and complained, maids +delivered staggering messages into her ear. Annie frowningly yet +sympathetically sent them all away, one by one; persisted that the +rehearsal proceed. Never mind the hat, we could get along without the +hat; never mind Dixie Jadwin, someone could read her part; never mind +this, never mind that; go on, go on--we must get on! + +At five o'clock she was very tired, and Norma, fully arrayed, was tired, +too. The girl had been sitting on a barrel for almost an hour, patiently +waiting for the tardy Mr. Roy Gillespie to arrive, and permit their +particular song to be rehearsed. Everything that could be done in the +way of telephoning had been done: Mr. Gillespie had left his office, he +was expected momentarily at his home, he should be given the message +immediately. Nothing to do but wait. + +Suddenly Norma's heart jumped to her throat, began to hammer wildly. A +man had come quietly in between her and Annie, and she heard the voice +that echoed in her heart all day and all night. It was Chris. + +He did not see her, perhaps did not recognize her in a casual glance, +and began to talk to his sister-in-law in low, quick tones. Almost +immediately Annie exclaimed in consternation, and called Norma. + +"Norma! Chris tells me that poor old Mr. Gillespie died this afternoon. +_That's_ what's been the matter. What on earth are we to do now? I +declare it's _too_ much!" + +Norma got off her barrel. The great lighted stage seemed to be moving +about her as she went to join them. + +What Chris saw strained his tried soul to its utmost of endurance. He +had not permitted himself to look at her squarely for weeks. Now there +was a new look, a look a little sad, a little wistfully expectant, in +the lovely face. Her eyes burned deeply blue above the touch of rouge +and the crimson lips. Her dark, soft hair fell in loose ringlets on her +shoulders from under the absurd little tipped and veiled hat of the late +seventies. Her gown, a flowered muslin, moved and tilted with a gentle, +shaking majesty over hoop skirts, and was crossed on the low shoulders +by a thin silk shawl whose long fringes were tangled in her mitted +fingers. The white lace stockings began where the loose lace pantalettes +stopped, and disappeared into flat-heeled kid slippers. Norma carried a +bright nosegay in lace paper, and on her breast a thin gold locket hung +on a velvet ribbon. + +She herself had been completely captivated by the costume when Madame +Modiste had first suggested it, and when the first fittings began. But +that was weeks ago, and she was accustomed to it now, and conscious in +this instant of nothing but Chris, conscious of nothing but the +possibility that he would have a word or a smile, at last, for her. + +"Stay right here, both of you--don't move a step--while I telephone +Lucia Street!" said the harassed Annie, her eyes glittering with some +desperate hope. She hurried away; they were alone. + +"Poor old Roy--he adored his father!" Chris said, with dry lips, and in +a rather unnatural voice. Norma, for one second, simulated mere +sympathy. Then with a rush the pride and hurt that had sustained her +ever since that weary September evening in the hotel lobby vanished, and +she came close to Chris, so that the fragrance and sweetness of her +enveloped him, and caught his coat with both her mitted hands, and +raised her face imploringly, commandingly to his. + +"Chris--for God's sake--what have I done? Don't you know--don't you know +that you're killing me?" + +He looked down at her, wretchedly. And suddenly Norma knew. Not that he +liked her, not that she fascinated and interested him, not that they +were friends. But that he loved her with every fibre of his being, even +as she loved him. + +The revelation carried her senses away with it upon a raging sea of +emotion and ecstasy. He drew her into a dim corner of the wings, and put +his arms about her, and her whole slender body, in its tilting hoops, +strained backward under the passion and fury of his first embrace. Again +and again his lips met hers, and she heard the incoherent outpouring of +murmured words, and felt the storm that shook him as it was shaking her. +Norma, after the first kiss, grew limp, let herself rest almost without +movement in his arms, shut her eyes. + +Reason came back to them slowly; the girl almost rocking upon her feet +as the vertigo and bewilderment passed, and the man sustaining her with +an arm about her shoulders, neither looking at the other. So several +seconds, perhaps a full minute, went by, while the world settled into +place about them; the dingy, unpainted wood of the wings, the near-by +stage where absorbed groups of people were still coming and going, the +distant gloom of the house. + +"So now you know!" Chris said, breathlessly, panting, and looking away +from her, with his hands hanging at his sides. "Now you know! I've tried +to keep it from you! But now--now you know!" + +Norma, also breathing hard, did not answer for a little space. + +"I've known since that time we were in town, in September!" she said, +almost defiantly. Chris looked toward her, surprised, and their eyes +met. "I've known what was the matter with _me_," she added, +thoughtfully, even frowning a little in her anxiety to make it all +clear, "but I couldn't imagine what it was with _you_!" + +But this brought him to face her, so close that she felt the same sense +of drowning, of losing her footing, again. + +"Chris--please!" she whispered, in terror. + +"But, Norma--say it! Say that you love me--that's all that matters now! +I've been losing my mind, I think. I've been losing my mind. Just +that--that you do care!" + +"I have----" Tears came to her lifted blue eyes, and she brushed them +away without moving her gaze from him. "I think I have always loved you, +Chris--from the very first," she whispered. + +Instantly she saw his expression change. It was as if, with that +revelation, a new responsibility began for him. + +"Here, dear, you mustn't cry!" he said, composedly. He gave her his +handkerchief, helped her set the tipped hat and lace veil straight, +smiled reassurance and courage into her eyes. "I'll see you, +Norma--we'll talk," he said. "Oh, my God, to talk to you again! Come, +now, we'll have to be here when Annie comes back--that's right. I--I +love the little gown--terribly sweet. I haven't seen it before, you +know; my crowd has done all its rehearsing at Mrs. Hitchcock's. Here's +Annie now----" + +"Christopher," said Annie, in deadly, almost angry earnest, as she came +up desperate and weary, "you'll have to sing this thing with Norma. +Burgess Street absolutely refuses. He's in the chorus, and he sings, but +he simply won't do a solo! His mother says he has a cold, and so on, and +I swear I'll throw the whole thing up; I will, indeed!--rather than have +this number ruined. There's no earthly reason why you can't do both--of +course the poor old man couldn't help dying--but if you knew----" + +"My dear girl, of course I'll do it!" All the youth and buoyancy that +had been missing from his voice for weeks had come back. Christopher +laughed his old delightful laugh. "I'll have to have Roy's costume cut +down, but Smithers will do it for me. I'll do my very best----" + +"Oh, Chris, God bless you," Annie said. "You'll do it better than he +ever did. Take my car and stop for his suit, and express whatever's +decent--the funeral will be Saturday morning and we'll all have to go, +but there's no help for it. And come to my house for dinner, and you and +Norma can go over it afterward; you poor girl, you're tired out, but +it's such a Godsend to have Chris fill in. And it will be the prettiest +number of all." + +Tired out? The radiant girl who was tripping away to change to street +attire was hardly conscious that her feet touched the ground. The stage, +the theatre, the fur coat into which she buttoned herself, the fragrance +of the violets she wore, were all touched with beauty and enchantment. + +Snow was still falling softly, when she and Annie went out to the car. +Annie was so exhausted that she could hardly move, but Norma floated +above things mortal. The dark sidewalk was powdered with what scrunched +under their shoes like dry sugar, and up against the lighted sky the +flakes were twirling and falling. The air was sweet and cold and pure +after the hot theatre. Chris put them in the motor-car. He would see his +tailor, have a bite of dinner at home, and be at Annie's at eight +o'clock for the rehearsal. + +"I'll do something for you, for this, Norma!" her aunt assured the girl, +gratefully. Norma protested in a voice that was almost singing. It was +nothing at all! + +She felt suddenly happy and light. It was all right; there was to be no +more agony and doubt. Alice should lose nothing, the world should know +nothing, but Chris loved her! She could take his friendship fearlessly, +there would be nothing but what was good and beautiful and true between +them. But what a changed world! + +What a changed room it was into which she danced, to brush her hair for +dinner, and laugh into her mirror, where the happy girl with starry eyes +and blazing cheeks laughed back. What a changed dinner table, at which +the old lady drowsed and cooed! Norma's blood was dancing, her head was +in a whirl, she was hardly conscious that this soaring and singing soul +of hers had a body. + +At eight she and Mrs. Melrose went to Mrs. von Behrens's, and Norma and +Chris went through the song again and again and again, for the benefit +of a small circle of onlookers. Hendrick, who had sworn that wild horses +would not drag him to the entertainment, sat with a small son in his +lap, and applauded tirelessly. Annie criticized and praised alternately. +Mrs. Melrose went to sleep, and Annie's new secretary, a small, lean, +dark girl of perhaps twenty-two, passionately played the music. Norma +knew exactly how this girl felt, how proud she was of her position, how +anxious to hold it, and how infinitely removed from her humble struggle +the beautiful Miss Sheridan seemed! Yet she herself had been much the +same less than two years ago! + +Norma could have laughed aloud. She envied no one to-night. The mystery +and miracle of Chris's love for her was like an ermine mantle about her +shoulders, and like a diadem upon her brows. Annie was delighted with +her, and presently told her she had never before sung so well. + +"I suppose practice makes perfect!" the girl answered, innocently. She +was conscious of no hypocrisy. No actress enjoying a long-coveted part +could have rejoiced in every word and gesture more than she. Just to +move, under his eyes, to laugh or to be serious, to listen dutifully to +Annie and the old lady, to flirt with Baby Piet, was ecstasy enough. + +They had small opportunity for asides. But that was of no consequence. +All the future was their own. They would see each other to-morrow--or +next day; it did not matter. Norma's hungry heart had something to +remember, now--a very flood-tide of memories. She could have lived for +weeks upon this one day's memories. + +Norma and Chris were placed toward the centre of the first half of the +programme on the triumphant Saturday night, and could escape from the +theatre before eleven o'clock to go home to tell Alice all about it. +Chris played the song, on his own piano, and Norma modestly and +charmingly went through it again, to the invalid's great satisfaction. +Alice, when Norma and her mother were gone, tried to strike a spark of +enthusiasm from her husband as to the girl's beauty and talent, but +Chris was pleasantly unresponsive. + +"She got through it very nicely; they all did!" Chris admitted, +indifferently. + +"When you think of the upbringing she had, Chris, a little nameless +nobody," Alice pursued. "When you think that until last year she had +actually never seen a finger-bowl, or spoken to a servant!" + +"Exactly!" Chris said, briefly. Alice, who was facing the fire, did not +see him wince. She was far from suspecting that he had at that moment a +luncheon engagement for the next day with Norma, and that during the +weeks that followed they met by appointment almost every day, and +frequently by chance more often than that. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +In the beginning, these were times brimful of happiness for Norma. She +would meet Chris far down town, among the big, cold, snowbound +office-buildings, and they would loiter for two hours at some +inconspicuous table in a restaurant, and come wandering out into the +cold streets still talking, absorbed and content. Or she would rise +before him from a chair in one of the foyers of the big hotels, at tea +time, and they would find an unobserved corner for the murmur that rose +and fell, rose and fell inexhaustibly. Tea and toast unobserved before +them, music drifting unheard about them, furred and fragrant women +coming and going; all this was but the vague setting for their own +thrilling drama of love and confidence. They would come out into the +darkness, Norma tucking herself beside him in the roadster, last +promises and last arrangements made, until to-morrow. + +Sometimes the girl even accompanied him to Alice's room, to sit at the +invalid's knee, and chatter with a tact and responsiveness that Alice +found an improvement upon her old amusing manner. So free was Norma in +these days from any sense of guilt that she felt herself nothing but +generous toward Alice, in sparing the older woman some of the excess of +joy and companionship in which she was so rich. + +But very swiftly the first complete satisfaction in the discovery of +their mutual love began to wane, or rather to be overset with the +difficulties by which Norma, and many another more brilliant and older +woman, must inevitably be worsted. Her meetings with Chris, innocent and +open as they seemed, were immediately threatened by the sordid danger of +scandal. To meet him once, twice, half-a-dozen times, even, was safe +enough. But when each day of separation became for them both only an +agony of waiting until the next day that should unite them, and when all +Norma's self-control was not enough to keep her from the telephone +summons that at least gave her the sound of his voice, then the world +began to be cognizant that something was in the air. + +The very maids at Mrs. Melrose's house knew that Miss Sheridan was never +available any more, never to be traced to the club, to young Mrs. +Liggett's, or to Mrs. von Behrens's house, with a telephone message or +an urgent letter. Leslie knew that Norma hated girls' luncheons; Annie +asked Hendrick idly why he supposed the child was always taking long +walks--or saying that she took long walks--and Hendrick, later +speculating himself as to the inaccessibility of Chris, was perhaps the +first in the group to suspect the truth. + +A quite accidental and innocent hint from Annie overwhelmed Norma with +shame and terror, and she and Chris, in earnest consultation, decided +that they must be more discreet. But this was slow and difficult work, +after the radiant first plunge into danger. Despite their utmost +resolution, Chris would find her out, Norma would meet him halfway, and +even under Leslie's very eyes, or in old Mrs. Melrose's actual presence, +the telephone message, or the quicker signals of eyes and smile, would +forge the bond afresh. + +Even when Norma really did start off heroically upon a bracing winter +walk, determined to shake off, in solitude and exercise, the constant +hunger for his presence, torturing possibilities would swarm into her +mind, and weaken her almost while she thought them banished. She could +catch him at his club; she might have just five minutes of him did she +choose to telephone. + +Perhaps she would resist the temptation, and go home nervous, +high-strung, excitable--the evening stretching endlessly before +her--without him. Aunt Annie and Hendrick coming, Leslie and Acton +coming, the prospect of the decorous family dinner would drive her +almost to madness. She would dress in a feverish dream, answer old Mrs. +Melrose absently or impatiently, speculating all the time about him. +Where was he? When would they meet again? + +And then perhaps Leslie would casually remark that Chris had said he +would join them for coffee, or Joseph would summon her gravely to the +telephone. Then Norma began to live again, the effect of the lonely walk +and the heroic resolutions swept away, nothing--nothing was in the world +but the sound of that reassuring voice, or the prospect of that ring at +the bell, and that step in the hall. + +So matters went on for several weeks, but they were weeks of increasing +uneasiness and pain for Norma, and she knew that Chris found them even +less endurable than she. The happy hours of confidence and happiness +grew fewer and fewer, and as their passion strengthened, and the +insuperable obstacles to its natural development impressed them more and +more forcibly, miserable and anxious times took their place. Their love +was no sooner acknowledged than both came to realize how mad and +hopeless it was, and that no reiteration of its intensity and no +argument could ever give them a gleam of hope. + +If Norma had drifted cheerfully and recklessly into this situation, she +paid for it now, when petty restrictions and conventions stung her like +so many bees, and when she could turn nowhere for relief from constant +heartache and the sickening monotony of her thoughts. She could not have +Chris; she could not give him up. Hours with him were only a degree more +bearable than hours without him. + +When he spoke hopefully of a possible change, of "something" making +their happiness possible, she would turn on him like a little virago. +Yet if he despaired, tears would come to Norma's eyes, and she would beg +him almost angrily to change his tone, or she would disgrace them both +by beginning to cry. + +Norma grew thin and fidgety, able to concentrate her mind on +nothing, and openly indifferent to the society she had courted so +enthusiastically a year ago. It was a part of her suffering that she +grew actually to dislike Alice, always so suave and cheerful, always so +serenely sure of Chris's devotion. What right had this woman, who had +been rich and spoiled and guarded all her life, to hold him away from +the woman he loved? Chris had been chained to this couch for years, +reading, playing his piano, infinitely solicitous and sympathetic. But +was he to spend all his life thus? Was there to be no glorious +companionship, no adventure, no deep and satisfying love for Chris, ever +in this world? Norma wished no ill to Alice, but she hated a world that +could hold Alice's claim legitimate. + +"Why should it be so?" she said to Chris one day, bitterly. "Why, when +all my life was going so happily, did I have to fall in love with you, I +wonder? It could so easily have been somebody else!" + +"I don't know!" Chris answered, soberly, flinging away his half-finished +cigarette, and folding his arms over his chest, as he stared through a +screen of bare trees at the river. It was a March day of warm airs and +bursting buds; the roads were running water, and every bank and meadow +oozed the thawing streams, but there was no green yet. Chris had come +for the girl at three o'clock, just as she was starting out for one of +her aimless, unhappy tramps, and had carried her off for a +twenty-five-mile run to the quiet corner of the tavern's porch in +Tarrytown where they were having tea. "I suppose that's just life. +Things go so rottenly, sometimes!" + +Norma's eyes watered as she pushed the untasted toast away from her, +cupped her chin in her hands, and stared at the river in her turn. + +"Chris, if I could go back, I think I'd never speak to you!" she said, +wretchedly. + +"You mustn't say that," he reproached her. "My darling; surely it's +brought you some happiness?" + +"I suppose so," Norma conceded, lifelessly, after a silence. "But I +can't go on!" she protested, suddenly. "I can't keep this up! I suppose +I've done something very wicked, to be punished this way. But, Chris, I +loved you from the very first day I ever saw you, in Biretta's +Bookstore, I think. I can't sleep," she stammered, piteously, "and I am +so afraid all the time!" + +"Afraid of what?" the man asked, very low. + +She faced him, honestly. + +"You know what! Of you--of me. It can't go on. You know that. And +yet----" And Norma looked far away, her beautiful weary eyes burning in +her white face. "And yet, I can't stop it!" she whispered. + +"Oh, Chris, don't let's fool ourselves!" she interrupted his protest +impatiently. "Weeks ago, _weeks_ ago!--we said that we would see each +other less, that it would taper off. We tried. It's no use! If we were +in different cities--in different families, even! I tell myself that it +will grow less and less," she added presently, as the man watched her in +silence, "but oh, my God!--how long the years ahead look!" + +And Norma put her head down on the table, pressed her white fingers +suddenly against her eyes with a gesture infinitely desolate and +despairing, and he knew that she was in tears. Then there was a long +silence. + +"Look here, Norma," said Chris, suddenly, in a quiet, reasonable tone. +"I am thirty-eight. I've had affairs several times in my life, two or +three before I married Alice, two or three since. They've never been +very serious, never gone very deep. When we were married I was +twenty-four. I know women like to pretend that I'm an awful killer when +I get going," he interrupted himself to say boyishly, "but there was +really never anything of that sort in my life. I liked Alice, I remember +my mother talking to me a long time, and telling me how pleased everyone +would be if we came to care for each other, and--upon my honour!--I was +more surprised than anything else, to think that any one so pretty and +sweet would marry me! I don't think there's a woman in the world that I +admire more. But, Norma, I've lived her life for ten years. I want my +own now! I want my companion--my chum--my wife. I've played with women +since I was seventeen. But I never loved any woman before. Norma, +there's no life ahead for me, without you. And there's no place so +far--so lonely--so strange--but what it would be heaven for me if you +were there, looking at me as you are now, and with this little hand +where it belongs! My dear, the city is a blank--the men I meet might +just as well be wooden Indians; I can't breathe and I can't eat or +sleep. Get better? It gets worse! It can't go on!" + +She was crying again. They were almost alone now. A red spring sun was +sinking, far down the river, and all the world--the opposite shores, the +running waters of the Hudson--was bathed in the exquisite glow. Norma +fumbled with her left hand for her little handkerchief, her right hand +clinging tight to Chris's hand. + +"Now, Norma, I've been thinking," the man said, in a matter-of-fact +tone, after a pause. "The first consideration is, that this sort of +thing can't go on!" + +"No; this can't go on!" she agreed, quickly. "Every day makes it more +dangerous, and less satisfying! I never"--her eyes watered again--"I +never have a happy second!" she said. + +Chris looked at her, looked thoughtfully away. + +"The great trouble with the way I feel to you, Norma," he said, quietly, +"is that it seems to blot every other earthly consideration from view. I +see nothing, I think nothing, I hear nothing--but you!" + +"And is that so terrible?" Norma asked, touched, and smiling through +tears. + +"No, it is so wonderful," he answered, gravely, "that it blinds me. It +blinds me to your youth, my dear, your inexperience--your faith in me! +It makes me only remember that I need you--and want you--and that I +believe I could make you the happiest woman in the world!" + +The faint shadow of a frown crossed her forehead, and she slowly shook +her head. + +"Not divorce!" she said, lightly, but inflexibly. They had been over +this ground before. "No, there's no use in thinking of that! Even if it +were not for Aunt Alice, and Aunt Marianna, other things make it +impossible. You see that, Chris? Yes, I know!"--she interrupted herself +quickly, as Chris protested, "I know what plenty of good people, and the +law, and society generally think. But of course it would mean that we +could not live here for awhile, anyway! No--that's not thinkable!" + +"No, that's not thinkable," he agreed, slowly; "I am bound hand and +foot. It isn't only what Alice--as a wife--claims from me. But there are +Acton and Leslie; there is hardly a month that my brother doesn't +propose some plan that would utterly wreck their affairs if I didn't put +my foot down. They're both absolute children in money matters; Judge Lee +is getting old--there's no one to take my place. Your Aunt Marianna, +too; I've always managed everything for her. No; I'm tied." + +His voice fell. For awhile they sat silent, in the lingering, cool +spring twilight, while the red glow faded slowly from the river, and +from the opposite banks where houses and roofs showed between the bare +trees. + +"But what can we do, Norma? I've tried--I've tried a thousand times, to +see the future, without you. But I simply can't go on living on those +terms. There's nothing--nothing--nothing! I go to the piano, and before +I touch a note, the utter blank futility of it comes over me and sickens +me! It's the same in the office, and at the club; I seem to be only half +alive. If it could be even five years ahead--or ten years ahead--I would +wait. But it's never--never. No hope--nothing to live for! Life is +simply over--only one doesn't die." + +The girl had never heard quite this note of despair from him before, and +her heart sank. + +"You are young," he said, after a minute, and in a lighter tone, "and +perhaps--some day----" + +"No, don't believe that, Chris," Norma said, quietly. And with a gesture +full of pain she leaned her elbow on the table, and pressed her hand +across her eyes. "There will never be anybody else!" she said. "How +could there be? You are the only person--like yourself!--that I have +ever known!" + +The simplicity of her words, almost their childishness, made Chris's +eyes smart. He bit his lips, trying to smile. + +"It's too bad, isn't it?" he said, whimsically. + +Norma flung back her head, swallowing tears. She gathered gloves and +hand-bag, got to her feet. He followed her as she walked across the +darkening porch. They went down to the curving sweep of driveway where +the car waited, the big lighted eyes of other cars picking it out in the +gloom. The saturated ground gave under Norma's feet, the air was soft +and full of the odorous promise of blossom and leaf. A great star was +trembling in the opal sky, which still palpitated, toward the horizon, +with the pale pink and blue of the sunset. Dry branches clicked above +their heads, in a sudden soft puff of breeze. + +Norma, as she tucked herself in beside Chris, felt emotionally +exhausted, felt a sudden desperate need for solitude and silence. The +world seemed a lonely and cruel place. + +Almost without a word he drove her home, to the old Melrose house, and +came in with her to the long, dim drawing-room for a brief good-night. +He had not kissed her more than two or three times since the memorable +night of the dress rehearsal, but he kissed her to-night, and Norma felt +something solemn, something renunciatory, in the kiss. + +They had but an unsatisfactory two or three minutes together; Mrs. +Melrose might descend upon them at any second, was indeed audible in the +hall when Chris said suddenly: + +"You are not as brave--as your mother, Norma!" + +She met his eyes with something like terror in her own; standing still, +a few feet away from him, with her breath coming and going stormily. + +"No," she said in a sharp whisper. "Not _that_!" + +A moment later she was flying upstairs, her blue eyes still dilated with +fright, her face pale, and her senses rocking. Unseeing, unhearing, she +reached her own room, paced it distractedly, moving between desk and +dressing-table, window and bed, like some bewildered animal. Sometimes +she put her two hands over her face, the spread fingers pressed against +her forehead. Sometimes she stood perfectly still, arms hanging at her +sides, eyes blankly staring ahead. Once she dropped on her knees beside +the bed, and buried her burning cheeks against the delicate linen and +embroideries. + +Regina came in; Norma made a desperate attempt to control herself. She +saw a gown laid on the bed, heard bath water running, faced her own +haggard self in the mirror, as she began dressing. But when the maid was +gone, and Norma, somewhat pale, but quite self-possessed again, was +dressed for dinner, she lifted from its place on her book-shelf a little +picture of Chris and herself, taken the summer before, and studied it +with sorrowful eyes. + +He had been teaching her to ride, and Norma was radiant and sun-browned +in her riding-trousers and skirted coat, her cloud of hair loosened, and +her smart little hat in one hand. Chris, like all well-built men, was +always at his best in sports clothes; the head of his favourite mare +looked mildly over his shoulder. Behind the group stretched the +exquisite reaches of bridle-path, the great trees heavy with summer +foliage and heat. + +Norma touched her lips to the glass. + +"Chris--Chris--Chris!" she said, half aloud. "I love you so--and I have +brought you, of all men, to this! To the point when you would throw it +all aside--everything your wonderful and generous life has stood +for--for me! God," said Norma, softly, putting the picture down, and +covering her face with her hands, "don't let me do anything that will +hurt him and shame him; help me! Help us both!" + +A few minutes later she went down to dinner, which commenced +auspiciously, with the old lady in a gracious and expansive mood, and +her guests, old Judge Lee and his wife, and old Doctor and Mrs. Turner, +sufficiently intimate, and sufficiently reminiscent, to absolve Norma +from any conversational duty. The girl could follow her own line of +heroic and resolute thought uninterruptedly. + +But with the salad came utter rout again, and Norma's colour, and heart, +and breath, began to fluctuate in a renewed agony of hope and fear. It +was only Joseph, leaning deferentially over Judge Lee's shoulder, who +said softly: + +"Mr. Christopher Liggett, Judge. He has telephoned that he would like to +see you for a moment after dinner, and will be here at about nine +o'clock." + +The dinner went on, for Norma, in a daze. At a quarter to nine she went +upstairs; she was standing in the dark upper hallway at the window when +Chris came, saw him leave his car, and come quickly across the sidewalk +under the bare, moving boughs of the old maples. She was trembling with +the longing just to speak to him again, just to hear his voice. + +She went to her room, rang for Regina, meditating a message of +good-night that should include a headache as excuse. But before the maid +came she went quickly downstairs, and into his presence, as +instinctively as a drowning man might cling to anything that meant +air--just the essential air. They could not exchange a word alone, but +that was not important. The one necessity was to be together. + +Before ten o'clock Norma went back to her room. She undressed, and put +on a loose warm robe, and seated herself before the old-fashioned +fireplace. When Regina came, she asked the girl to put out all the +lights. + +Voices floated up from the front hall: the great entrance door closed, +the motors wheeled away. The guests were gone--Chris was gone. Norma +heard old Mrs. Melrose come upstairs, heard her door shut, then there +was silence. + +Silence. Eleven struck from Madison Tower; midnight struck. Even the +streets were quieter now. The squares of moonlight shifted on Norma's +floor, went away. The fire died down, the big room was warm, and dim, +and very still. + +Hugged in her warm wrap, curled into her big chair, the girl sat like +some tranced creature, thinking--thinking--thinking. + +At first her thoughts were of terror and shame. In what fool's paradise +had she been drifting, she asked herself contemptuously, that she and +Chris, reasonable, right-thinking man and woman, could be reduced to +this fearful and wretched position, could even consider--even name--what +their sane senses must shrink from in utter horror! Norma was but +twenty-two, but she knew that there was only one end to that road. + +So that way was closed, even to the brimming tide that rose up in her +when she thought of it, and flooded her whole being with the ecstatic +realization of her love for Chris, and of what surrender to him would +mean. + +That way was closed. She must tell herself over and over. For her own +sake, for the sake of Aunt Kate and Aunt Marianna, for Rose even, she +must not think of that. Above all, for his sake--for Chris, the fine, +good, self-sacrificing Chris of her first friendship, she must be +strong. + +And Norma, at this point in her circling and confused thoughts, would +drop her face in the crook of her bent arm, and the tears would brim +over again and again. She was not strong. She could not be strong. And +she was afraid. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Regina, coming through the hallway at seven o'clock, was amazed to +encounter Miss Sheridan, evidently fresh from a bath, a black hat tipped +over her smiling eyes, and her big fur coat belted about her. Norma's +vigil had lasted until after two o'clock, but then she had had four +hours of restful sleep, for she knew that she had found the way. + +She left a message with Regina for Mrs. Melrose; she was going to Mrs. +Sheridan's, and would telephone in a day or two. Smiling, she slipped +out into the quiet street, where the autumn sunlight was just beginning +to strike across the damp pavements, and smilingly she disappeared into +the great currents of men and women who were already pouring to and fro +along the main thoroughfares. + +But she did not go quite as far as her aunt's, after all. For perhaps +fifteen minutes she waited on the corner of the block, walking slowly to +and fro, watching the house closely. + +Then Wolf Sheridan came out, and set off at his usual brisk walk toward +the subway. Norma stepped before him, trembling and smiling. + +"Nono--for the Lord's sake! Where did you come from?" + +He took her suit-case from her as she caught his arm, drew him aside, +and looked up at him with her old childish air of coaxing. + +"Wolf----! I've been waiting for you. Wolf, I'm in trouble!" She laughed +at his concern. "Not real trouble!" she reassured him, quickly. +"But--but----" + +And suddenly tears came, and she found she could not go on. + +"Is it a man?" Wolf asked, looking down at her with everything that was +brotherly and kind in his young face. + +"Yes," Norma answered, not raising her eyes from the overcoat button +that she was pushing in and out of its hold. "Wolf," she added, quickly, +"I'm afraid of him, and afraid of myself! You--you told me months +ago----" She looked up, suffocating. + +"I know what I told you!" Wolf said, clearing his throat. + +"And--do you still feel--that way?" + +"You know I do, Norma," Wolf said, more concerned for her emotion than +his own. "Do you--do you want me to send this--this fellow about his +business?" + +"Oh, no!" she said, laughing nervously. "I don't want any one to know +it; nobody must dream it! I can't marry him, I shall never marry him. +But--he won't let me alone. Wolf----" She seemed to herself to be +getting no nearer her point, and now she seized her courage in both +hands, and looked up at him bravely. "Will you--take care of me?" she +faltered. "I mean--I mean as your wife?" + +"Do you mean----" Wolf began. Then his expression changed, and his +colour rose. "Norma--you don't mean that!" + +"Yes, but I do!" she said, exquisite and flushed and laughing, in the +sweet early sunlight. + +"You mean that you will marry me?" Wolf asked, dazedly. + +"To-day!" she answered, fired by his look of awe and amazement and +rapture all combined. "I want to be safe," she added, quickly. "I trust +you more than any other man I know--I've loved you like a little sister +all my life." + +"Ah--Norma, you darling--you darling!" he said. "But are you sure?" + +"Oh, quite sure!" Norma turned him toward Broadway, her little arm +linked wife-fashion in his. "Don't we go along together nicely?" she +asked, gaily. + +"Norma--my God! If you knew how I love you--how I've longed for you! But +I can't believe it; I never will believe it! What made you do it?" + +Her face sobered for a second. + +"Just needing you, I suppose! Wolf"--her colour rose--"I want you to +know who it is; it's Chris." + +"Who--the man who annoys you?" Wolf asked in healthy distaste. + +"The man I'm afraid of," she answered, honestly. + +"But--Lord!" Wolf exclaimed, simply, "he has a wife!" + +"I know it!" the girl said, quickly. "But I wanted you to know. I want +you to know why I'm running away from them all." Relief rang in her +voice as his delighted eyes showed no cloud. "That's all!" she said. + +"Norma, I can't--my God!--I can't tell whether I'm awake or dreaming!" +Wolf was all joy again. "We'll--wait a minute!--we'll get a taxi; I'll +telephone the factory later----" He paused suddenly. "Mother's in East +Orange with Rose. Shall we go there first?" + +"No; you're to do as I say from now on, Wolf!" + +"Ah, you darling!" + +"And I say let's be married first, and then go and see Rose." + +"Norma----" He stopped in the street, and put his two hands on her +shoulders. "I'll be a good husband to you. You'll never be sorry you +trusted me. Dearest, it's--well, it's the most wonderful thing that ever +happened in my whole life! Here's our taxi--wait a minute; what day is +this?" + +"Whatever else it is," she said, half-laughing and half-crying, "I know +it is my wedding day!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +To Rose and her mother, Wolf's and Norma's marriage remained one of the +beautiful surprises of life; one of the things that, as sane mortals, +they had dared neither to dream nor hope. Life had been full enough for +mother and daughter, and sweet enough, that March morning, even without +the miracle. The baby had been bathed, in a flood of dancing sunshine, +and had had his breakfast out under the budding bare network of the +grape arbour. The little house had been put into spotless order while he +slept, and Rose had pinned on her winter hat, and gone gaily to market, +with exactly one dollar and seventy-five cents in her purse. And she had +come back to find her mother standing beside the shabby baby-coach, in +the tiny backyard, looking down thoughtfully at the sleeping child, and +evidently under the impression that she was peeling the apples, in the +yellow bowl that rested on her broad hip. Rose had also studied her son +for a few awed seconds, and then, reminding her mother that it was past +twelve o'clock, had led the way toward tea-making, and the general +heating and toasting and mincing of odds and ends for luncheon. And they +had been in the kitchen, talking over the last scraps of this meal, +when---- + +When there had been laughter and voices at the open front doorway, and +when Mrs. Sheridan's startled "Wolf!" had been followed by Rose's +surprised "Norma!" Then they had come in, Wolf and Norma, laughing and +excited and bubbling with their great news. And in joy and tears, +confused interruptions and exclamations, explanations that got nowhere, +and a plentiful distribution of kisses, somehow it got itself told. They +had been married an hour ago--Norma was Wolf's wife! + +The girl was radiant. Never in her life had these three who loved her +seen her so beautiful, so enchantingly confident and gay. Rose and her +mother had some little trouble, later on, in patching the sequence of +events together for the delighted but bewildered Harry, Rose's husband. +But there could be no doubt, even to the shrewd eyes of her Aunt Kate, +that Norma was ecstatically happy. Her mad kisses for Rose, the laughter +with which she described the expedition to bank and jeweller, the +license bureau and the church in Jersey City--for in order to have the +ceremony performed immediately it had been necessary to be married in +New Jersey--her delicious boldness toward the awed and rapturous and +almost stupefied Wolf, were all proof that she entertained not even the +usual girlish misgivings of the wedding day. + +"You see, I've not been all tired out with trousseau and engagement +affairs and photographers and milliners and all that," she explained, +gaily. "I've only got what's in my bag there, but I've wired Aunt +Marianna, and told her to tell them all. And we'll be back on +Monday--wait until I ask my husband; Wolftone, dear, shall we be back on +Monday?" + +She had the baby in her lap; they were all in the dining-room. Rose had +been assured that the bride and groom were not hungry; they had had +sandwiches somewhere--some time--oh, down near the City Hall in Jersey +City. But Rose had made more tea, and more toast, and she had opened her +own best plum jam, and they were all eating with the heartiness of +children. Presently Norma went to get in Aunt Kate's lap, and asked her +if she was glad, and made herself so generally engaging and endearing, +with her slender little body clasped in the big motherly arms and her +soft face resting against the older, weather-beaten face, that Wolf did +not dare to look at her. + +They were going to Atlantic City; neither had ever been there, and if +this warm weather lasted it would be lovely, even in early spring. It +was almost four o'clock when the younger women went upstairs for the +freshening touches that Norma declared she needed, and then Wolf and his +mother were left alone. + +He knelt down beside the big rocker in which she was ensconced with the +baby, and she put one arm about him, and kissed the big thick crest of +his brown hair. + +"You're glad, aren't you, Mother?" + +"Glad! I've prayed for it ever since she came to me, years ago," Mrs. +Sheridan answered. But after a moment she added, gravely: "She's pure +gold, our Norma. They've sickened her, just as I knew they would! But, +Wolf, she may swing back for a little while. She's like that; she always +has been. She was no more than a baby when she'd be as naughty as she +could be, and then so good that I was afraid I was going to lose her. Go +gently with her, Wolf; be patient with her, dear. She's going to make a +magnificent woman, some day." + +"She's a magnificent woman, now," the man said, simply. "She's too good +for me, I know that. She's--you can't think how cunning she is--how +wonderful she's been, all day!" + +"Go slowly," his mother said again. "She's only a baby, Wolf; she's +excited and romantic and generous because she's such a baby! Don't make +her sorry that she's given herself to you so--so trusting----" + +She hesitated. + +"I'll take care of her!" Wolf asserted, a little gruffly. + +There was time for no more; they heard her step on the stairs, and she +came dancing back with Rose. Her cheeks were burning with excitement; +she gave her aunt and cousin quick good-bye kisses, and caught the +baby's soft little cheek to her own velvety one. She and Wolf would be +back on Sunday night, they promised; as they ran down the path the sun +slipped behind a leaden cloud, and all the world darkened suddenly. A +brisk whirl of springtime wind shook the rose bushes in Rose's little +garden, and there was a cool rushing in the air that promised rain. + +But Norma was still carried along on the high tide of supreme emotion, +and to Wolf the day was radiant with unearthly sunshine, and perfumed +with all the flowers of spring. The girl had flung herself so +wholeheartedly into her rôle that it was not enough to bewilder and +please Wolf, she must make him utterly happy. Dear old Wolf--always +ready to protect her, always good and big and affectionate, and ready to +laugh at her silliest jokes, and ready to meet any of her problems +sympathetically and generously. Her beauty, her irresistible charm as +she hung on his arm and chattered of what they would do when they +started housekeeping, almost dizzied him. + +She liked everything: their wheeling deep upholstered seats in the +train; the seaside hotel, with the sea rolling so near in the soft +twilight; the dinner for which they found themselves so hungry. +Afterward they climbed laughing into a big chair, and were pushed along +between the moving lines of other chairs, far up the long boardwalk. And +Norma, with her soft loose glove in Wolf's big hand, leaned back against +the curved wicker seat, and looked at the little lighted shops, and +listened to the scrape of feet and chatter of tongues and the solemn +roll and crash of the waves, and stared up childishly at the arch of +stars that looked so far and calm above this petty noise and glare. She +was very tired, every muscle in her body ached, but she was content. +Wolf was taking care of her and there would be no more lonely vigils and +agonies of indecision and pain. She thought of Christopher with a sort +of childish quiet triumph; she had solved the whole matter for them +both, superbly. + +Wolf was a silent man with persons he did not know. But he never was +silent with Norma; he always had a thousand things to discuss with her. +The lights and the stir on the boardwalk inspired him to all sorts of +good-natured criticism and speculation, and they estimated just the +expense and waste that went on there day by day. + +"Really to have the ocean, Wolf, it would be so much nicer to be even in +the wildest place--just rocks and coves. This is like having a lion in +your front parlour!" + +"Lord, Norma--when I got up this morning, if somebody had told me that I +would be married, and down at Atlantic City to-night----!" + +"I know; it's like a dream!" + +"But you're not sorry, Norma; you're sure that I'm going to make you +happy?" the man asked, in sudden anxiety. + +"You always _have_, Wolf!" she answered, very simply. + +He never really doubted it; it was a part of Wolf's healthy normal +nature to believe what was good and loving. He was not exacting, not +envious; he had no real understanding of her giddy old desires for +wealth and social power. Wolf at twenty-five was working so hard and so +interestedly, sleeping so deeply, eating his meals with such appetite, +and enjoying his rare idle time so heartily, that he had neither time +nor inclination for vagaries. He had always been older than his years, +schooled to feel that just good meals and a sure roof above him marked +him as one of the fortunate ones of the earth, and of late his work in +the big factory had been responsible enough, absorbing enough, and more +than gratifying enough to satisfy him with his prospects. He was liked +for himself, and he knew it, and he was already known for that strange +one-sightedness, that odd little twist of mechanical vision, that sure +knowledge of himself and his medium, that is genius. The joy of finding +himself, and that the world needed him, had been strong upon Wolf during +the last few months, and that Norma had come back to him seemed only a +reason for fresh dedication to his work, an augury that life was going +to be kind to him. + +She was gone when he wakened the next morning, but he knew that the sea +had an irresistible fascination for her, and followed her quite as +surely as if she had left footprints on the clear and empty sands. He +found her with her back propped against a low wooden bulkhead, her +slender ankles crossed before her, her blue eyes fixed far out at sea. + +She turned, and looked up at him from under the brim of her hat, and the +man's heart turned almost sick with the depth of sudden adoration that +shook him; so young, so friendly and simple and trusting was the ready +smile, so infinitely endearing the touch of the warm fingers she slipped +into his! He sat down beside her, and they dug their heels into the +sand, and talked in low tones. The sun shone down on them kindly, and +the waves curved and broke, and came rushing and slithering to their +feet, and slid churning and foaming noisily under the pier near by. +Norma buried her husband's big hand in sand, and sifted sand through her +slender fingers; sometimes she looked with her far-away look far out +across the gently rocking ocean, and sometimes she brought her blue eyes +gravely to his. And the new seriousness in them, the grave and noble +sweetness that he read there, made Wolf suddenly feel himself no longer +a boy, no longer free, but bound for ever to this exquisite and +bewildering child who was a woman, or woman who was a child, sacredly +bound to give her the best that there was in him of love and service and +protection. + +She showed him a new Norma, here on the sunshiny sands, one that he was +to know better as the days went by. She had always deferred to his +wisdom and his understanding, but she seemed to him mysteriously wise +this morning--no longer the old little sister Norma, but a new, sage, +keen-eyed woman, toward whom his whole being was flooded with humility +and awe and utter, speechless adoration. + +At nine o'clock, when nurses and children began to come down to the +shore, they got to their feet, and wandered in to breakfast. And here, +to his delight, she was suddenly the old mad-cap Norma again, healthily +eager for ham and eggs and hot coffee, interested in everything, and +bewitchingly pretty in whatever position she took. + +"I wish we had the old 'bus, Nono," Wolf said. He usually spoke of his +motor-car by this name. "They've been overhauling her in that Newark +place. She was to be ready--by George, she was ready yesterday!" + +"We'll go over--I'll come over and meet you next Saturday," his young +wife promised, busy with rolls and marmalade, "and you'll take me to +lunch, and then we'll get the car, and go and take Rose and the baby for +a ride!" + +"Norma," the man exclaimed, suddenly struck with a sense of utter +felicity, and leaning across the table to stop, for the minute, her +moving fingers with the pressure of his own, "you haven't any idea how +much I love you--I didn't know myself what it was going to mean! To have +you come over to the factory, and to have somebody say that Mrs. +Sheridan is there, and to go to lunch--Dearest, do you realize how +wonderful and how--well, how _wonderful_ it's going to be? Norma, I +can't believe it. I can't believe that this is what love means to +everybody. I can't believe that every man who marries his--his----" + +"Girl," she supplied, laughing. + +"Girl--but I didn't mean girl. I meant his ideal--the loveliest person +he ever knew," Wolf said, with a new quickness of tongue that she knew +was born of happiness. "I can't believe that just going to Childs' +restaurants, or taking the car out on Sunday, or any other fool thing +we do, means to any man what it's going to mean to me! I just--well, I +told you that. I just can't believe it!" + +Two days later they came home for Sunday supper, and there was much +simple joy and laughter in the little city apartment. Aunt Kate of +course had fried chicken and coffee ice-cream for her four big children. +Harry Junior, awakening, was brought dewy and blinking to the table, +where his Aunt Norma kissed the tears from his warm, round little +cheeks, and gave him crumbs of sponge cake. Rose and Harry left at ten +o'clock for their country home, leaving the precious baby for his +grandmother and aunt to bring back the next day, but the other three sat +talking and planning until almost midnight, and Kate could feast her +eyes to her heart's content upon the picture of Wolf in his father's old +leather chair, with Norma perched on the wide arm, one of her own arms +about her husband's neck and their fingers locked together. + +It was settled that they were to find a little house in East Orange, +near Rose, and furnish it from top to bottom, and go to housekeeping +immediately. Meanwhile, Norma must see the Melroses, and get her wedding +announcements engraved, and order some new calling cards, and do a +thousand things. She and Wolf must spend their evenings writing +notes--and presents would be arriving----! + +She made infinitesimal lists, and put them into her shopping bag, or +stuck them in her mirror, but Wolf laughed at them all. And instead of +disposing of them, they developed a demoralizing habit of wandering out +into Broadway, in their old fashion, after dinner, looking into shop +windows, drifting into little theatres, talking to beggars and taxi-cab +men and policemen and strangers generally, mingling with the bubbling +young life of the city that overflowed the sidewalks, and surged in and +out of candy and drug stores, and sat talking on park benches deep into +the soft young summer nights. + +Sometimes they went down to the shrill and crowded streets of the lower +east side, and philosophized youthfully over what they saw there; and, +as the nights grew heavier and warmer, they often took the car, and +skimmed out into the heavenly green open spaces of the park, or, on +Saturday afternoon, packed their supper, and carried it fifty miles away +to the woods or the shore. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Before she had been married ten days Norma dutifully went to call upon +old Mrs. Melrose, being fortunate enough to find Leslie there. The old +lady came toward Norma with her soft old wavering footsteps, and gave +the girl a warm kiss even with her initial rebuke: + +"Well, I don't know whether I am speaking to this bad runaway or not!" +she quavered, releasing Norma from her bejewelled and lace-draped +embrace, and shaking her fluffed and scanty gray hair. + +"Oh, yes, you are, Aunt Marianna," the girl said, confidently, with her +happy laugh. Leslie, coming more slowly forward, laughed and kissed her, +too. + +"But why didn't you tell us, Norma, and have a regular wedding, like +mine?" she protested. "I didn't know that you and your cousin were even +engaged!" + +"We've worked it out that we were engaged for exactly three hours and +ten minutes," Norma said, as they all settled down in the magnificent, +ugly, comfortable old sitting-room for tea. She could see that both +Leslie and her grandmother were far from displeased. As a matter of +fact, the old lady was secretly delighted. The girl was most suitably +and happily and satisfactorily married; justice had been done her, and +she had solved her own problem splendidly. + +"But you knew he liked you," Leslie ventured, diverted and curious. + +"Oh, well----" Norma's lips puckered mischievously and she looked down. + +"Oh, you _were_ engaged!" Leslie said, incredulously. "He's handsome, +isn't he, Norma?" + +"Yes," the wife admitted, as if casually. "He really is--at least I +think so. And I think everyone else thinks so. At least, when I compare +him to the other men--for instance----" + +"Oh, Norma, I'll bet you're crazy about him," Leslie said, derisively. + +Norma looked appealingly at the old lady, her eyes dancing with fun. + +"Well, of _course_ she loves her husband," Mrs. Melrose protested, with +a little cushiony pat of her hand for the visitor. + +"I don't see that it's 'of course'," Leslie argued, airily, with a +little bitterness in her tone. Her grandmother looked at her in quick +reproof and anxiety. "The latest," she said, drily, to Norma, "is that +my delightful husband is living at his club." + +"Now, Leslie, that is very naughty," the old lady said, warmly. "You +shouldn't talk so of Acton." + +"Well," Leslie countered, with elaborate innocence, turning to Norma, +"all I can say is that he walked out one night, and didn't come back +until the next! Of course," she added, with a suppressed yawn that +poorly concealed her sudden inclination to tears, "of course _I_ don't +care. Patsy and I are going up to Glen Cove next week--and he can live +at his club, for all me!" + +"Money?" Norma asked. For Leslie's extravagance was usually the cause of +the young Liggetts' domestic strife. + +Leslie, who had lighted a cigarette, made an affirmative grimace. + +"Now, it's all been settled, and Grandma has straightened it all out," +old Mrs. Melrose said, soothingly. "Acton was making out their income +tax," she explained, "and some money was mentioned--how was that, +dear?--Leslie had sold something--and he hadn't known of it, that was +all! Of course he was a little cross, poor boy; he had worked it all out +one way, and he had no idea that this extra--sixteen thousand, was +it?--had come in at all, and been spent----" + +"Most of it for bills!" Leslie interpolated, bitterly. Norma laughed. + +"Sixteen thou----! Oh, heavens, my husband's salary is sixty dollars a +week!" she confessed, gaily. + +"But you have your own money," the old lady reminded her, kindly, "and a +very nice thing for a wife, too! I've talked to Judge Lee about it, +dear, and it's all arranged. You must let me do this, Norma----" + +"I think you're awfully good to me, Aunt Marianna," Norma said, +thoughtfully. "I told Wolf about it, and he thinks so, too. But +honestly----" + +Even with her secret knowledge of her own parentage, Norma was surprised +at the fluttered anxiety of the old lady, and Leslie was frankly +puzzled. + +"No, Norma--no, Norma," Mrs. Melrose said, nervously and imploringly. "I +don't want you to discuss that at all--it's _settled_. The check is to +be deposited every month, or quarter, or whatever it was----" + +"Don't be a fool, Norma, you'll need it, one way or another," Leslie +assured her. But in her own heart Leslie wondered at her grandmother's +generosity. + +"Everybody needs more money. I'll bet you the King of England----" + +"Oh, kings!" Norma laughed. "They're the worst of all. I don't know +about this one, but they're always appealing for special funds--all of +them. And that's one thing that makes Wolf so mad--the fact that all +they have to do, for ridiculous extravagances, is clap on a tax." + +But Leslie and her grandmother were not interested in the young +engineer's economic theories. The old lady followed Norma's spirited +summary merely with an uneasy: "You mustn't let your husband get any +socialistic ideas, Norma; there's too much of that now!" and Leslie, +after a close study of Norma's glowing face, remarked suddenly: + +"Norma, I'll bet you a _dollar_ you're rouged!" + +Before she left, the visitor managed a casual inquiry about Aunt Alice. + +Aunt Alice was fine, Leslie answered carelessly, adding immediately that +no, Aunt Alice really wasn't extremely well. Doctor Garrett didn't want +her to go away this summer, thought that move was an unnecessary waste +of energy, since Aunt Alice's house was so cool, and she felt the heat +so little. And Chris said that Alice had always really wanted to stay in +town, in her own comfortable suite. She liked her second nurse +immensely, and Miss Slater was really running the house now, the third +nurse coming only at night. + +"But Aunt Alice never had a nurse at night," Norma was going to say. But +she caught the stricken and apprehensive look on the old lady's face, +and substituted generously: "Well, I remember Aunt Alice told me she had +one of these wretched times several years ago." + +"Yes, indeed she did--frightened us almost to death," Mrs. Melrose +agreed, thankfully. + +"And how is--how is Chris?" Norma felt proud of the natural tone in +which she could ask the question. + +"Chris is fine," Leslie answered. She rarely varied the phrase in this +relation. "He's hunting in Canada. He had a wire from some man there, +and he went off about a week ago. They're going after moose, I believe; +Chris didn't expect to get back for a month. Aunt Alice was delighted, +because she hates to keep him in town all summer, but Acton told me that +he thought Chris was sick--that he and Judge Lee just made him go." + +Well, her heart would flutter, she could not stop it or ignore it. Norma +found no answer ready, and though she lifted her cup to her lips, to +hide her confusion, she could not taste it. The strangeness of Chris's +sudden departure was no mystery to her; he had been shocked and stunned +by her marriage, and he had run away from the eyes that might have +pierced his discomfiture. + +Still, her hands were trembling, and she felt oddly shaken and confused. +Leslie carried the conversation away to safer fields, and shortly +afterward Norma could say her good-byes. Everybody, Leslie said, walking +with her to the corner, wanted to know what the bride wanted for a +wedding-present. Norma told Wolf, over their candle-lighted supper +table, an hour or two later, that he and she would be bankrupted for +life returning them. + +Yet she loved the excitement of receiving the gifts; naturally enough, +loved Rose's ecstasies over the rugs and silver and mahogany that made +the little New Jersey house a jewel among its kind. It was what Norma +had unhesitatingly pronounced an "adorable" house, a copy of the true +colonial green-and-white, quaint and prim enough to please even Leslie, +when Leslie duly came to call. It stood at the end of a tree-shaded +street, with the rising woods behind it, and Norma recklessly invested +in brick walks and a latticed green fence, hydrangeas in wooden tubs and +sunflowers and hollyhocks, until her stretch of side garden looked like +a picture by Kate Greenaway. + +When it was all done, midsummer was upon them, but she and Wolf thought +that there had never been anything so complete and so charming in all +the world. The striped awnings that threw clean shadows upon the clipped +grass; the tea table under the blue-green leaves of an old apple tree; +the glass doors that opened upon orderly, white-wainscoted rooms full of +shining dark surfaces and flowered chintzes and gleaming glass bowls of +real flowers; the smallness and completeness and prettiness of +everything filled them both with utter satisfaction. + +Norma played at housekeeping like a little girl in a doll's house. She +had a rosy little Finnish maid who enjoyed it all almost as much as she +did, and their adventures in hospitality were a constant amusement and +delight. On Saturdays, when Rose and Harry and Aunt Kate usually +arrived, Wolf could hardly believe that all this ideal beauty and +pleasure was his to share. + +The girls would pose and photograph the baby tirelessly, laughing as he +toppled and protested, and kissing the fat legs that showed between his +pink romper and his pink socks. They would pack picnic lunches, rushing +to and fro breathlessly with thermos bottles and extra wraps for Miggs, +as Harry Junior was usually called. Once or twice they cleaned the car, +with tremendous splashing and spattering, assuming Wolf's old overalls +for the operation, and retreating with shrieks into the kitchen whenever +the sound of an approaching motor-car penetrated into their quiet road. +Mrs. Sheridan characterized them variously as "Wild Indians", "Ay-rabs", +and "poor innocents" but her heart was so filled with joy and gratitude +for the turn of events that had brought all these miracles about, that +no nonsense and no noise seemed to her really extravagant. + +It was an exceptionally pleasant community into which the young +Sheridans had chanced to move, and they might have had much more +neighbourly life than they chose to take. There were about them +beginners of all sorts: writers and artists and newspaper men, whose +little cars, and little maids, and great ambitions would have formed a +strong bond of sympathy in time. But Wolf and Norma saw them only +occasionally, when a Sunday supper at the country club or a +Saturday-night dance supplied them with a pleasant stimulating sense of +being liked and welcomed, or when general greetings on the eight-o'clock +train in the morning were mingled with comments on the thunderstorm or +the epidemic of nursery chicken-pox. + +When Rose and Harry were gone, on Sunday evenings, Wolf and Norma might +sit on the side steps of the side porch, looking off across the gradual +drop descent of tree-tops and shingled roofs, into a distant world +silvering under the summer moon. These were their happiest times, when +solitude and quiet spread about them, after the hospitable excitements +of the day, and they could talk and dream and plan for the years ahead. + +She was an older Norma now, even though marriage had not touched her +with any real responsibility, and even though she was more full of +delicious childish absurdities than ever. The first months of their +marriage had curiously reversed their relationship, and it was Norma now +who gave, and Wolf who humbly and gratefully accepted. It was Norma who +poured comfort and beauty and companionship into his life, who smiled at +him over his morning fruit, and who waited for him under the old maple +at the turn of the road, every night. And as her wonderful and touching +generosity enveloped him, and her strange wisdom and new sweetness +impressed him more and more, Wolf marvelled and adored her more utterly. +He had always loved her as a big brother, had even experienced a +definite heartache when she grew up and went away, a lovely and +unattainable girl in the place where their old giddy dear little Norma +had been. + +But now his passion for his young wife was becoming a devouring fire in +Wolf's heart; she absorbed him and possessed him like a madness. A dozen +times a day he would take from his pocket-book the thin leather case she +had given him, holding on one side a photograph of the three heads of +Rose, his mother, and the baby, and on the other an enchanting shadow of +the loosened soft hair and the serious profile that was Norma. + +And as he stood looking at it, with the machinery roaring about him, and +the sunlight beating in through steel-barred windows sixty feet high, in +all the confusion of shavings and oil-soaked wood, polished sliding +shafts streaked with thick blue grease, stifling odours of creosote and +oily "wipes", Wolf's eyes would fill with tears and he would shake his +head at his own emotion, and try to laugh it away. + +After awhile he took another little picture of her, this one taken under +a taut parasol in bright sunlight, and fitted it over the opposite +faces; and then when he had studied one picture he could turn to the +other, and perhaps go back to the first before his eyes were satisfied. + +And if during the day some thought brought her suddenly to mind, he +would stop short in whatever he was doing, and remember her little timid +upglancing look as she hazarded, at breakfast, some question about his +work, or remember her enthusiasm, on a country tramp, for the chance +meal at some wayside restaurant, and sheer love of her would overwhelm +him, and he would find his eyes brimming again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +So the summer fled, and before she fairly realized it Norma saw the +leaves colouring behind the little house like a wall of fire, and +rustled them with her feet when she tramped with Wolf's big collie into +the woods. The air grew clearer and thinner, sunset came too soon, and a +delicate beading of dew loitered on the shady side of the house until +almost noon. + +One October day, when she had been six months a wife, Norma made her +first call upon Annie von Behrens. Alice she had seen several times, +when she had stopped in, late in the summer mornings, to entertain the +invalid with her first adventures in housekeeping, and chat with Miss +Slater. But Chris she had quite deliberately avoided. He had written her +from Canada a brief and charming note, which she had shown Wolf, and he +and Alice had had their share in the general family gift of silver, the +crates and bags and boxes of spoons and bowls and teapots that had +anticipated every possible table need of the Sheridans for generations +to come. But that was all; she had not seen Chris, and did not want to +see him. + +"The whole thing is rather like a sickness, in my mind," she told Wolf, +"and I don't want to see him any more than you would a doctor or a nurse +that was associated with illness. I don't know what we--what I was +thinking about!" + +"But you think he really--loved you--Nono?" + +"Well--or he thought he did!" + +"And did you like him terribly?" + +"I think I thought I did, too. It was--of course it was something we +couldn't very well discuss----." + +"Well, I'm sorry for him." Wolf had dismissed him easily. On her part, +Norma was conscious of no particular emotion when she thought of Chris. +The suddenness and violence with which she had broken that association +and made its resumption for ever impossible, had carried her safely into +a totally different life. Her marriage, her new husband and new home, +her new title indeed, made her seem another woman, and if she thought of +Chris at all it was to imagine what he would think of these changes, and +to fancy what he would say of them, when they met. No purely visionary +meeting can hold the element of passion, and so it was a remote and +spiritualized Chris of whom Norma came to think, far removed from the +actual man of flesh and blood. + +Her call upon Annie she made with a mental reserve of cheerful +explanation and apology ready for Annie's first reproach. Norma never +could quite forget the extraordinary relationship in which she stood to +Annie; and, perhaps half consciously, was influenced by the belief that +some day the brilliant and wonderful Mrs. von Behrens would come to know +of it, too. + +But Annie, who happened to be at home, and had other callers, rapidly +dashed Norma's vague and romantic anticipations by showing her only the +brisk and aloof cordiality with which she held at bay nine tenths of her +acquaintance. Annie's old butler showed Norma impassively to the little +drawing-room that was tucked in beyond the big one; two or three +strangers eyed the newcomer cautiously, and Annie merely accorded her a +perfunctory welcome. They were having tea. + +"Well, how do you do? How very nice of you, Norma. Do you know Mrs. +Theodore Thayer, and Mrs. Thayer, and Miss Bishop? Katrina, this is--the +name is still Sheridan, isn't it, Norma?--this is Mrs. Sheridan, who was +with Mama and Leslie last summer. You have lots of sugar and cream, +Norma, of course--all youngsters do. And you're near the toast----" And +Annie, dismissing her, leaned back in her chair, and dropped her voice +to the undertone that Norma had evidently interrupted. "Do go on, +Leila," she said, to the older of the three women, "that's quite +delicious! I heard something of it, but I knew of course that there was +more----" + +A highly flavoured little scandal was in process of construction. Norma +knew the principals slightly; the divorced woman, and the second husband +from whom she had borrowed money to loan the first. She could join in +the laughter that broke out presently, while she tried to identify her +companions. The younger Mrs. Thayer had been the Miss Katrina Davenport +of last month's brilliant wedding. Pictures of her had filled the +illustrated weeklies, and all the world knew that she and her husband +were preparing to leave for a wonderful home in Hawaii, where the family +sugar interests were based. They were to cross the continent, Norma +knew, in the Davenport private car, to be elaborately entertained in San +Francisco, and to be prominent, naturally, in the island set. Little +Miss Bishop had just announced her engagement to Lord Donnyfare, a +splendid, big, clumsy, and impecunious young Briton who had made himself +very popular with the younger group this winter. They were to be +married in January and her ladyship would shortly afterward be +transferred to London society, presented at court, and placed as +mistress over the old family acres in Devonshire. + +They were both nice girls, pretty, beautifully groomed and dressed, and +far from unintelligent as they discussed their plans; how their +favourite horses and dogs would be moved, and what instructions had been +given the maids who had preceded them to their respective homes. Katrina +Thayer was just twenty, Mary Bishop a year younger; Norma knew that the +former was perhaps the richest girl in America, and the latter was also +an heiress, the society papers having already hinted that among the +wedding gifts shortly to be displayed would be an uncle's casual check +for one million dollars. + +"And of course it'll be charming for Chris, Mary," Annie presently said, +"if he's really sent to Saint James's." + +Norma felt her throat thicken. + +"Chris--to England--as Ambassador?" she said. + +"Well, there's just a possibility--no, there's more than that!" Annie +told her. "I believe he'll take it, if it is offered. Of course, he's +supremely well fitted for it. There's even"--Annie threw out to the +company at large, with that air of being specially informed in which she +delighted--"there's even very good reason to suppose that influence has +been brought to bear by----But I don't dare go into that. However, we +feel that it will be offered. And the one serious drawback is naturally +my sister. Alice--poor child! And yet, of us all, Alice is most +desperately eager for Chris to take it." + +"I should think," Norma said, "that Aunt Alice could almost be +moved----?" + +"Oh, she would be!" Annie agreed, with her quick, superior definiteness. +"That's the very question. Whether the north Atlantic passage, say in +May, when it oughtn't to be so hard, would be too much for her. Of +course it would tire her and shake her cruelly, no doubt of that. But +Hendrick even talks of some sort of balanced bed--on the hammock +idea--and Miss Slater would see that everything that was humanly +possible was done. I believe it could be managed. Then she would be met +by one of those big, comfortable English ambulances, at Southampton, and +taken right to her apartment, or hotel, or whatever Chris arranges." + +"Not so much harder," Norma ventured, "than the trip to Newport, after +all." + +"Well, she didn't go to Newport last summer," Annie said, "but she is +certainly better now than she was then, and I believe it could be done; +I really do. We're not talking a great deal about it, because nothing is +settled, but if it becomes definite, I shall certainly advise it." + +Norma drank her tea, and listened, and threw in an occasional word. When +the other women rose to go, she rose, too, perhaps half-hoping that +Annie would hold her for a more intimate word. But Annie quite suavely +and indifferently included her in her general farewells, and Norma had +cordial good-byes from the two young women, and even a vague invitation +from the older Mrs. Thayer to come and see her, when Katrina was gone. + +Then she was walking down the Avenue, with her head and heart in a +confused whirl of bitterness and disappointment. The three quarters of +an hour in Aunt Annie's big, dim, luxurious palace had been like a dose +of some insidious poison. + +The very atmosphere of richness and service and idleness, the beauty of +wide spaces and rich tones, the massed blossoms and dimmed lights, +struck sharply upon senses attuned to Aunt Kate's quick voice, Rose's +little house with its poverty and utility, and Wolf's frank enjoyment of +his late and simple dinner. The conversation, with its pleasant +assumption of untold wealth of power and travel and regal luxuriousness, +burned its memory across Norma's mind like a corroding acid. They were +not contemptible, they were not robbers or brutes or hideous old +plutocrats who had grown wealthy upon the wrongs of the poor. No, they +were normal pleasant girls whose code it was to be generous to maids and +underlings, to speak well of their neighbours, to pay their bills and +keep their promises. + +"They make me _tired_!" she tried to tell herself, walking briskly, and +filling her lungs with the sweet fresh air. It was twilight, and the +north-bound tide of traffic was halting and rushing, halting and +rushing, up the Avenue; now held motionless at a crossing, now flowing +on in mad haste, the lumbering omnibuses passing each other, little +hansoms threading the mass, and foot passengers scampering and +withdrawing, and risking all sorts of passages between. The distance was +luminous and blue, and lights pricked against it as against a scarf of +gauze. + +Oh, it was sickening--it was sickening--to think that life was so grim +and hard for the thousands, and so unnecessarily, so superlatively +beautiful for the few! What had Mary Bishop and Katrina ever done, that +they should travel in private cars, fling aside furs that had cost as +much as many a man's yearly salary, chatter of the plantation near the +beach at Hawaii, or of reaching Saint James's for the January +Drawing-Room! + +Norma stopped to give twenty-five cents to an old Italian organ grinder, +and worked him into her theme as she went on. Why _should_ he look so +grateful for her casual charity, he, seventy years old, Katrina and Mary +averaging less than twenty! + +She reached Aunt Kate's flat in a thorough temper, angry, headachy, +almost feverish after the rich scones and the rich tea, and the even +less wholesome talk. The apartment house seemed, as indeed it was, grimy +and odorous almost to squalor, and Aunt Kate almost hateful in her +cheerfulness and energy. This was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evenings +she was always happy, for then Wolf and Norma came to dinner with her. +To-night, busily manipulating pans and pots, she told Norma that she had +rented the two extra bedrooms of the apartment to three young trained +nurses, ideal tenants in every way. + +"They'll get their breakfasts here, and--if I'm away--there's no reason +why they shouldn't cook themselves a little dinner now and then," said +Aunt Kate, in her rich, motherly voice. "They were tickled to death to +get the two rooms for twenty dollars, and that makes my own rent only +seventeen more. I asked them if that was too much, and they said, no, +they'd expected to pay at least ten apiece." + +Norma listened, unsympathetic and gloomy. It was all so petty and so +poor--trained nurses, and apple pie, and Aunt Kate renting rooms, and +Wolf eager to be promoted to factory manager. + +She wanted to go back--back to the life in which Annie really noticed +her, gave her luncheons, included her. She wanted to count for something +with Mary and Katrina and Leslie; she wanted to talk to Chris about his +possible ambassadorship; she wanted them all to agree that Norma's wit +and charm more than made up for Norma's lack of fortune. While she +brushed her hair, in the room that would shortly accommodate two of the +three little nurses, she indulged in an unsatisfying dream in which she +went to London with Alice--and that autocratic little Lady Donnyfare. + +Lady Donnyfare! She would be "your ladyship!" Nineteen years old, and +welcomed to the ancestral mansion as her little ladyship! + +Norma set the dinner table for three, with jerks and slams that slightly +relieved her boiling heart. She got the napkins from the sideboard +drawer, and reached for the hand-painted china sugar bowl that was part +of a set that Aunt Kate had won at a fair. She set the blue tile that +she had given Aunt Kate on a long-ago Christmas where the brown Rebecca +teapot would stand, and cut a square slice of butter from the end of the +new pound for the blue glass dish. And all the time her heart was +bursting with grief and discontent, and she was beginning to realize for +the first time the irrevocable quality of the step she had taken, and +just how completely it had shut her off from the life for which she +thirsted. + +Wolf came in, hungry, dirty, radiantly happy, with a quick kiss for his +mother and an embrace for his wife into which her slender figure and +cloudy brown head almost disappeared. Lord, he was starving; and Lord, +he was dead; and Lord, it was good to get home, said Wolf, his +satisfaction with life too great to leave room for any suspicion of his +wife's entire sympathy. + +She told them, over the meal, of Mary and Katrina, in whom their +interest was of a simple and amazed quality that Norma resented, and of +Chris's prospect, which did awaken some comment from Mrs. Sheridan. +They were a clever family, she said. + +But now Wolf, bursting with long suppression, suddenly took the floor +with his own great news. Voorhies, the fifty-year-old manager of the +California plant, had been drifting about the Newark factory for several +days, and Wolf had talked with him respectfully, as a man of +twenty-five, whose income is three thousand a year, may talk to a +six-thousand-dollar manager, and to-day Voorhies, and Jim Palmer, the +Newark manager, and Paul Stromberg, the vice-president, had taken Wolf +to lunch with them, apparently casually, apparently from mere +friendliness. But Voorhies had asked him if he had ever seen the West; +and Stromberg had said that he understood Sheridan's family consisted +merely of a young wife, and Palmer had chanced to drop carelessly the +fact that Mr. Voorhies was not going back to California----! + +That was all. But it was enough to send Wolf back to his work with his +head spinning. California--and a managership of a mine--and six +thousand! It must be--it must be--that he had been mentioned for it, +that they had him in mind! He wasn't going even to think of it--and +Norma mustn't--but Lord, it meant being picked out of the ranks; it +meant being handed a commission on a silver platter! + +Norma tried not to be cold, tried to rise to the little he asked of her, +as audience. And she had the satisfaction of knowing that he noticed +nothing amiss in her manner, and of seeing him go off to sleep, when +they had made the long trip home, with his head in a whirl of glorious +hopes. But Norma, for the first time since her marriage, cried herself +to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +The bitterness stayed with her, and gradually robbed her life of +everything that was happy and content. Her little household round, that +had been so absorbing and so important, became tedious and stupid. Rose, +who was expecting her second confinement, had her husband's mother with +her, and in care of the old baby, and making preparations for the new, +was busy, and had small time for the old companionship; the evenings +were too cold for motoring now, even if Wolf had not been completely +buried in engineering journals and papers of all sorts. + +Norma did not call on Annie again, but a fretted and outraged sense of +Annie's coolness and aloofness, and a somewhat similar impression from +Leslie's manner, when they met in Fifth Avenue one day, was always in +her mind. They could drop her as easily as they had picked her up, these +high-and-mighty Melroses! She consoled herself, for a few days, with +spectacular fancies of Annie's consternation should Norma's real +identity be suddenly revealed to her, but even that poor solace was +taken away from her at last. + +It was Aunt Kate's unconscious hand that struck the blow, on a wild +afternoon, All Hallow E'en, as it happened, when the older woman made +the long trip to see Rose, and came on to Norma with a report that +everything was going well, and Miggs more fascinating than ever. + +Mrs. Sheridan found Norma at the close of the short afternoon, moping in +her unlighted house. She had been to the theatre with Wolf and a young +couple from the house next door, last night, and had fallen asleep after +an afternoon walk, and felt headachy, prickly with heat and cold, and +stupid. Yawning and chilly, she kissed her aunt, and suggested that they +move to the kitchen. It was Inga's free night and Norma was cook. + +"You'll stay and surprise Wolf, he'd love it," Norma said, as the +visitor's approving eyes noted the general order and warmth, the +blue-checked towels and blue bowls, the white table and white walls. The +little harum-scarum baby of the family was proceeding to get her husband +a most satisfactory and delicious little dinner, and Aunt Kate was proud +of her. + +"Did you make that cake, darling?" + +"Indeed I did; she can't make cake!" + +"And the ham?" + +"Well"--Norma eyed the cut ham fondly--"we did that together, out of the +book! And I wish you'd taste it, Aunt Kate, it is perfectly delicious. I +give it to Wolf every other night, but I think he'd eat it three times a +day and be delighted. And last week we made bread--awfully good, +too--not hard like that bread we made last summer. Rolls, we +made--cinnamon rolls and plain. Harry and Rose were here. And +Thanksgiving I'm going to try mincemeat." + +"You're a born cook," Aunt Kate said, paying one of her highest +compliments with due gravity. But Norma did not respond with her usual +buoyancy. She sighed impatiently, and her face fell into lines of +discontent and sadness that did not escape the watching eyes. Mrs. +Sheridan changed the subject to the one of a cousin of Harry Redding, +one Mrs. Barry with whose problems Norma was already dismally familiar. +Mrs. Barry's husband was sick in a hospital, and she herself had to have +an expensive operation, and the smallest of the four children had some +trouble hideously like infantile paralysis. + +Norma knew that Aunt Kate would have liked to have her offer to take at +least one of the small and troublesome children for two or three days, +if not to stay with the unfortunate Kitty Barry outright. She knew that +there was almost no money, that all the household details of washing and +cooking were piling up like a mountain about the ailing woman, but her +heart was filled with sudden rebellion and impatience with the whole +miserable scheme. + +"My goodness, Aunt Kate, if it isn't one thing with those people it's +another!" she said, impatiently. "I suppose you were there, and up with +that baby all night!" + +"Indeed I got some fine sleep," Mrs. Sheridan answered, innocently. +"Poor things, they're very brave!" + +Norma said nothing, but her expression was not sympathetic. She had been +thinking of herself as to be pitied, and this ruthless introduction of +the Barry question entirely upset the argument. If Mary Bishop and +Katrina Thayer were the standard, then Norma Sheridan's life was too +utterly obscure and insignificant to be worth living. But of course if +incompetent strugglers like the Barrys were to be brought into the +question, then Norma might begin to feel the solid ground melting from +beneath her feet. + +She did not offer the cake or the ham to Aunt Kate, as contributions +toward the small Barrys' lunch next day, nor did she invite any one of +them to visit her. Her aunt, if she noted these omissions, made no +comment upon them. + +"I declare you are getting to be a real woman, Norma," she said. + +"I suppose everyone grows up," Norma assented, cheerlessly. + +"Yes, there's a time when a child stops being a baby and you see that +it's beginning to be a little girl," Mrs. Sheridan mused; "but it's some +time later before you know _what sort_ of a little girl it is. And then +at--say fifteen or sixteen--you see the change again, the little girl +growing into a grown girl--a young lady. And for awhile you sort of lose +track of her again, until all of a sudden you say: 'Well, Norma's going +to be sociable--and like people!' or: 'Rose is going to be a gentle, shy +girl----'" + +Norma knew the mildly moralizing tone, and that she was getting a +sermon. + +"You never knew that I was going to be a good housekeeper!" she +asserted, inclined toward contrariety. + +"I think you're going through another change now, Baby," her aunt said. +"You've become a woman too fast. You don't quite know where you are!" + +This was so unexpectedly acute that Norma was inwardly surprised, and a +little impressed. She sat down at one end of the clean little kitchen +table, and rested her face in her hands, and looked resentfully at the +older woman. + +"Then you _don't_ think I'm a good housekeeper," she said, looking hurt. + +"I think you will be whatever you want to be, Norma, it'll all be in +your hands now," Mrs. Sheridan answered, seriously. "You're a woman, +now; you're Wolf's wife; you've reached an age when you can choose and +decide for yourself. You can be--you always could be--the best child the +Lord ever made, or you can fret and brood over what you haven't got." + +The shrewd kindly eye seemed looking into Norma's very soul. The girl +dropped her hard bright stare, and looked sulky. + +"I don't see what _I'm_ doing!" she muttered. "I can't help +wanting--what other people that are no better than I, have!" + +"Yes, but haven't you enough, Norma? Think of women like poor Kitty +Barry----" + +"Oh, Kitty Barry--Kitty Barry!" Norma burst out, angrily. "It isn't my +fault that Kitty Barry has trouble; _I_ had nothing to do with it! Look +at people like Leslie--what she wastes on one new fur coat would keep +the Barrys for a year! Eighty-two hundred dollars she paid for her +birthday coat! And that's _nothing_! Katrina Thayer----" + +"Norma--Norma--Norma!" her aunt interrupted, reproachfully. "What have +you to do with girls like the Thayer girl? Why, there aren't twenty +girls in the country as rich as that. That doesn't affect _you_, if +there's something you can do for the poor and unfortunate----" + +"It _does_ affect me! I can't"--Norma dropped her tone, and glanced at +her aunt. She knew that she was misbehaving--"I can't help inheriting a +love for money," she said, breathing hard. "I know perfectly well who I +am--who my mother is," she ended, with a half-defiant and half-fearful +sob in her voice. + +"How do you mean that you know about your mother, Norma?" Mrs. Sheridan +demanded, sharply. + +"Well"--Norma had calmed a little, and she was a trifle nervous--"Chris +told me; and Aunt Alice knows, too--that Aunt Annie is my mother," she +said. + +"Chris Liggett told you that?" Mrs. Sheridan asked, with a note of +incredulity in her voice. + +"Yes. Aunt Alice guessed it almost as soon as I went to live there! And +I've known it for over a year," Norma said. + +"And who told Chris?" + +"Well--Aunt Marianna, I suppose!" + +There was silence for a moment. + +"Norma," said Mrs. Sheridan, in a quiet, convincing tone that cooled the +girl's hot blood instantly, "Chris is entirely wrong; your mother is +dead. I've never lied to you, and I give you my word! I don't know where +Miss Alice got that idea, but it's like her romantic way of fancying +things! No, dear," she went on, sympathetically, as Norma sat silent, +half-stunned by painful surprise, "you have no claim on Miss Annie. Both +your father and mother are dead, Norma; I knew them both. There was a +reason," Mrs. Sheridan added, thoughtfully, "why I felt that Mrs. +Melrose might want to be kind to you--want to undo an injustice she did +years ago. But I've told myself a thousand times that I did you a cruel +wrong when I first let you go among them--you who were always so +sensible, and so cheerful, and who would always take things as they +came, and make no fuss!" + +"Oh, Aunt Kate," Norma stammered, bitterly, her lip trembling, and her +voice fighting tears, "you don't have to tell me that in your opinion +I've changed for the worse--I see it in the way you look at me! You've +always thought Rose was an angel--too good to live!--and that I was +spoiled and lazy and good-for-nothing; you were glad enough to get rid +of me, and now I hope you're satisfied! They've told me one thing, and +you've told me another--and I guess the truth is that I don't belong to +anybody; and I wish I was dead, where my f-f-father and m-m-mother +are----!" + +And stumbling into incoherence and tears, Norma dropped her head on her +arm, and sobbed bitterly. Mrs. Sheridan's face was full of pain, but she +did not soften. + +"You belong to your husband, Norma!" she said, mildly. + +Norma sat up, and wiped her eyes on a little handkerchief that she took +from the pocket of her housewifely blue apron. She did not meet her +aunt's eye, and still looked angry and hurt. + +"Well--who _am_ I then? Haven't I got some right to know who my mother +and father were?" she demanded. + +"That you will never hear from me," Mrs. Sheridan replied, firmly. + +"But, Aunt Kate----" + +"I gave my solemn promise, Norma, and I've kept my word all these years; +I'm not likely to break it now." + +"But--won't I _ever_ know?" + +Mrs. Sheridan shrugged her broad shoulders and frowned slightly. + +"That I can't say, my dear," she said, gently. "Some day I may be +released from my bond, and then I'll be glad to tell you everything." + +"Perhaps Wolf will tell me he's nothing to me, now!" the girl continued, +with childish temper. + +"Wolf--and all of us--think that there's nobody like you," the older +woman said, tenderly. But Norma did not brighten. She went in a +businesslike way to the stove, and glanced at the various bowls and +saucepans in which dinner was baking and boiling, then sliced some stale +bread neatly, put the shaved crusts in a special jar, and began to toast +the slices with a charming precision. + +"Change your mind and stay with us, Aunt Kate?" she said, lifelessly. + +"No, dear, I'm going!" And Aunt Kate really did bundle herself into coat +and rubber overshoes and woolly scarf again. "November's coming in with +a storm," she predicted, glancing out at the darkness, where the wind +was rushing and howling drearily. + +Norma did not answer. No mere rushing of clouds and whirl of dry and +colourless leaves could match the storm of disappointment that was +beginning to rage in her own heart. + +Yet she felt a pang of repentance, when cheerful Aunt Kate had tramped +off in the dark, to Rose's house, which was five blocks away, and +perhaps afterward to the desolate Barrys', and wished that she had put +her arms about the big square shoulders, and her cheek against her +aunt's cheek, and said that she was sorry to be unreasonable. + +Rushing to another extreme of unreason, she decided that she and Wolf +must go see Rose to-night--and perhaps the Barrys, too--and cheer and +solace them all. And Norma indulged in a little dream of herself nursing +and cooking in the Barrys' six little cluttered rooms, and earning +golden opinions from all the group. There was money, too; she had not +used all of October's allowance, and to-morrow would find another big +check at the bank. + +Wolf interrupted by coming in so tired he could hardly move. He ate his +dinner, yawned amiably in the kitchen while she cleared it away, and was +so sound asleep at nine o'clock that Norma's bedside light and the +rustling of the pages of her book, three feet away from his face, had no +more effect upon him than if the three feet had been three hundred. + +And then the bitter mood came back to her again; the bored, restless, +impatient feeling that her life was a stupid affair. And deep in her +heart the sense of hurt and humiliation grew and spread; the thought +that she was not of the charmed circle of the Melroses, not secretly and +romantically akin to them, she was merely the casual object of the old +lady's fantastic sense of obligation. Aunt Kate, who had never said what +was untrue--who, Norma and her children firmly believed, could not say +what was untrue--had taken away, once and for all, the veil of mystery +and romance that had wrapped Norma for three exciting years. + +For Leslie, and Katrina, and Mary Bishop, perhaps, travel and the thrill +of foreign shores or European courts. But for Wolf Sheridan's wife, this +small, orderly, charming house on the edge of the New Jersey woods, and +the laundry to think of every Monday, and the two-days' ordering to +remember every Saturday, as long as the world went round! + +For a few days Norma really suffered in spirit, then the natural healthy +current of her life reëstablished itself, and she philosophically +determined to make the best of the matter. If she was not Aunt Annie's +daughter and Leslie's cousin, she was at least their friend. They--even +unsuspecting of any strange relationship--had always been kind to her. +And Aunt Marianna and Aunt Alice had been definitely affectionate, to +say nothing of Chris! + +So one day, when she happened to be shopping in the winter briskness of +the packed and brilliant Avenue, she telephoned Leslie at about the +luncheon hour. Leslie when last they met had said that she would +confidently expect Norma to run out and lunch with her some day--any +day. + +"Who is it?" Leslie's voice asked, irritably, when at last the telephone +connection was established. "Oh, _Norma_! Oh----? What is it?" + +"Just wondering how you all were, and what the family news is," Norma +said, with an uncomfortable inclination to falter. + +"I don't _hear_ you!" Leslie protested, impatiently. The insignificant +inquiry did not seem to gain much by repetition, and Norma's cheeks +burned in shame when Leslie followed it by a blank little pause. +"Oh--everyone's fine. The baby wasn't well, but she's all right now." + +Another slight pause, then Norma said: + +"She must be adorable--I'd like to see her." + +"She's not here now," Leslie answered, quickly. + +"I've been shopping," Norma said. "Any chance that you could come down +town and lunch with me?" + +"No, I really couldn't, to-day!" Leslie answered, lightly and promptly. + +A moment later Norma said good-bye. She walked away from the telephone +booth with her face burning, and her heart beating quickly with anger +and resentment. + +"Snob--snob--snob!" she said to herself, furiously, of Leslie. And of +herself she presently added honestly, "And I wasn't much better, for I +don't really like her any more than she does me!" And she stopped for +flowers, and a little box of pastry, and went out to delight her Aunt +Kate's heart with an unexpected visit. + +But a sting remained, and Norma brooded over the injustice of life, as +she went about her little house in the wintry sunlight, and listened to +Wolf, and made much of Rose and the new baby girl. By Thanksgiving it +seemed to her that she had only dreamed of "Aïda" and of Newport, and +that the Norma of the wonderful frocks and the wonderful dreams had been +only a dream herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +And then suddenly she was delighted to have a friendly little note from +Alice, asking her to come to luncheon on a certain December Friday, as +there was "a tiny bit of business" that she would like to discuss; Chris +was away, she would be alone. Norma accepted with no more than ordinary +politeness, and showed neither Wolf nor his mother any elation, but she +felt a deep satisfaction in the renewed relationship. + +On the appointed Friday, at one o'clock, she mounted the familiar steps +of the Christopher Liggetts' house, and greeted the butler with a +delighted sense of returning to her own. Alice was in the front room, +before a wood fire; she greeted Norma with her old smile, and with an +outstretched hand, but Norma was shocked to see how drawn and strangely +aged the smile was, and how thin the hand! + +The room had its old scent of violets, and its old ordered beauty and +richness, but Norma was vaguely conscious, for the first time, of some +new invalid quality of fussiness, of a pretty and superfluous cluttering +that had not been characteristic of Alice's belongings a year ago. +Alice, too, wore newly a certain stamp of frailty, her always pure high +forehead had a faint transparency and shine that Norma did not remember, +and the increasing accumulation of pillows and little bookcases and +handsome stands about her suggested that her horizon was closing in, +that her world was diminishing to this room, and this room alone. + +The strange nurse who smilingly and noiselessly slipped away as Norma +came in, was another vaguely disquieting hint of helplessness, but Norma +knew better than to make any comment upon her impressions, and merely +asked the usual casual questions, as she sat down near the couch. + +"How are you, Aunt Alice? But you look splendidly!" + +"I'm so _well_," said Alice, emphatically, with a sort of solemn +thankfulness, "that I don't know myself! Whether it was saving myself +the strain of moving to Newport last summer, or what, I don't know. But +I haven't been so well for _years_!" + +Norma's heart contracted with sudden pity. Alice had never employed +these gallant falsehoods before. She had always been quite obviously +happy and busy and even enviable, in her limited sphere. The girl +chatted away with her naturally enough while the luncheon table was +arranged between them and the fire, but she noticed that two nurses +shifted the invalid into an upright position before the meal, and that +Alice's face was white with exhaustion as she began to sip her bouillon. + +They were alone, an hour later, playing with little boxed ices, when +Alice suddenly revealed the object of the meeting. Norma had asked for +Chris, who was, it appeared, absent on some matter of business for a few +days, and it was in connection with the introduction of his name that +Alice spoke. + +"Chris--that reminds me! I wanted to speak to you about something, +Norma; I've wanted to for months, really. It's not really important, +because of course you never would mention it any more than I would, and +yet it's just as well to have this sort of thing straightened out! +Chris told me"--said Alice, looking straight at Norma, who had grown a +trifle pale, and was watching her fixedly--"Chris told me that some +months before you were married, he told you of some--some ridiculous +suspicions we had--it seems absurd now!--about Annie." + +So that was it! Norma could breathe again. + +"Yes--we talked about it one morning walking home from church," she +admitted. + +"I don't know whether you know now," Alice said, quickly, flushing +nervously, "that there wasn't one shred of foundation for that--that +crazy suspicion of mine! But I give you my word--and my mother told +me!--that it wasn't so. I don't know how I ever came to think of it, or +why I thought Mama admitted it. But I've realized," said Alice, +nervously, "that it was a terrible injustice to Annie, and as soon as +Chris told me that you knew it--and of course he had _no business_ to +let it get any further!--I wanted to set it straight. Poor Annie; she +would be perfectly frantic if she knew how calmly I was saddling her +with a--a terrible past!" said Alice, laughing. "But I have always been +too sensitive where the people I love are concerned, and I blundered +into this--this outrageous----" + +"My aunt had told me that it was not so," Norma said, coolly and +superbly interrupting the somewhat incoherent story. "If I ever really +believed it----!" she added, scornfully. + +For her heart was hot with rage, and the first impulse was to vent it +upon this nearest of the supercilious Melroses. This was all Alice had +wanted then, in sending that little overture of friendship: to tell the +little nobody that she was nothing to the great family, after all, to +prevent her from ever boasting even an illicit relationship! It was for +a formal snub, a definite casting-off, that Norma had been brought all +the way from the little green-and-white house in New Jersey! Her eyes +grew very bright, and her lips very firm, as she and Alice finished the +topic, and she told herself that she would never, never enter the house +of Liggett again! + +Alice, this load off her mind, and the family honour secure, became much +more friendly, and she and Norma were talking animatedly when Leslie and +Annie came unexpectedly in. They had been to a débutante luncheon, and +were going to a débutante tea, and meanwhile wanted a few minutes with +dear Alice, and the latest news of Mrs. Melrose, who was in Florida. + +Aunt and niece were magnificently furred and jewelled, magnificently +unaware of the existence of little Mrs. Sheridan of East Orange. Norma +knew in a second that the social ripples had closed over her head; she +was of no further possible significance in the life of either. Leslie +was pretty, bored, ill-tempered; Annie her usual stunning and radiantly +satisfied self. The conversation speedily left Norma stranded, the +chatter of engagements, of scandals, of new names, was all strange to +her, and she sat through some ten minutes of it uncomfortably, longing +to go, and not quite knowing how to start. She said to herself that she +was done with the Melroses; never--never--never again would even their +most fervently extended favour win from her so much as a civil +acknowledgment! + +There was a step in the hall, and a voice that drove the blood from +Norma's face, and made her heart begin the old frantic fluttering and +thumping. Before she could attempt to collect her thoughts, the door +opened, and Chris came in. He came straight to Alice, and kissed her, +holding her hand as he greeted Annie and Leslie. Then he came across the +hearthrug, and Norma got to her feet, and felt that his hand was as cold +as hers, and that the room was rocking about her. + +"Hello, Norma!" he said, quietly. "I didn't expect to find you here!" + +"You haven't seen her since she was married, Chris," Alice said, and +Chris agreed with a pleasant "That's so!" + +He sat down, and Norma, incapable of any effort, at least until she +could control the emotion that was shaking her like a vertigo, sank back +into her own chair, unseeing and unhearing. The gold clock on the mantel +ticked and tocked, the other three women chatted and laughed, and Chris +contributed his share to the general conversation. But Norma's one +desperate need was for escape. + +He made no protest when she said hasty farewells, but when she had gone +rapidly and almost blindly down the stairway, and was at the front door, +she found him beside her. He got into his fur-collared coat, picked up +his hat, and they descended to the sidewalk together, in the colourless, +airless, sunless light of the winter afternoon. + +"Get in my car!" Chris said, indicating the roadster at the curb. + +The girl without a word obeyed. His voice, the motion of his clean-cut +mouth, the searching glance of his quick, keen eyes, acted upon her like +a charm. Alice--Wolf--every thing else in the world vanished from her +thoughts, or rather had never been there. She was drinking again the +forbidden waters for which she had thirsted, perhaps without quite +knowing it, so long. The strangeness, the strain, the artifice of the +last eight months fell from her like a spell; she was herself again, +comfortable again, poised again, thrilling from head to heels with +delicious and bubbling life--ready for anything! + +Now that they were alone she felt no more nervousness; he would speak to +her when he was ready, he could not leave her without speaking. Norma +settled back comfortably in the deep, low seat, and glanced sidewise at +the stern profile that showed between his high fur collar and the fur +cap he had pulled well down over his ears. The world seemed changed to +her; she had wakened from a long dream. + +"No--not the old house!" she presently broke the silence to tell him. "I +go to New Jersey." + +He had been driving slowly out Fifth Avenue, now he obediently turned, +and threaded his way through the cross-street traffic until they were +within perhaps a hundred feet of the entrance to the New Jersey subways. +Then he ran the car close to the curb, and stopped, and for the first +time looked fully at Norma, and she saw his old, pleasant smile. + +"Well, and how goes it?" he asked. "How is Wolf? Tell me where you are +living, and all about it!" + +Norma in answer gave him a report upon her own affairs, and spoke of +Aunt Kate and Rose and Rose's children. She did not realize that a tone +almost pleading, almost apologetic, crept into her eager voice while she +spoke, and told its own story. Chris watched her closely, his eyes never +leaving her face. All around them moved the confusion and congestion of +Sixth Avenue; overhead the elevated road roared and crashed, but +neither man nor woman was more than vaguely conscious of surroundings. + +"And are you happy, Norma?" Chris asked. + +"Oh, yes!" she answered, quickly. + +"You are a very game little liar," he said, dispassionately. "No--no, +I'm not blaming you!" he added, hastily, as she would have spoken. "You +took the very best way out, and I respect and honour you for it! I was +not surprised--although the possibility had never occurred to me." + +Something in his cool, almost lifeless tone, chilled her, and she did +not speak. + +"When I heard of it," Chris said, "I went to Canada. I don't remember +the details exactly, but I remember one day sitting up there--in the +woods somewhere, and looking at my hunting knife, and looking at my +wrist----" + +He looked at his wrist now, and her eyes followed his. + +"--and if I had thought," Chris presently continued, "that a slash there +might have carried me to some region of peace--where there was no hunger +for Norma--I would not have hesitated! But one isn't sure--more's the +pity!" he finished, smiling with eyes full of pain. + +Norma could not speak. The work of long months had been undone in a +short hour, and she was conscious of a world that crashed and tumbled in +utter ruin about her. + +"Well, no use now," Chris said. He folded his arms on his chest, and +looked sternly away into space for a minute, and Norma felt his +self-control, his repression, as she would have felt no passionate +outburst of reproach. "But there is one thing that I've wanted for a +long time to tell you, Norma. If you hadn't been such a little girl, if +you had known what life is, you could not have done what you did!" + +"I suppose not," she half-whispered, with a dry throat, as he waited for +some sign from her. + +"No, you couldn't have given yourself to any one else--if you had +known," Chris went on, as if musing aloud. "And that brings me to what I +want to say. Marriage lasts a long, long time, Norma, and even you--with +all your courage!--may find that you've promised more than you can +perform! The time may come---- + +"Norma, I hope it won't!" he interrupted himself to say, bitterly. "I +try to hope it won't! I try to hope that you will come to love him, my +dear, and forget me! But if that time does come, what I want you to +remember is this afternoon, and sitting here with me in the car, and +Chris telling you that whenever--or wherever--or however he can serve +you, you are to remember that he is living just for that hour! There +will never be any change in me, Norma, never anything but longing and +longing just for the sight of you, just for one word from you! I love +you, my dear--I can't help it. God knows I've _tried_ to help it. I love +you as I don't believe any other woman in the world was ever loved! So +much that I want life to be good to you, even if I never see you, and I +want you to be happy, even without me!" + +He had squared about to face her, and as the passionate rush of words +swept about her, Norma laid her little gloved hand gently upon his big +one, and her blue eyes, drowned in sudden tears, fixed themselves in +exquisite desolation and despair upon his face. + +Once or twice she had whispered "I know--I know!" as if to herself, but +she did not interrupt him, and when he paused he saw that she was choked +with tears, and could not speak. + +"The mad and wonderful sacrifice you made I can't talk about, Norma," he +said. "Only an ignorant, noble-hearted little girl like you could have +done that! But that's all over, now. You must try to make your life what +they think it is--those good people that love you! And I'll try, too!--I +do try. And you mustn't cry, my little sweetheart," Chris added, with a +tenderness so new, and so poignantly sweet, that Norma was almost faint +with the sheer joy of it, "you mustn't blame me for just saying this, +this once, because it's for the last time! We mustn't meet----" His +voice dropped. "I think we mustn't meet," he repeated, painfully and +slowly. + +"No!" she agreed, quickly. + +"But you are to remember that," Chris reiterated, "that I am living, and +moving about, and going to the office, and back to my home, only because +you are alive in the world, and the day may come when I can serve you! +Life has been only that to me, for a long, long time!" + +For a long minute Norma sat silent, her dark lashes fallen on her cheek, +her eyes on the hand that she had grasped in her own. + +"I'll remember, Chris! Thank you, Chris!" she said, simply. Then she +raised her eyes and looked straight at him, with a childish little +frown, puzzled and bewildered, on her forehead, and they exchanged a +long look of good-bye. Chris raised her hand to his lips, and Norma very +quietly slipped from her seat, and turned once to smile bravely at him +before she was lost in the swiftly moving whirlpool of the subway +entrance. She was trembling as she seated herself in the train, and +moved upon her way scarcely conscious of what she was doing. + +But Chris did not move from his seat for more than an hour. + +Norma went home, and quickly and deftly began her preparations for +dinner. Inga had been married a few weeks before, and so Norma had no +maid. She put her new hat into its tissue paper, and tied a fresh +checked apron over her filmy best waist, and stepped to and fro between +stove and dining table, as efficient a little housekeeper as all New +Jersey could show. + +Wolf came home hungry and good-natured, and kissed her, and sat at the +end of her little kitchen table while she put the last touches to the +meal, appreciative and amusing, a new magazine for her in the pocket of +his overcoat, an invitation from his mother for dinner to-morrow night, +and a pleasant suggestion that he and she wander up Broadway again and +look in windows, after his mother's dinner. + +They talked, while they dined, of the possibility of the California +move, and Wolf afterward went down to the furnace. When the fire was +banked for the night, he watched the last of the dinner clearance, and +they went across the cold dark strip of land between their house and a +neighbour's, to play three exciting rubbers of bridge. + +And at eleven Wolf was asleep, and Norma reading again, or trying to +read. But her blood was racing, and her head was spinning, and before +she slept she brought out all her memories of the afternoon. Chris's +words rang in her heart again, and the glances that had accompanied +them unrolled before her eyes like some long pageant that was infinitely +wonderful and thrilling. Leslie and Annie and Alice might snub her, but +Chris--their idol, the cleverest and most charming man in all their +circle!--Chris loved her. Chris loved her. And--from those old dreamy +days in Biretta's Bookstore, had she not loved Chris? + +Another morning came, another night, and life went its usual way. But +Norma was wrapped in a dream that was truly a pillar of cloud by day, +and of flame by night. She was hardly aware of the people about her, +except that her inner consciousness of happiness and of elation gave her +an even added sweetness and charm, made her readier to please them, and +more anxious for their love. + +Wolf almost immediately saw the change, but she did not see the shadow +that came to be habitual in his young face, nor read aright his grave +eyes. She supposed him perhaps unusually busy, if indeed she thought of +him at all. Like her aunt, and Rose, and the rest of her world, he was +no more now than a kindly and dependable shadow, something to be quickly +put aside for the reality of her absorbing friendship for Chris. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Despite their resolve not to see each other in the two weeks that +followed Alice's luncheon, Norma had seen Chris three times. He had +written her on the third day, and she had met the postman at the corner, +sure that the big square envelope would be there. They had had luncheon, +far down town, and walked up through the snowy streets together, parting +with an engagement for the fourth day ahead, a matinée and tea +engagement. The third meeting had been for luncheon again, and after +lunch they had wandered through an Avenue gallery, looking at the +pictures, and talking about themselves. + +Chris had loaned her books, little slim books of dramas or essays, and +Chris had talked to her of plays and music. One night, when Wolf was in +Philadelphia, Chris took her to the opera again, duly returning her to +Aunt Kate at half-past eleven, and politely disclaiming Aunt Kate's +gratitude for his goodness to little Norma. + +He never attempted to touch her, to kiss her; he never permitted himself +an affectionate term, or a hint of the passion that enveloped him; they +were friends, that was all, and surely, surely, they told themselves, a +self-respecting man and woman may be friends--may talk and walk and +lunch together, and harm no one? Norma knew that it was the one vital +element in Chris's life, as in her own, and that the hours that he did +not spend with her were filled with plans and anticipations for their +times together. + +One evening, just before Christmas, when the young Sheridans were +staying through a heavy storm with their mother, Wolf came home with the +news that he must spend some weeks in Philadelphia, studying a new +method of refining iron ore. It was tacitly understood that this +transfer was but a preliminary to the long-anticipated promotion to the +California managership, but Wolf took it very quietly, with none of the +exultation that the compliment once would have caused him. + +"I'll go with you to Philadelphia," Norma said, not quite naturally. She +had been made vaguely uneasy by his repressed manner, and by the fact +that her kiss of greeting had been almost put aside by him, at the door, +a few minutes earlier. Dear old Wolf; she had always loved him--she +would not have him unhappy for all the world! + +In answer he looked at her unsmilingly, wearily narrowing his eyes as if +to concentrate his thoughts. + +"You can't, very well, but thank you just the same, Norma," he said, +formally. "I shall be with Voorhies and Palmer and Bender all the time; +they put me up at a club, and there'll be plenty of evening work--nearly +every evening----" + +"Norma'll stay here with me!" Aunt Kate said, hospitably. + +"Well"--Wolf agreed, indifferently--"I can run up from Philadelphia and +be home every Saturday, Mother," he added. Norma felt vaguely alarmed by +his manner, and devoted her best efforts to amusing and interesting him +for the rest of the meal. After dinner she came in from the kitchen to +find him in a big chair in the little front parlour, and she seated +herself upon an arm of it, and put her own arm loosely about his neck. + +"What are you reading, Wolf? Shall we go out and burn up Broadway? +There's a wonderful picture at The Favourite." + +He tossed his paper aside, and moved from under her, so that Norma found +herself ensconced in the chair, and her husband facing her from the rug +that was before the little gas log. + +"Where's Mother?" + +"Gone downstairs to see how the Noon baby is." + +"Norma," said Wolf, without preamble, "did you see Chris Liggett +to-day?" + +Her colour flamed high, but her eyes did not waver. + +"Yes. We met at Sherry's. We had lunch together." + +"You didn't meet by accident?" There was desperate hope in Wolf's voice. +But Norma would not lie. With her simple negative her head drooped, and +she looked at her locked fingers in silence. + +Wolf was silent, too, for a long minute. Then he cleared his throat, and +spoke quietly and sensibly. + +"I've been a long time waking up, Nono," he said. "I'm sorry! Of course +I knew that there was a difference; I knew that you--felt differently. +And I guessed that it was Chris. Norma, do you--do you still like him?" + +She looked up wretchedly, nodding her head. + +"More"--he began, and stopped--"more than you do me?" he asked. And in +the silence he added suddenly: "Norma, I thought we were so happy!" + +Then the tears came. + +"Wolf, I'll never love any one more than I do you!" the girl said, +passionately. "You've always been an angel to me--always the best friend +I ever had. I know you--I know what you are to Rose, Aunt Kate, and what +the men at the factory think of you. I'm not fit to tie your shoes! I'm +wicked, and selfish, and--and everything I oughtn't to be! But I can't +help it. I've wanted you to know--all there was to know. I've met him, +and we've talked and walked together; that's all. And that's all we +want--just to be friends. I'm sorry----" Her voice trailed off on a sob. +"I'm awfully sorry!" she said. + +"Yes," Wolf said, slowly, after a pause, "I'm sorry, too!" + +He sat down, rumpling his hair, frowning. Norma, watching him fearfully, +noticed that he was very pale. + +"I thought we were so happy," he said again, simply. + +"Ah, Wolf, don't think I've been fooling all this summer!" his wife +pleaded, her eyes filling afresh. "I've loved it all--the peach +ice-cream, and the picnics, and everything. But--but people can't help +this sort of thing, can they? It does happen, and--and they just simply +have to make the best of it, don't they? If--if we go to California next +month--you know that I'll do everything I can----!" + +He was not listening to her. + +"Norma," he interrupted, sharply, "if Liggett's wife was out of the +way--would you want to marry him?" + +"Wolf!--what's the use of asking that? You only--you only excite us +both. Aunt Alice _isn't_ out of the way, and even if she were, I am your +wife. I'm sorry. I'll never meet him again--I haven't been a bit happy +about it. I'll promise you that I will not see him again." + +"I don't ask you for that promise," Wolf said. "I don't know what we can +do! I never should have let you--I shouldn't have been such a fool as +to--but somehow, I'd always dreamed that you and I would marry. +Well!"--he interrupted his musing with resolute cheerfulness--"I've got +to get over to the library to-night," he said, "for I may have to start +for Phily to-morrow afternoon. Will you tell Mother----" + +Norma immediately protested that she was going with him, but he +patiently declined, kissing her in a matter-of-fact sort of way as he +pulled on the old overcoat and the new gloves, and slamming the hall +door behind him when he went. + +For a minute she stood looking after him, with a great heartache almost +blinding her. Then she flashed to her room, and before Wolf had reached +the corner his wife had slipped her hand into his arm, and her little +double step was keeping pace with his long stride in the way they both +loved. + +She talked to him in her usual manner, and presently he could answer +normally, and they bought peppermints to soften their literary labours. +In the big library Wolf was instantly absorbed, but for awhile Norma sat +watching the shabby, interested, intelligent men and women who came and +went, the shabby books that crossed the counters, the pretty, efficient +desk-clerks under their green droplights. The radiators clanked and +hissed softly in the intervals of silence, sometimes there was +whispering at the shelves, or one of the attendants spoke in a low tone. + +Norma loved the atmosphere, so typical a phase of the great city's +life. After awhile she idly dragged toward her three books, from a +table, and idly dipped into them: "The Life of the Grimkés"; "The Life +of Elizabeth Prentiss"; "The Letters of Charles Dickens." + +Nine struck; ten; eleven. Wolf had some six or seven large books about +him, and alternated his plunges into them with animated whispered +conversations with a silver-headed old man, two hours ago an utter +stranger, but always henceforth to be affectionately quoted by Wolf as a +friend. + +They indulged in the extravagance of a taxi-cab for the home trip. Norma +left Wolf still reading, after winning from him a kiss and a promise not +to "worry", and went to bed and to sleep. When she wakened, after some +nine delicious hours, he was gone; gone to Philadelphia, as it proved. + +Breakfasting at ten o'clock, in a flood of sweet winter sunshine, she +put a brave face on the matter. She told herself that it was better that +Wolf should know, and only the part of true kindness not to deny what, +for good or ill, was true. The memory of his grave and troubled face +distressed her, but she reminded herself that he would be back on +Saturday, and then he would have forgiven her. She would see Chris +to-day, to-morrow, and the day after, and by that time they would have +said everything that there was to say, and they would never see each +other again. + +For it was a favourite hallucination of theirs that every meeting was to +be the last. Not, said Chris, that there was any harm in it, but it was +wiser not to see each other. And when Norma, glowing under his eyes, +would echo this feeling, he praised her for her courage as if they had +resisted the temptation already. + +"I've thought it all over, Chris," she would say, "and I know that the +wisest way is to stop. And you must help me." And when Chris answered, +"Norma, I don't see where you get that marvellous courage of yours," it +did not occur to Norma to question in what way she was showing courage +at all. She lived upon his praise, and could not have enough of it. He +never tired of telling her that she was beautiful, good, brave, a +constant inspiration, and far above the ordinary type of woman; and +Norma believed him. + +On the day before Wolf's first week-end return from Philadelphia, Chris +was very grave. When he and Norma were halfway through their luncheon, +in the quiet angle of an old-fashioned restaurant, he told her why. +Alice was failing. Specialists had told him that England was out of the +question. She might live a year, but the probability was against it. +They--he and Norma--Chris said, must consider this, now. + +Norma considered it with a paling face. It--it couldn't make any +difference, she said, quickly and nervously. + +And then, for the first time, he talked to her of her responsibility in +the matter, of what their love meant to them both. Wolf had his claim, +true; but what was truly the generous thing for a woman to do toward a +man she did not love? Wasn't a year or two of hurt feelings, even anger +and resentment, better than a loveless marriage that might last fifty +years? + +This was a terrible problem, and Norma did not know what to think. On +the one hand was the certainty of that higher life from which she had +been exiled since her marriage: the music, the art, the letters, the +cultivated voices and fragrant rooms, the wealth and luxury, the +devotion of this remarkable and charming man, whose simple friendship +had been beyond her dreams a few years ago. On the other side was the +painful and indeed shameful desertion of Wolf, the rupture with Aunt +Kate and Rose, and the undying sense in her own soul of an unworthy +action. + +But Rose was absorbed in Harry and the children, and Aunt Kate would +surely go with Wolf to California, three thousand miles away---- + +"I am not brave enough!" she whispered. + +"You _are_ brave enough," Chris answered, quickly. "Tell him the +truth--as you did on your wedding day. Tell him you acted on a mad +impulse, and that you are sorry. A few days' discomfort, and you are +free, and one week of happiness will blot out the whole wretched memory +for ever." + +"It is not wretchedness, Chris," she corrected, with a rueful smile. But +she did not contradict him, and before they parted she promised him that +she would not go to California without at least telling Wolf how she +felt about it. + +Rose and Harry joined them for the Saturday night reunion. Norma thought +that Wolf seemed moody, and was unresponsive to her generous welcome, +and she was conscious of watching him somewhat apprehensively as the +evening wore on. But it was Sunday afternoon before the storm broke. + +Wolf was at church when Norma wakened, and as she dressed she meditated +a trifle uneasily over this departure from their usual comfortable +Sunday morning habit. She breakfasted alone, Wolf and his mother coming +in for their belated coffee just as Norma, prettily coated and hatted +and furred, was leaving the house for the ten-o'clock Mass. They did +not meet again until luncheon, and as Wolf had explained that he must +leave at four o'clock for Philadelphia, Norma began to think that this +particular visit would end without any definite unpleasantness. + +However, at about three o'clock, he invited her to walk with him to the +station, and join his mother later, at Rose's house, in New Jersey, and +Norma dared not refuse. They locked the apartment, and walked slowly +down Broadway, as they had walked so many thousand times before, in the +streaming Sunday crowds. Before they had gone a block Wolf opened +hostilities by asking abruptly: + +"Where did you go to church this morning?" + +Norma flushed, and laughed a little. + +"I went down to the Cathedral; I'm fond of it, you know. Why?" + +"Did you meet Chris Liggett?" Wolf asked. + +"Yes--I did, Wolf. He goes to the church near there, now and then." + +"When you telephone him to," Wolf said, grimly. + +Norma began to feel frightened. She had never heard this tone from Wolf +before. + +"I did telephone him, as a matter of fact--or rather he happened to +telephone me, and I said I was going there. Is there anything so +horrifying in that?" she asked. + +"Just after you went out, the telephone operator asked me if the Murray +Hill number had gotten us," Wolf answered; "that's how I happen to +know." + +Norma was angry, ashamed, and afraid, all at once. For twenty feet they +walked in silence. She stole more than one anxious look at her +companion; Wolf's face was set like flint. He was buttoned into the +familiar old overcoat, a tall, brown, clean-shaven, and just now +scowling young man of the accepted American type, firm of jaw, keen of +eye, and with a somewhat homely bluntness of feature preventing him from +being describable as handsome, or with at best a rough, hard, open-eyed +sort of handsomeness that was as unconscious of itself as the beauty of +a young animal. + +"Wolf, don't be cross," his wife pleaded, in illogical coaxing. + +"I'm not cross," he said, with an annoyed glance that humiliated and +angered her. "But I don't like this sort of thing, Norma, and I should +think you'd know why." + +"What sort of thing?" Norma countered, quickly. + +"The sort of thing that evidently Mr. Christopher Liggett thinks is fair +play!" Wolf said, with youthful bitterness. "Harry saw you both walking +up Fifth Avenue yesterday, and Joe Anderson happened to mention that you +and a man were lunching together on Thursday, down at the Lafayette. +There may be no harm in it----" + +"There _may_ be!" Norma echoed, firing. "You know very well there +_isn't_!" + +"You see him every day," Wolf said. + +"I _don't_ see him every day! But if I did, it wouldn't be Harry +Redding's and Joe Anderson's business!" + +"No," Wolf said, more mildly, "but it might be mine!" + +Norma realized that he was softening under her distress, and she changed +her tone. + +"Wolf, you know that you can trust me!" she said. + +"But I don't know anything about him!" Wolf reminded her. "I know that +he's twice your age----" + +"He's thirty-eight!" + +"Thirty-eight, then--and I know that he's a loafer--a rich man who has +nothing else to do but run around with women----" + +"I want to ask you to stop talking about something of which you are +entirely ignorant!" Norma interrupted, hotly. + +"You're the one that's ignorant, Norma," Wolf said, stubbornly, not +looking at her. "You are only a little girl; you think it's great fun to +be married to one man, and flirting with another! What makes me sick is +that a man like Liggett thinks he can get away with it, and you +women----" + +"If you say that again, I'll not walk with you!" Norma burst in +furiously. + +"Does it ever occur to you," Wolf asked, equally roused, "that you are +my wife?" + +"Yes!" Norma answered, breathlessly. "Yes--it does! And why? Because I +was afraid I was beginning to care too much for Chris Liggett--because I +knew he loved me, he had told me so!--and I went to you because I wanted +to be safe--and I told you so, too, Wolf Sheridan, the very day that we +were married! I never lied to you! I told you I loved Chris, that I +always had! And if you'd been _civil_ to me," rushed on Norma, beginning +to feel tears mastering her, "if you'd been _decent_ to me, I would have +gotten over it. I would never have seen him again anyway, after this +week, for I told him this morning that I didn't want to go on meeting +him--that it wasn't fair to you! But no, you don't trust me and you +don't believe me, and consequently--consequently, I don't care what I +do, and I'll make you sorry----" + +"Don't talk so wildly, Norma," Wolf warned her, in a tone suddenly quiet +and sad. "Please don't--people will notice you!" + +"I don't care if they do!" Norma said. But she glanced about deserted +Eighth Avenue uneasily none the less, and furtively dried her eyes upon +a flimsy little transparent handkerchief that somehow tore at her +husband's heart. "If you had been a little patient, Wolf----" she +pleaded, reproachfully. + +"There are times when a man hasn't much use for patience, Norma," Wolf +said, still with strange gentleness. "You _did_ tell me of liking +Liggett--but I thought--I hoped, I guess----!" He paused, and then went +on with sudden fierceness: "He's married, Norma, and you're married--I +wish there was some way of letting you out of it, as far as I am +concerned! Of course you don't have to go to California with me--if that +helps. You can get your freedom, easily enough, after awhile. But as +long as he's tied, it doesn't seem to me that he has any business----" + +His gentle tone disarmed her, and she took up Chris's defence eagerly. + +"Wolf, don't you believe there is such a thing as love? Just that two +people find out that they belong to each other--whether it's right or +wrong, or possible or impossible--and that it may last for ever?" + +"No," said Wolf, harshly, "I don't believe it! He's married--doesn't he +love his wife?" + +"Well, of course he loves her! But this is the first time in all his +life that he has--cared--this way!" Norma said. + +Wolf made no answer, and she felt that she had scored. They were in the +station now, and weaving their way down toward the big concourse. Norma +took her husband's arm. + +"Please--please--don't make scenes, Wolf! If you will just believe me +that I wouldn't--truly I wouldn't!--hurt you and Aunt Kate for all the +world----" + +"Ah, Norma," he said, quickly, "I can't take my wife on those terms!" +And turning from the ticket window he added, sensibly: "Liggett is tied, +of course. But would you like me to leave you here when I go West? Until +you are surer of yourself--one way or another? You only have to say so!" + +She only had to say so. He had reached, of his own accord, the very +point to which she long had hoped to bring him. But perversely, Norma +did not quite like to have Wolf go off to Philadelphia with this +unpalatable affirmative ringing in his ears. She looked down. A moment's +courage now, and she would win everything--and more than everything!--to +which Chris had ever urged her. But she felt oddly sad and even hurt by +his willingness to give her her way. + +"All right!" he said, hastily. "That's understood. I'll tell Mother I +don't want you to follow, for awhile. Good-bye, Norma! You're taking the +next tube? Wait a minute--I want a _Post_----" + +Was he trying to show her how mean he could be? she thought, as with a +heartache, and a confused sense of wrong and distress, she slowly went +upon her way. Of course that parting was just bravado, of course he felt +more than that! She resented it--she thought he had been unnecessarily +unkind---- + +But her spirits slowly settled themselves. Wolf knew what she felt, now, +and they had really parted without bitterness. A pleasant sense of being +her own mistress crept over her, her cheeks cooled, her fluttering +heart came back to its normal beat. She began to hear herself telling +Chris how courageous she had been. + +It was too bad--it was one of the sad things of life. But after all, +love was love, in spite of Wolf's scepticism, and if it soothed Wolf to +be rude, let him have that consolation! What did a little pain more or +less signify now? There was no going back. Years from now Wolf would +forgive her, recognizing that great love was its own excuse for being. +"And if this sort of thing exists only to be crushed and killed," Norma +wrote Chris a few days later, "then half the great pictures, the great +novels, the great poems and dramas, the great operas, are lies. But you +and I know that they are not lies!" + +She was unhappy at home, for Aunt Kate was grave and silent, Rose +wrapped in the all-absorbing question of the tiny Catherine's meals, and +Wolf neither came nor wrote on Saturday night. But in Chris's devotion +she was feverishly and breathlessly happy, their meetings--always in +public places, and without a visible evidence of their emotion--were +hours of the most stimulating delight. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +So matters went on for another ten days. Then suddenly, on a mid-week +afternoon, Norma, walking home from a luncheon in a wild and stormy +wind, was amazed to see the familiar, low-slung roadster waiting outside +her aunt's door when she reached the steps. Chris jumped out and came to +meet her as she looked bewilderedly toward it, a Chris curiously +different in manner from the man she had left only an hour ago. + +"Norma!" he said, quickly, "I found a message when I got to the office. +I was to call up Aunt Marianna's house at once. She's ill--_very_ ill. +They want me, and they want you!" + +"Me?" she echoed, blankly. "What for?" + +"She's had a stroke," he said, still with that urgent and hurried air, +"and Joseph--poor old fellow, he was completely broken up--said that she +had been begging them to get hold of you!" + +Norma had gotten into the familiar front seat, but now she stayed him +with a quick hand. + +"Wait a minute, Chris, I'll run up and tell Aunt Kate where I am going!" +she said. + +"She's gone out. There's nobody there!" he assured her, glancing up at +the apartment windows. "I knew you would be coming in, so I waited." + +"Then I'll telephone!" the girl said, settling herself again. "But what +do you suppose she wants me for?" she asked, returning to the subject of +the summons. "Have they--will they--send for Aunt Annie and Leslie, do +you suppose?" + +"Leslie is in Florida with the Binneys, most unfortunately. Annie was in +Baltimore yesterday, but I believe she was expected home to-day. Joseph +said he had gotten hold of Hendrick von Behrens, and I told my clerk to +get Acton, and to warn Miss Slater that Alice isn't to be frightened." + +"But, Chris--do you suppose she is dying?" + +"I don't know--one never does, of course, with paralysis." + +"Poor Aunt Alice--it will almost kill her!" + +"Yes, it will be terribly hard for her, harder than for any one," he +answered. And Norma loved him for the grave sympathy that filled his +voice, and for the poise that could make such a speech possible, under +the circumstances, without ever a side glance for her. + +Then they reached the old house, ran up the steps, and were in the great +dark hallway that already seemed to be filled with the shadow of change. + +Whispering, solemn-faced maids went to and fro; Joseph was red-eyed; the +heavy fur coats of two doctors were flung upon chairs. Norma slipped +from her own coat. + +"How is she, Joseph?" + +"I hardly know, Miss. You're to go up, please, and Regina was to tell +one of the nurses at once that you had come, Miss." He delivered his +message impassively enough, but then the human note must break through. +"I've been with her since she was married, Miss--nigh forty years," the +old man faltered, "and I'm afraid she is very bad--very bad, indeed!" + +"Oh, I _hope_ not!" Norma went noiselessly upstairs, Chris close behind +her. Did she hope not? She hardly knew. But she knew that all this was +strangely thrilling--this rush through the tossing windy afternoon to +the old house, this sense of being a part of the emergency, this utter +departure from the tedious routine of life. + +A serious-faced nurse took charge of them, and she and Chris followed +her noiselessly into the familiar bedroom that yet looked so altered in +its new lifeless order and emptiness. The clutter of personal +possessions was already gone, chairs had been straightened and pushed +back, and on the bed that had lately been frilled and embroidered in +white and pink, and piled with foolish little transparent baby pillows, +a fresh, flawless linen sheet was spread. Silence reigned in the wide +chamber; but two doctors were standing by the window, and looked at the +newcomers with interest, and a second nurse passed them on her way out. +Norma vaguely noted the fire, burning clear and bright, the shaded light +that showed a chart, on a cleared table, the absence of flowers and +plants that made the place seem bare. But after one general impression +her attention was riveted upon the sick woman, and with her heart +beating quickly with fright she went to stand at the foot of the great +walnut bed. + +Mrs. Melrose was lying with her head tipped back in pillows; her usually +gentle, soft old face looked hard and lined, and was a dark red, and the +scanty gray hair, brushed back mercilessly from the temples, and devoid +of the usual puffs and transformations, made her look her full sixty +years. Her eyes were half-open, but she did not move them, her lips +seemed very dry, and occasionally she muttered restlessly, and a third +nurse, bending above her, leaned anxiously near, to catch what she +said, and perhaps murmur a soothing response. + +This nurse looked sharply at Norma, and breathed rather than whispered: +"Mrs. Sheridan?" and when Norma answered with a nod, nodded herself in +satisfaction. + +"She's been asking and asking for you," she said, in a low clear tone +that oddly broke the unnatural silence of the room. Norma, hearing a +stir behind her, looked back to see that both doctors had come over to +the bed, and were looking down at their patient with a profound concern +that their gray heads and their big spectacles oddly emphasized. + +"Mrs. Sheridan?" one of them questioned. Norma dared not use her voice, +and nodded again. Immediately the doctor leaned over Mrs. Melrose, and +said in a clear and encouraging tone: "Here is Mrs. Sheridan now!" + +Mrs. Melrose merely moaned heavily in answer, and Norma said softly, to +the doctor who had spoken: + +"I think perhaps she was asking for my aunt--who is also Mrs. Sheridan!" + +Before the doctor, gravely considering, could answer, the sick woman +startled them all by saying, almost fretfully, in a surprisingly clear +and quiet voice: + +"No--no--no, I want you, Norma!" + +She groped blindly about with her hand, as she spoke, and Norma kneeled +down, and covered it with both her own. Mrs. Melrose immediately began +to breathe more easily, and sank at once into the stupor from which she +had only momentarily roused. + +Norma looked for instruction to the doctor, who presently decided that +there was nothing more to be gained for a time; she joined them +presently, with Chris, in the adjoining room. This was the same old room +of her first visit to the house, with the same rich old brocaded paper +and fringed rep draperies, with the same pictures, and a few new ones, +lined on the mantel. + +"Where are Mrs. von Behrens and Leslie?" Doctor Murray, who had known +all the family intimately for years, asked Chris. + +"Is it so serious, Doctor?" Christopher asked in turn, when he had +answered. The doctor, glancing toward the closed door, nodded gravely. + +"A matter of a day or two," he said, looking at the other old doctor for +confirmation. "She was apparently perfectly normal last night, went to +bed at her usual hour," he said, "this morning she complained of her +head, when the maid went in at ten, said that she must have hurt +it--struck it against something. The maid, a sensible young woman, was +uneasy, and telephoned for me. Unfortunately, I was in Westchester this +morning, but I got here at about one o'clock and found her as she is +now. She has had a stroke--probably several slight shocks." + +"Why, but she was perfectly well day before yesterday!" Norma said, in +amazement. "And only ten days ago she came back from Florida, and said +that she never felt better!" + +"That is frequently the history of the disease," the second doctor said, +sagely. And, glancing at his watch, he added, "I don't think you will +need me again, Doctor Murray?" + +"What are the chances of her--knowing anybody?" Chris asked. + +"She may very probably have another lucid interval," Doctor Murray said. +"If Mrs. Sheridan could arrange to stay, it would be advisable. She +asked for her daughters, but she seemed even more anxious that we should +send for--_you_." He glanced at Norma, with a little old-fashioned bow. + +Mrs. Sheridan could stay, of course. She would telephone home, and +advise Aunt Kate, at once. Indeed, so keen was Norma's sense almost of +enjoyment in this thrilling hour that she would have been extremely +sorry to leave the house. It was sad, it was dreadful, of course, to +think that poor old Aunt Marianna was so ill, but at the same time it +was most dramatic. She and Chris settled themselves before the fire in +the upstairs sitting-room with Doctor Murray, who entertained them with +mild reminiscences of the Civil War. The storm was upon the city now, +rain slashed at the windows and the wind howled bitterly. + +There was whispering in the old house, quiet footsteps, muffled voices +at the door and telephone. At about six o'clock Chris went home, to tell +Alice, with what tenderness he might, of the impending sorrow. Regina, +who had been weeping bitterly, and would speak to no one, brought Norma +and the doctor two smoking hot cups of bouillon on a tray. + +"And you mustn't get tired, Mrs. Sheridan," one of the nurses, herself +healthily odorous of a beef and apple-pie dinner, said kindly to Norma, +at about seven o'clock. "There'll be coffee and sandwiches all night. +This is a part of our lives, you know, and we get used to it, but it's +hard for those not accustomed to it." + +At about nine o'clock in the evening Chris came back. Alice had received +the news bravely, he said; there had been no hysteria and she kept +admirable control of herself, and he had left her ready for sleep. But +it had hit her very hard. Miss Slater had promised him that she would +put a sleeping powder into Alice's regular ten o'clock glass of hot +milk, and let him know when she was safely off. + +"She is very thankful that you are here, she was uneasy every instant +that I stayed away!" he said softly to Norma, and Norma nodded her +approval. Long before eleven o'clock they had the report that Alice was +sleeping soundly under the combined effect of the powder and Miss +Slater's repeated and earnest assurance that there was no immediate +danger as regarded her mother. + +Chris and Norma and the doctor and two of the nurses went down to the +dining-room, and had sandwiches and coffee, and talked long and sadly of +the briefness and mutability of mortal life. When they went upstairs +again the doctor stretched out for some rest, on the sitting-room couch, +and Norma went to her own old room, and got into her comfortable, thick +padded wrapper and warm slippers. The night was still wet and stormy, +and had turned cold. Hail rattled on the window sills. + +Then she crept into the sick-room, and joined the nurses in their +unrelenting vigil. Mrs. Melrose was still lying back, her eyes +half-open, her face darkly flushed, her lips moving in an incoherent +mutter. Now and then they caught the syllables of Norma's name, and once +she said "Kate!" so sharply that everyone in the sick chamber started. + +Norma, leaning back in a great chair by the bed, mused and pondered as +the slow hours went by. The softened lights touched the nurses' crisp +aprons, the fire was out now, and only the two softly palpitating disks +from the shaded lamps dimly illumined the room. + +Annie and Theodore and Alice had all been born in this very room, Norma +thought. She imagined Aunt Marianna, a handsome, stout, radiant young +woman, in the bustles and pleats of the early eighties, with the flowing +ruffles of Theodore's christening robe spreading over her lap. How +wonderful life must have seemed to her then, rich and young, and adored +by her husband, and with her first-born child receiving all the homage +due the heir of the great name and fortune! Then came Annie, and some +years later Alice, and how busy and happy their mother must have been +with plenty of money for schools and frocks, trips to the country with +her handsome, imperious children; trips to Europe when no desire need be +denied them, all the world the playground for the fortunate Melroses! + +How short the perspective must look now, thought Norma, to that troubled +brain that was struggling among closing shadows, nearer and nearer every +slow clocktick to the end. How loathsome it must be to the prisoned +spirit, this handsome, stifling room, this army of maids and nurses and +doctors so decorously resigned to facing the last scene of all. Why, the +poorest child in the city to-night, healthily asleep in some unspeakable +makeshift for a bed, possessed what all the Melrose money could not buy +for this moaning, suffocating old autocrat. + +"I should like to die out on a hillside, under the stars," thought +Norma, "with no one to watch me. This is--somehow--so horrible!" + +And she crept toward the bed and slipped to her knees again, forcing +herself against her inclination--for somehow prayers seemed to have +nothing to do with this scene--to pray for the departing soul. + +"Norma," the old lady said, suddenly, opening her eyes. She looked +quietly and intelligently at the girl. + +"Yes, dear!" Norma stammered, with a frightened glance toward the +nurses. + +These were instantly intent, at the bedside. But Mrs. Melrose paid no +attention to them. She patted Norma's hand. + +"Late for you, dear!" she whispered. "Night!" Obediently she drank +something the nurse put to her lips, and when she spoke it was more +clearly. A moment later Doctor Murray had her pulse between his +nerveless fingers. She moved her eyes lazily to smile at him. "Tide +running out, old friend!" she said, in a deep, rich voice. The doctor +smiled, shaking his head, but Norma saw his eyes glisten behind his +glasses. + +Suddenly Mrs. Melrose frowned, and began to show excitement. + +"Norma!" she said, quickly. "I want Chris!" + +"Right here, Aunt Marianna!" Norma answered, soothingly. And Chris was +indeed leaning over the bed almost before she finished speaking. + +"I want to talk to you and Chris," the old lady said, contentedly +closing her eyes. "Everybody else out!" she whispered. + +The room was immediately cleared. "It can't hurt her now!" Doctor Murray +looked rather than said to Norma as he passed her. Chris watched the +closing doors, sat beside the bed's head with one arm half-supporting +his mother-in-law's pillows. + +"We're all alone, Aunt Marianna," he said. "Leslie and Annie will be +here in the morning, and Alice told me to tell you that she hoped----" + +"Chris," the sick woman interrupted, gazing at him with an intense and +painful stare, "this child here--Norma! I--I must straighten it all out +now, Chris. Kate knows. Kate has all the papers--letters--Louison's +letters! Ask Kate----" + +She shut her eyes. Norma and Chris looked at one another in +bewilderment. There was a long silence. + +"So now you know!" Mrs. Melrose said, presently, returning to full +consciousness as naturally as she had before. "I told you, didn't I?" +she asked, faintly anxious. + +"Don't bother now, Aunt Marianna," the girl begged in distress. +"To-morrow----" + +"Louison," Mrs. Melrose said, "was Annie's French maid--very superior +girl!" + +"I remember her--Theodore's wife," Chris said, eager to help her. + +"And she was this girl's mother," Mrs. Melrose added, clasping Norma's +fingers. "You understand that, Chris?" + +"Yes, darling--we understand!" Norma said, with a nod to Chris that he +was to humour her. But Chris looked only strangely troubled. + +"Annie's poor baby lived--Kate brought it home from France, and we named +it Leslie," the invalid said, clearly. "I couldn't--I couldn't forget +it, Chris. I used to go see it--at Kate's. And then, when it was three, +I met Louison--poor girl, I had been cruel to her--and Theodore was far +off in California--dying, we knew. And I met Louison in Brooklyn. And I +had a sudden idea, Chris! I told her to go to Kate, and get Annie's +baby, and bring it to me as if it was her own. I told her to! I told her +to say that it was her baby--Theodore's baby. And she did, Chris, and I +paid her well for it. She brought Leslie here, and Annie never +knew--nobody ever knew! But I never knew that Louison had a baby of her +own, Chris--I never knew that! Louison hated me, and she never told me +she had a little girl. No--no--no, I never knew that!" + +"Then Leslie--is--Annie's child by Müller, the riding master!" Chris +whispered, staring blindly ahead of him. "And what--what became of the +other child--Theodore's child?" + +"Louison kept her until she was five," the old lady explained, eagerly, +"and then she wanted to marry again, and she had to go live in a wild +sort of place, in Canada. She didn't want to take the little girl there, +and she remembered Kate Sheridan, who had had the other baby, and who +had been so good to it--so devoted to it! And she went there, Chris, and +left her baby there." + +"And that baby----" Chris began. + +"Yes. That was Norma!" Mrs. Melrose said. "It is all Norma's, the whole +thing--and you must take care that she gets it, Chris. I--even my will, +dear, only gives Norma the Melrose Building and some bonds. But those +are for Leslie, now, all the rest--the whole estate goes to Theodore's +child--Norma. You must forgive me if I did it all wrong. I meant it for +the best. I never knew that you were living, dear, until Kate brought +you here three years ago. She didn't dare do it until your mother died; +she had promised she would never tell a living soul. But Louison +softened toward the end, and wrote Kate she must use her own judgment. +And Kate--Kate--knows all about it----" + +The voice thickened. The old lady raised herself in bed. + +"That man--behind you, Chris!" she gasped. Chris put her down again, +Norma flew for help. The muttering and the heavy breathing recommenced. +Nurses and doctors ran back, Regina came to kneel at the foot of the +bed. + +Another slight stroke, they said later, when they were all about the +fire in the next room again. Norma was white, her eyes glittering, her +bitten lips scarlet in her colourless face. Chris looked stunned. + +But he found time for just one aside, as the endless night wore on. +Annie had arrived, superbly horrified and stricken, and Acton was there. +Mrs. Melrose was still breathing. The sickly light of a winter morning +was tugging at the shutters. + +"Norma," Chris said, "do you realize what a tremendous thing has +happened to you? Do you realize who you are? You are a rich woman now, +my dear!" + +"But do you believe it?" she asked, in a low tone. + +"I know it is true! It explains everything," he answered. "It will be a +cruel blow to Leslie--poor child, and Annie, too. Alice, I think, need +never know. But Norma--even though this doesn't seem the time or the +place, let me be the first to congratulate you on your new position--my +old friend Theodore's daughter, and the last of the Melroses!" + +At seven o'clock in the morning Norma, exhausted with excitement and +emotion, took a hot bath, and finding things unchanged in the sick-room, +except that the lights had been extinguished, and the winter daylight +was drearily mingling with firelight, went on downstairs for coffee and +for one more conference with the blinking nurses and the tired old +doctor. She found herself too shaken to eat, but the hot drink was +wonderfully soothing and stimulating, and for the first time, as she +stood looking out into the street from the dining-room window, a sense +of power and pride began to thrill her. Old people must die, of course, +and after this sad and dark scene was over--then what? Then what? Then +she would be in Leslie's long-envied place, the heiress, the important +figure among all the changes that followed. + +"If you please, Mrs. Sheridan----!" It was Joseph, haggard and white, +who had come softly behind her to interrupt her thoughts. She glanced +with quick apprehension toward the hall stairway. There had been a +change----? + +"No, it was the telephone, Miss." Norma, puzzled by the old butler's +stricken air, went to the instrument. It was Miss Slater. + +"Norma," Miss Slater said, agitatedly, "is Mr. Liggett--there?" + +"I think he's with Aunt Annie, upstairs, but he's going home about +eight," Norma answered. "There is no change. Is Aunt Alice awake? Mr. +Liggett wanted to be there when she woke!" + +"No--she's not awake," the other woman's voice said, solemnly. "She went +to sleep like a child last night, Norma. But about half an hour ago I +went in--she hadn't called me--it was just instinct, I suppose! She was +lying--hadn't changed her position even----" + +"_What's that!_" Norma cried, in a whisper that was like a scream. The +grave voice and the sudden break of tears chilled her to the soul. + +"We've had Doctor Merrill here," Miss Slater said. "Norma, you'll have +to tell him--God help us all! She's gone!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Mrs. Melrose never spoke again, or showed another flicker of the clear +and normal intelligence that she had shown in the night. But she still +breathed, and the long, wet day dragged slowly, in the big, mournful old +house, until late in the unnatural afternoon. People--all sorts of +people--were coming and going now, and being answered, or being turned +away; a few privileged old friends came softly up the carpeted stairs, +and cried quietly with Annie, who looked unbelievably old and ashen +under the double shock. Norma began to hear, on all sides, respectful +and sympathetic references to "the family." The family felt this, and +would like that, the family was not seeing any one, the family must be +protected and considered in every way. The privileged old friends talked +with strange men in the lower hall, and were heard saying "I suppose so" +dubiously, to questions of hats and veils and carriages and the church. + +Chris was gone all day, but at four o'clock an urgent message was sent +him, and he and Acton came into Mrs. Melrose's room about half an hour +later, for the end. His face was ghastly, and he seemed almost unable to +understand what was said to him, but he was very quiet. + +Norma never forgot the scene. She knelt on one side of the bed, praying +with all the concentration and fervour that she could rally under the +circumstances. But her frightened, tired eyes were impressed with every +detail of the dark old stately bedroom none the less. This was the end +of the road, for youth and beauty and power and wealth, this sunken, +unrecognizable face, this gathering of shadows among the dull, wintry +shadows of the afternoon. + +Annie was kneeling, too, her fine, unringed hands clasping one of her +mother's hands. Chris sat against the back of the bed, half-supporting +the piled pillows, in a futile attempt to make more easy the fighting +breath, and Acton and Hendrick von Behrens, grave and awed, stood beside +him, their faces full of sympathy and distress. There was an outer +fringe of nurses, doctors, maids; there was even an audible whisper from +one of them that caused Annie to frown, annoyed and rebuking, over her +shoulder. + +Minutes passed. Norma, pressing her cheek against the hand she held, +began a Litany, very low. Suddenly the dying woman opened her eyes. + +"Yes--yes--yes!" she whispered, eagerly, and with a break in her +frightened voice Norma began more clearly, "Our Father, Who art in +Heaven----" and they all joined in, somewhat awkwardly and uncertainly. + +Mrs. Melrose sank back; she had raised herself just a fraction of an +inch to speak. Now her head fell, and Norma saw the florid colour drain +from her face as wine drains from an overturned glass. A leaden pallor +settled suddenly upon her. When the prayer was finished they +waited--eyed each other--waited again. There was no other breath. + +"Doctor----" Annie cried, choking. The doctor gently laid down the limp +hand he had raised; it was already cool. And behind him the maids began +to sob and wail unrebuked. + +Norma went out into the hall dazed and shaken. This was her first sight +of death. It made her feel a little faint and sick. Chris came and +talked to her for a few minutes; Annie had collapsed utterly, and was +under the doctor's care; Acton broke down, too, and Norma heard Chris +attempting to quiet him. There was audible sobbing all over the house +when, an hour or two later, Alice's beautiful body in a magnificent +casket was brought to lie in the old home beside the mother she had +adored. + +The fragrance of masses and masses of damp flowers began to penetrate +everywhere, and Norma made occasional pilgrimages in to Annie's bedside, +and told her what beautiful offerings were coming and coming and coming. +Joseph had reinforcements of sympathetic, black-clad young men, who kept +opening the front door, and murmuring at the muffled telephone. Annie's +secretary, a young woman about Norma's age, was detailed by Hendrick to +keep cards and messages straight--for every little courtesy must be +acknowledged on Annie's black-bordered card within a few weeks' +time--and Norma heard Joseph telephoning several of the prominent +florists that Mr. Liggett had directed that all flowers were to come to +the Melrose house. Nothing was overlooked. + +When Norma went to her room, big boxes were on the bed, boxes that held +everything that was simple and beautiful in mourning: plain, charming +frocks, a smart long seal-bordered coat, veils and gloves, small and +elegant hats, even black-bordered handkerchiefs. She dressed herself +soberly, yet not without that mournful thrill that fitness and +becomingness lends to bereavement. When she went back to Annie's side +Annie was in beautiful lengths of lustreless crape, too; they settled +down to low, sad conversation, with a few of the privileged old friends. +Chris was nowhere to be seen, but at about six o'clock Acton came in to +show them a telegram from Leslie, flying homeward. Judge Lee was +hurrying to them from Washington, and for a few minutes Annie's +handsome, bewildered little boys came in with a governess, and she cried +over them, and clung to them forlornly. + +After a distracted half-hour in the dining-room, when she and Acton and +Annie's secretary had soup and salad from a sort of buffet meal that was +going on there indefinitely, Norma went upstairs to find that the door +to the front upper sitting-room, closed for hours, was set ajar, and to +see a vague mass of beautiful flowers within--white and purple flowers, +and wreaths of shining dark round leaves. With a quick-beating heart she +stepped softly inside, and went to kneel at the nearer coffin, and cover +her face with her shaking hands. The thick sweetness of the wet leaves +and blossoms enveloped her. Candles were burning; there was no other +light. + +Two or three other women were in the room, catching their breath up +through their nostrils with little gasps, pressing folded handkerchiefs +against their trembling mouths, letting fresh tears well from their +tear-reddened eyes. Chris was standing a few feet away from the +white-clad, flower-circled, radiant sleeper who had been Alice; his arms +were folded, his splendid dark gaze fell upon her with a sort of sombre +calm; he seemed entirely unconscious of the pitying and sorrowful +friends who were moving noiselessly to and fro. + +In the candlelight there was a wavering smile on Alice's quiet face, her +broad forehead was unruffled, and her mouth mysteriously sweet. Norma's +eyes fell upon a familiar black coat, on the kneeling woman nearest her, +and with a start she recognized Aunt Kate. + +They left the room together a few minutes later, and Norma led her aunt +to her own room, where they talked tenderly of the dead. The older woman +was touched by the slender little black figure, and badly shaken by the +double tragedy, and she cried quite openly. Norma had Regina send her up +some tea, and petted and fussed about her in her little daughterly way. + +"I saw about Miss Alice this morning, but I had no idea the poor old +lady----!" Mrs. Sheridan commented sadly. "Well, well, it seems only +yesterday that here, in this very house--and they were all young +then----" Aunt Kate fell silent, and mused for a moment, before adding +briskly: "But now, will they want you, Norma, after the funeral, I mean? +Wolf wrote me----" + +"I don't think Aunt Annie wants me now," Norma said, and with a +heightened colour she added, suddenly, "But I belong here, now, Aunt +Kate--I know who I am at last!" + +Mrs. Sheridan's face did not move; but an indefinable tightness came +about her mouth, and an indefinable sharpness to her eyes. She looked at +Norma without speaking. + +"Aunt Marianna told me," the girl said, simply. "You're sorry," she +added, quickly, "I can see you are!" + +"No--I wouldn't say that, Baby!" But Mrs. Sheridan spoke heavily, and +ended on a sigh. There was a short silence. + +Then Regina came in with a note for Norma, who read it, and turned to +her aunt. + +"It's Chris--he wants very much to see you before you go away," she +said. "I wonder if you would ask Mr. Liggett to come in here, Regina?" +But five minutes later, when Chris came in, he looked so ill that she +was quick to spare him. "Chris, wouldn't to-morrow do--you look so +tired!" + +"I _am_ tired," Chris said, after quietly accepting Mrs. Sheridan's +murmured condolence, with his hand holding hers, as if he liked the big, +sympathetic woman. "But I want this off my mind before I see Judge Lee! +You are right, Mrs. Sheridan," he said, with a sort of boyish gruffness, +not yet releasing her hands, "my wife was an angel. I always knew +it--but I wish I could tell her so just once more!" + +"Ah, that's the very hardest thing about death," Mrs. Sheridan said, +sitting down, and quite frankly wiping from her eyes the tears that +sympathy for his sorrow had made spring again. "We'd always want one +more hour!" + +"But Norma perhaps has told you----?" Chris said, in a different tone. +"Told you of the--the remarkable talk we had yesterday--with my poor +mother-in-law----" + +Kate Sheridan nodded gravely. + +"Yes," she answered, almost reluctantly, "Norma is Theodore Melrose's +child. I have letters--all their letters. I knew her mother, that was +Louison Courtot, well. It was a mixed-up business--but you've got the +whole truth at last. I've lost more than one night's sleep over my share +of it, Mr. Liggett, thinking who this child was, and whether I had the +right to hold my tongue. + +"I was a widow when I went to Germany with Mrs. Melrose. She begged and +begged me to, for she was sick with worry about Miss Annie. Miss Annie +had been over there about eight months, and something she'd written had +made her mother feel that she was ill, or in trouble. Well, I didn't +want to leave my own children, but she coaxed me so hard that I went. We +sailed without cabling, and went straight to Leipsic, and to the +dreadful, dreary pension that Miss Annie was in--a dismal, lonely place. +She came downstairs to see her mother, and I'll never forget the scream +she gave, for she'd had no warning, poor child, and Müller had taken all +her money, and she was--well, we could see how she was. She began +laughing and crying, and her mother did, too, but Mrs. Melrose stopped +after a few minutes, and we couldn't stop Miss Annie at all. She +shrieked and sobbed and strangled until we saw she was ill, and her +mother gave me one look, and bundled her right out to the carriage, and +off to a better place, and we got a doctor and a nurse. But all that +night she was in danger of her life. I went in to her room that evening, +to put things in order, and she was lying on the bed like a dead +thing--white, sick, and with her eyes never moving off her mother's +face. I could hear her murmuring the whole story, the shame and the +bitter cruelty of it, crying sometimes--and her mother crying, too. + +"'And, Mama,' she said--the innocence of her! 'Mama, did the doctor tell +you that there might have been a baby?--I didn't know it myself until a +few weeks ago! And that's why they're so frightened about me now. But,' +she said, beginning to cry again, 'I should have hated it--I've always +hated it, and I'd rather have it all over--I don't want to have to face +anything more!' + +"Well, it looked then as if she couldn't possibly live through the +night, and all her mother could think of was to comfort her. She told +her that they would go away and forget it all, and Miss Annie clung to +her through the whole terrible thing. We none of us got any sleep that +night, and I think it was at about three o'clock the next morning that I +crept to the door, and the doctor--Doctor Leslie--an old English doctor +who was very kind, came to the door and gave me the poor little pitiful +baby in a blanket. I almost screamed when I took it, for the poor little +soul was alive, working her little mouth! I took her to my room, and +indeed I baptized her myself--I named her Mary for my mother, and Leslie +for the doctor, but I never thought she'd need a name--then. She was +under four pounds, and with a little claw like a monkey's paw, and so +thin we didn't dare dress her--we thought she was three months too soon, +then, and I just sat watching her, waiting for her to die, and thinking +of my own----! + +"Miss Annie was given up the next day, she'd gone into a brain fever, +but my poor little soul was wailing a good healthy wail--I remember I +cried bitterly when the doctor told me not to hope for her! But she +lived--and on the fourth day Mrs. Melrose sent us away, and we went and +stayed in the country for two months after that. + +"Then I had a letter from the Riviera, the first that'd come. Miss Annie +was getting well, her hair was coming out curly, and she hardly +remembered anything about what had happened at all. She wasn't nineteen +then, poor child! She had cried once, her mother wrote, and had said she +thanked God the baby had died and that was all she ever said of it. + +"I brought the baby home, and for nearly three years she lived with my +own, and of course Mrs. Melrose paid me for it. And then one day Louison +Courtot came to see me--I'd known her, of course--Mr. Theodore's wife, +that had been Miss Annie's maid. She had a letter from Mrs. Melrose, and +she took Leslie away, and gave her to her grandmother--just according to +plan. Well, I didn't like it--though it gave the child her rights, but +it didn't seem honest. I had no call to interfere, and a few months +later Mrs. Melrose gave me the double house in Brooklyn, that you'll +well remember, Norma--and your own father made out the deed of gift, Mr. +Chris----! + +"And then, perhaps a year later, Louison came to call on me again, and +with her was a little girl--four years old, and I looked at her, and +looked at Louison, and I said, 'My God--that's a Melrose!' She said, +yes, it was Theodore's child." + +"Norma!" Chris said. + +"Norma--and I remember her as if it was yesterday! With a blue velvet +coat on her, and a white collar, and the way she dragged off her little +mittens to go over and play with Rose and Wolf--and the little coaxing +air she had! So then Louison told me the story, how she had never told +Mrs. Melrose that Theodore really had a daughter, because she hated her +so! But she was going to be married again, and go to Canada, and she +wanted me to keep the baby until she could send for her. I said I would +see how it went, but I could see then that there never was in the +world----" Mrs. Sheridan interrupted herself, coughed, and glanced at +the girl. "Well, we liked Norma right then and there!" she finished, a +little tamely. + +"Oh, Aunt Kate!" Norma said, smiling through tears, her hand tight upon +the older woman's, "you never will praise me!" + +"So Norma," the story went on, "had her supper that night between my two +children, and for fourteen years she never knew that she wasn't our own. +And perhaps she never would have known if Louison hadn't written me that +she was in a hospital--she was to have an operation, and she was willing +at last to make peace with her husband's family. In the same letter was +her husband's note that she was gone, so I had to use my own judgment +then. And when I heard Norma talk of the rich girls she saw in the +bookstore, Mr. Chris, and knew how she loved what money could do for +her, it seemed to me that at least I must tell her grandmother the +truth. So we came here, three years ago, and if it wasn't for Miss +Alice's mistake about her, perhaps the story would have come out then! +But that's all the truth." + +Chris nodded, his arms folded on his chest, his tired face very +thoughtful. + +"It makes her a rich woman, Mrs. Sheridan," he said. + +"I suppose so, sir. I understand Mr. Melrose--the old gentleman--left +everything to his son, Theodore." + +"But not only that," Chris said. "She can claim every penny that has +ever been paid over to Leslie, all through her minority, and since she +came of age, and she also inherits the larger part of her grandmother's +estate, under the will. Probably Mrs. Melrose would have changed that, +if she had lived when all this came to light, and given that same legacy +to Leslie, but we can't act on that supposition. The court will +probably feel that a very grave injustice has been done Norma, and exact +the full arrears." + +"But, Chris," Norma said, quickly, "surely some way can be found to +_give_ Leslie all that would have come to me----" + +"Well, that, of course, would be pure generosity on your part!" he said, +quietly. "However, it would seem to me desirable all round," he added, +"to keep this in the family." + +"Oh, I think so!" Norma agreed, eagerly. + +"Annie and Hendrick must be informed, and, as Leslie's mother, Annie +will provide for her some day, of course. We'll discuss all that later. +But to-day I only wanted to clear up a few points before I see Judge +Lee. He has the will, I believe. He will be here to-morrow morning. In +the meanwhile, I think I would say nothing, Norma, just because Annie is +so upset, and if Leslie heard any garbled story, before she got +here----" + +"Oh, I agree with you entirely, Chris! Anything that makes it easier all +round!" Norma could afford to be magnanimous and agreeable. She would +not have been human not to feel herself the most interesting figure in +all this dramatic situation, not to know that thoughtfulness and +generosity were the most charming parts of her new rôle. Quietly, +affectionately, she went to the door with Aunt Kate. + +"I wish I could go home with you!" she said. "But I think they need me +here! And if Wolf should come up Saturday, Aunt Kate, you'll tell him +about the funeral----" + +"Rose said he wasn't coming up on Saturday," his mother said. "But if he +does, of course he'll understand! Remember, Norma," she added, drawing +the girl aside a moment, in the lower hall, "remember that they've all +been very kind to you, dear! It's going to be hard for them all!" + +"Yes, I know!" Norma said, hastily, the admonition not to her taste. + +"And what you and Wolf will do with all that money----!" her aunt mused, +shaking her head. "Well, one thing at a time! But I know," she finished, +fondly, "my girl will show them all what a generous and a lovely nature +she has, in all the changes and shifts!" + +Clever Aunt Kate! Norma smiled to herself as she went upstairs. She had +hundreds of times before this guided the girl by premature confidence +and praise; she knew how Norma loved the approbation of those about her. + +Not but what Norma meant to be everything that was broad and considerate +now; she had assumed that position from the beginning. Leslie's chagrin, +Aunt Annie's consternation, should be respected and humoured. They had +sometimes shown her the arrogant, the supercilious side of the Melrose +nature, in the years gone by. Now she, the truest Melrose of them all, +would show them real greatness of soul. She would talk it all over with +Wolf, of course---- + +She missed Wolf. It was, as always, a curiously unsatisfying atmosphere, +this of the old Melrose house. The whispers, the hushed footsteps, the +lowered voices, Aunt Annie's plaintive heroism in her superb crapes, the +almost belligerent loyalty of the intimate friends who praised and +marvelled at her, the costly flowers--thousands of dollars' worth of +them--the extra men helping Joseph to keep everything decorous and +beautiful--somehow it all sickened Norma, and she wished that Wolf +could come and take her for a walk, and talk to her about it. He would +be interested in it all, and he would laugh at her account of the +undertakers, and he would break into elementary socialism when the cost +of the whole pompous pageant was estimated. + +And what would he think of her new-found wealth? Norma tried to imagine +it, but somehow she could not think of Wolf as very much affected. He +hated society, primarily, and he would never be idle, not for the +treasures of India. He would let her spend it as she pleased, and go on +working rapturously at his valves and meters and gauges, perhaps +delighted if she bought him the costliest motor-car made, or the finest +of mechanical piano-players, but quite as willing that the pearls about +his wife's throat should cost fifty dollars as fifty thousand, and quite +as anxious that the heiress of the Melroses should "make good" with his +associate workers as if she had been still a little clerk from Biretta's +Bookshop! + +But cheerfully indifferent as he was to everything that made life worth +living to such a man as Christopher Liggett, she knew that he would not +go to California without her unless there was a definite break between +them. She knew she could not persuade him to leave her here, as a normal +and pleasant solution, just until everything was settled, and until they +could see a little further ahead. No, Wolf was annoyingly conventional +where his wife was concerned: her place was with him, unless for some +secondary reason they had decided to part. And she knew that if he let +her go it would be because he felt that he never should have claimed +her--that, in the highest sense, he never had had her at all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +Moving automatically through the solemn scenes of the next two days, +that, mused Norma, must be the solution. Wolf must go alone to +California. Not because she did not love him--who could help loving him +indeed?--but because she loved Chris more--or differently, at least, and +she belonged to Chris's world now, by every right of birth, wealth, and +position. + +"Of course you must stay here," Chris said, positively, on the one +occasion when they spoke of her plans. "In the first place, there is the +estate to settle, we shall need you. Then there are books--pictures--all +that sort of thing to manage, the old servants to dispose of, and +probably this house to sell--but we can discuss that. Judge Lee has felt +for a long time that this is the right site for a big apartment house, +especially if we can get hold of Boyer's plot. You had better take a +suite at one of the hotels, and later we can look up the right sort of +an apartment for you." + +Not a word of his personal hopes; missing them she felt oddly cheated. + +"Wolf goes to California next month," she said. Christopher gave her a +sharp, quizzing look. + +"But I think you had decided, weeks ago, that you were not going?" + +"Yes--I've told him so!" she faltered. She felt strangely lost and +forlorn, releasing her hold on Wolf, and yet not able to claim +Christopher's support. It was contemptible--it was weak in her, she +felt, but she could not quite choke down her hunger for one reassuring +word from Chris. "I feel so--lonely, Chris," she said. + +He gave a quick, uneasy glance about the breakfast-room, where they were +having a hasty three-o'clock luncheon. No one was within hearing. + +"You understand my position now," he said. + +"Oh, of course!" But she felt oddly chilled. Chris as the bereaved +husband and son-in-law was perfect, of course, almost too perfect. If +Wolf loved a woman---- + +But then the fancy of Wolf, married, and confessedly loving a woman who +was another man's wife, was absurd, anyway. Wolf did not belong to the +world where such things were common, it was utterly foreign to his +nature, with all the rest. Wolf did not go to operas and picture +galleries and polo matches; he did not know how to comport himself at +afternoon teas or summer lunches at the country club. + +And Norma's life would be spent in this atmosphere now. She would get +her frocks from Madame Modiste, and her hats from the Avenue +specialists; she would be a smart and a conspicuous little figure at +Lenox and Bar Harbour and Newport; she would spend her days with +masseuses and dressmakers, and with French and Italian teachers. She +could travel, some day--but here the thought of Chris crept in, and she +was a little hurt at Chris. His exquisite poise, his sureness of being +absolutely correct, was one of his charms. But it was a little hard not +to have the depth of his present feeling for her sweep him off his feet +just occasionally. He had, indeed, shown her far more daring favour +when Alice was alive--meeting Norma down town, driving her about, +walking with her where they might reasonably fear to be seen now and +then. + +It came to her painfully that, even there, Chris's respect for the +conventions of his world was not at fault. Flirtations, "crushes," +"cases," and "suitors" were entirely acceptable in the circle that Chris +so conspicuously ornamented. To pay desperate attentions to a pretty +young married woman was quite excusable; it would have been universally +understood. + +But to show the faintest trace of interest in her while his wife lay +dead, and while his house was plunged into mourning, no--Chris would not +do that. That would not be good form, it would be censured as not being +compatible with the standard of a gentleman. His conduct now must be +beyond criticism, he was the domestic dictator in this, as in every +emergency. Norma listened while he and Hendrick and Annie discussed the +funeral. + +They were in the big upstairs bedroom that Annie had appropriated to +herself during these days. Annie was resting on a couch in a nest of +little pillows, her long bare hands very white against the blackness of +her gown. Hendrick did most of the talking, Chris listening +thoughtfully, accepting, rejecting, Norma a mere spectator. She decided +that Annie was playing her part with a stimulating consciousness of its +dignity, and that Chris was not much better. Honest, red-faced Hendrick +was only genuinely anxious to arrange these details without a scene. + +"I take Annie up the aisle," Chris said, "you'll be a pall-bearer, +Hendrick. Mrs. Lee says that the Judge feels he is too old to serve, so +he will follow me, with Leslie. She gets here this afternoon. Then +Acton brings Norma, and that fills the family pew. Now, in the next +pew----" + +It reminded Norma of something, she could not for a moment remember +what. Then it came to her. Of course!--Leslie's wedding. They had +discussed precedence and pews just that way. Music, too. Hendrick was +making a note of music--Alice's favourite dirge was to be played, and +"Come Ye Disconsolate" which had been sung at Theodore's funeral, +thirteen years ago, and at his father's, seven years before that, was to +be sung by the famous church choir. + +The church was unfortunately small, so cards were to be given to the few +hundreds that it would accommodate. Hendrick suggested a larger church, +but Annie shut her eyes, leaning back, and faintly shaking her head. + +"Please--Hendrick--_please_!" she articulated, wearily. "Mama loved that +church--and there's so little that we can do now--so little that she +ever wanted, dear old saint!" + +It was not hypocrisy, Norma thought. Annie had been a good daughter. +Indeed she had been unusually loyal, as the daughters of Annie's set saw +their filial duties. But something in this overwhelming, becoming grief, +combined with so lively a sense of what was socially correct, jarred +unpleasantly on the younger woman. Of course, funerals had to have +management, like everything else. And it was only part of Annie's code +to believe that an awkwardness now, a social error ever so faint, an +opportunity given the world for amusement or criticism, would reflect +upon the family and upon the dead. + +Norma carried on long mental conversations with Wolf, criticizing or +defending the Melroses. She imagined herself telling him of the shock it +had given her to realize that her grandmother's body was barely cold +before an autocratic and noisy French hairdresser had arrived, demanding +electric heat and hand-glasses as casually as if his customer had been +the bustling, vain old lady of a week ago. She laughed secretly whenever +she recalled the solemn undertaker who had solicited her own aid in +filling out a blank. His first melancholy question, "And thud dame of +the father----" Norma had momentarily supposed to be the beginning of a +prayer, and it had been with an almost hysterical revulsion of feeling +that she had said: "Oh, her father's name? Oh, Francis Dabney Murison." + +Wolf, who would not laugh at one tenth of the things that amused Chris, +or that Annie found richly funny, would laugh at these little glimpses +of a formal funeral, Norma knew, and he would remember other odd bits of +reading that were in the same key--from Macaulay, or Henry George, or a +scrap of newspaper that had chanced to be pasted upon an engine-house +wall. + +Leslie came into the house late on the afternoon of Friday, and there +was much fresh crying between her and Annie. Leslie had on new black, +too, "just what I could grab down there," she explained--and was pettish +and weary with fatigue and the nervous shock. She gave only the side of +her cheek to Acton's dutiful kiss, and answered his question about the +baby with an impatient, "Oh, heavens, she's all _right_! What could be +the matter with her? She did have a cold, but now she's all right--and +when I'm half-crazy about Grandma and poor Aunt Alice, I do _wish_ you +wouldn't take me up so quickly. I've been travelling all night, and my +head is splitting! If it was _I_ that had the cold, I don't believe +you'd be so fussy!" + +"Poor little girl, it's hard for you not to have seen them once more," +Christopher said, tenderly, failing to meet the half-amused and +half-indignant glance that Norma sent him. Leslie burst into +self-pitying tears, and held tight to his hand, as they all sat down in +Annie's room. + +"I believe I feel it most for you, Uncle Chris," she sobbed. + +"It changes my life--ends it as surely as it did hers," Chris said, +quietly. "Just now--well, I don't see ahead--just now. After awhile I +believe she'll come back to me--her sweetness and goodness and +bigness--for Alice was the biggest woman, and the finest, that I ever +knew; and then I'll try to live again--just as she would have had me. +And meanwhile, I try to comfort myself that I tried to show her, in +whatever clumsy way I could, that I appreciated her!" + +"You not only showed her, you showed all the world, Chris," Annie said, +stretching a hand toward him. Norma felt a sudden uprising of some +emotion singularly akin to contempt. + +A maid signalled her, and she stepped to the dressing-room door. A +special delivery letter had come from Wolf. The maid went away again, +but Norma stood where she was, reading it. Wolf had written: + + DEAR NORMA, + + Mother wrote me of all that you have been going through, and I + am as sorry as I can be for all their trouble, and glad that + they have you to help them through. Mother also told me of the + change in your position there; I had always known vaguely that + we didn't understand it all. I remember now your coming to us + in Brooklyn, and your mother crying when she went away. I know + this will make a difference to you, and be one more reason for + your not coming West with me. You must use your own judgment, + but the longer I think of it, the meaner it seems to me for me + to take advantage of your coming to me, last spring, and our + getting married. I've thought about it a great deal. Nothing + will ever make me like, or respect, the man you say you care + for. I don't believe you do care for him. And I would rather see + you dead than married to him. But it isn't for me to say, of + course. If you like him, that's enough. If you ever stop liking + him, and will come back to me, I'll meet you anywhere, or take + you anywhere--it won't make any difference what Mother thinks, + or Rose thinks, or any one else. I've written and destroyed this + letter about six times. I just want you to know that if you + think I am standing in the way of your happiness, I won't stand + there, even though I believe you are making an awful mistake + about that particular man. And I want to thank you for the + happiest eight months that any man ever had. + + Yours always, + WOLF. + +Norma stood perfectly still, after she read the letter through, with the +clutch of vague pain and shame at her heart. The stiff, stilted words +did not seem like Wolf, and the definite casting-off hurt her. Why +couldn't they be friends, at least? Granted that their marriage was a +mistake, it had never had anything but harmony in it, companionship, +mutual respect and understanding, and a happy intimacy as clean and +natural as the meeting of flowers. + +She was standing, motionless and silent, when Leslie's voice came +clearly to her ears. Evidently Acton, Annie, and Leslie were alone, in +Annie's room, out of sight, but not a dozen feet away from where she +stood. Norma did not catch the exact words, but she caught her name, and +her heart stood still with the instinctive terror of the trapped. Annie +had not heard either evidently; she said "What, dear?" sympathetically. + +"I asked what's Norma doing here--isn't she overdoing her relationship a +little?" Leslie said, languidly. + +Norma's face burned, she could hardly breathe as she waited. + +"Mama sent for her, for some reason," Annie answered, with a little +drawl. + +"After all, she's a sort of cousin, isn't she?" Acton added. + +"Oh, don't jump on me for _everything_ I say, Acton," Leslie said, +angrily. "My _goodness_----!" + +"Chris says that Mama left her the Melrose Building--and I don't know +what besides!" Annie said. There was a moment of silence. + +"I don't believe it! What for!" Leslie exclaimed, then, incredulously. +And after another silence she added, in a puzzled tone, "Do _you_ +understand it, Aunt Annie?" + +Evidently Annie answered with a glance or a shrug, for there was another +pause before Annie said: + +"What I don't like about it, and what I do wish Mama had thought of, is +the way that people comment on a thing like that. It's not as if Norma +needed it; she has a husband to take care of her, now, and it makes us a +little ridiculous! One likes to feel that, at a time like this, +everything is to be done decently, at least--not enormous legacies to +comparative strangers----" + +"I like Norma, we've all been kind to her," Leslie contributed, as +Annie's voice died listlessly away. "I've always made allowances for +her. But I confess that it was rather a surprise to find her here, one +of the family----! After all, we Melroses have always rather prided +ourselves on standing together, haven't we? If she wants to wear black +for Grandma, why, it makes no difference to _me_----" + +"I suppose the will could be broken without any notoriety, Chris?" Annie +asked, in an undertone. Norma's heart turned sick. She had not supposed +that Chris was listening without protest to this conversation. + +"No," she heard him say, briefly and definitely, "that's impossible!" + +"It isn't the money----" Annie began. But Leslie interrupted with a +bitter little laugh. + +"It may not be with you, Aunt Annie, but I assure you I wouldn't mind a +few extra thousands," she said. + +"I think you get the Newport house, Leslie," Chris said, in a tone whose +dubiety only Norma could understand. + +"The Newport house!" Leslie exclaimed. "Why, but don't I own _this_, +now? I thought----" + +"I don't really know," Chris answered. "We'll open the will next week, +and then we'll straighten everything out." + +"In the meanwhile," Annie said, lazily, "if she suggests going back to +her own family, for Heaven's sake don't stop her! I like Norma--always +have. But after all, there are times when _any_ outsider--no matter how +agreeable she is----" + +"I think she'll go immediately after the funeral," Chris said, +constrainedly and uncertainly. + +Norma, suddenly roused both to a realization of the utter impropriety of +her overhearing all this, and the danger of detection, slipped from the +dressing-room by the hall door, and so escaped to her own room. + +She shut the door behind her, walked irresolutely to the bed, stood +there for a moment, with her hands pressed to her cheeks, walked blindly +to the window, only to pause again, paced the room mechanically for a +few minutes, and finally found herself seated on the broad, +old-fashioned sill of the dressing-room window, staring down unseeing at +the afternoon traffic in Madison Avenue. + +Oh, how she hated them--cruel, selfish, self-satisfied +snobs--snobs--snobs that they were! Leslie--Leslie "making allowances +for her!" Leslie making allowances for _her_! And Annie--hoping that for +Heaven's sake nobody would prevent her from going home after the +funeral! The remembered phrases burned and stung like acid upon her +soul; she wanted to hurt Annie and Leslie as they had hurt her, she +wanted to shame them and anger them. + +Yes, and she could do it, too! She could do it! They little knew that +within a few days' time utter consternation and upheaval, notoriety and +shame, and the pity of their intimates, would disrupt the surface of +their lives, that surface that they felt it so important to keep smooth! +"People will comment," Norma quoted to herself, with a bitter +smile--indeed people would comment, as they had never commented even +upon the Melroses before! Leslie would be robbed not only of her +inheritance but of her name and of her position. And Annie--even +magnificent Aunt Annie must accept, with what surface veneer of +cordiality she might affect, the only child of her only brother, the +heir to the family estate. + +"I believe I'm horribly tired," Norma said to herself, looking out into +the dimming winter day, "or else I'm nervous, or something! I wish I +could go over to Rose's and help her put the children to bed----! Or I +wish Aunt Kate would telephone for me--I'm sick of this place! Or I wish +Wolf would come walking around that corner--oh, if he would--if he +would----!" Norma said, staring out with an intensity so great that it +seemed to her for the moment that Wolf indeed might come. "If only he'd +come to take me to dinner, at some little Italian place with a backyard, +and skyscrapers all about, so that we could talk!" + +Regina, coming in a little later, saw that Mrs. Sheridan had been +crying, and reproached her with the affectionate familiarity of an old +servitor. + +"You that were always so light-hearted, Miss, it don't seem right for +you to grieve so!" said Regina, a little tearful herself. Norma smiled, +and wiped her eyes. + +"This is a nice beginning," the girl told herself, as she bathed and +dressed for the evening ordeal of calls, and messages, and solemn visits +to the chamber of death, "this is a nice beginning for a woman who knows +that the man she loves is free to marry her, and who has just fallen +heir to a great fortune!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +The evening moved through its dark and sombre hours unchanged; Joseph's +assistants opened and opened and opened the door. More flowers--more +flowers--and more. Notes, telephone messages, black-clad callers +murmuring in the dimness of the lower hall, maids coming noiselessly and +deferentially, the clergyman, the doctor, the choir-master, old Judge +Lee tremulous and tedious, all her world circled about the lifeless form +of the old mistress of the house. Certain persons went quietly upstairs, +women in rich furs, and bare-headed, uncomfortable-looking men, entered +the front room, and passed through with serious faces and slowly shaking +heads. + +Chris spoke to Norma in the hall, just after she had said good-night to +some rather important callers, assuring them that Annie and Leslie were +well, and had been kissed herself as their representative. He extended +her a crushed document in which she was alarmed to recognize Wolf's +letter. + +"Oh--I think I dropped that in Aunt Annie's dressing-room!" Norma said, +turning scarlet, and wondering what eyes had seen it. + +"There was no envelope; a maid brought it to her, and Annie read it," +Chris said. Norma's eyes were racing through it. + +"There are no names!" she said, thankfully. + +"It would have been a most unfortunate--a--a horrible thing, if there +had been," Chris commented. Something in his manner said as plainly as +words that dropping the letter had been a breach of good manners, had +been extremely careless, almost reprehensible. Norma felt herself +unreasonably antagonized. + +"Oh, I don't know! It's true," she said, recklessly. + +"Annie is a very important person in your plans, Norma," Chris reminded +her. "It would be most regrettable for you to lose your head now, to +give everyone an opportunity of criticizing you. I should advise you to +enlist your Aunt Annie's sympathies just as soon as you can. She is, of +all the world, the one woman who can direct you--help you equip +yourself--tell you what to get, and how to establish yourself. If Annie +chose to be unfriendly, to ignore you----" + +"I don't see Annie von Behrens ignoring me--now!" Norma said, with +anger, and throwing her head back proudly. They were in a curtained +alcove on the landing of the angled stairway, completely hidden by the +great curtain and by potted palms. "When my revered aunt realizes----" + +"Your money will have absolutely no effect on Annie," Chris said, +quickly. + +"No, but what I _am_ will!" Norma answered, breathing hard. + +"Not while we keep it to ourselves, as of course we must," Chris +answered, in displeasure. "No one but ourselves will ever know----" + +"The whole world will know!" Norma said, in sudden impatience with +smoothing and hiding and pretending. Chris straightened his eyeglasses +on their ribbon, and gave her his scrutinizing, unruffled glance. + +"That would be foolish, I think, Norma!" he told her, calmly. "It would +be a most unnecessary piece of vulgarity. Old families are constantly +hushing up unfortunate chapters in their history; there is no reason why +the whole thing should not be kept an absolute secret. My dear girl, you +have just had a most extraordinary piece of good fortune--but you must +be very careful how you take it! You will be--you are--a tremendously +wealthy woman--and you will be in the public eye. Upon how you conduct +yourself now your future position largely depends. Annie can--and I +believe will--gladly assist you. Acton and Leslie will go abroad, I +suppose--they can't live here. But a breath of scandal--or an +ill-advised slip on your part--would make us all ridiculous. You must +play your cards carefully. If you could stay with Annie, now----" + +"I _hate_ Aunt Annie!" Norma interrupted, childishly. + +"My dear girl--you're over-tired, you don't mean what you say!" Chris +said, putting his hand on her arm. Under the light touch she dropped her +eyes, and stood still. "Norma, do be advised by me in this," he urged +her earnestly. "It is one of the most important crises in your life. +Annie can put you exactly where you want to be, introduced and accepted +everywhere--a constant guest in her house, in her opera box, or Annie +can drop you--I've seen her do it!--and it would take you ten years to +make up the lost ground!" + +"It didn't take Annie ten years to be a--a--social leader!" Norma +argued, resentfully. + +"Annie? Ah, my dear, a woman like Annie isn't born twice in a hundred +years! She has--but you know what she has, Norma. Languages, +experiences, friends--most of all she has the grand manner--the _belle +aire_." + +Norma was fighting to regain her composure over almost unbearable hurt +and chagrin. + +"But, Chris," she argued, desperately, "you've always said that you had +no particular use for Annie's crowd--that you'd rather live in some +little Italian place--or travel slowly through India----" + +"I said I would like to do that, and so I would!" he answered. "But +believe me, Norma, your money makes a very different sort of thing +possible now, and you would be mad--you would be _mad_!--to throw it +away. Put yourself in Annie's hands," he finished, with the first hint +of his old manner that she had seen for forty-eight hours, "and have +your car, your maids, your little establishment on the upper East Side, +and then--then"--and now his arm was about her, and he had tipped up her +face close to his own--"and then you and I will break our little +surprise to them!" he said, kindly. "Only be careful, Norma. Don't let +them say that you did anything ostentatious or conspicuous----" + +She freed herself, her heart cold and desolate almost beyond bearing, +and Chris answered her as if she had spoken. + +"Yes--and I must go, too! To-morrow will be a terrible day for us all. +Oh, one thing more, Norma! Annie asked me if I had any idea of who the +man was--the man Wolf speaks of there in that note--and I had to say +someone, just to quiet her. So I said that I thought it was Roy +Gillespie--you don't mind?--I knew he liked you tremendously, and I +happened to think of him! Is that all right?" + +She made no audible answer, almost immediately leaving him, and going +upstairs. There was nothing to do, in her room, and she knew that she +could really be of use downstairs, among the intimate old friends who +were protecting Annie and Leslie from annoyance, but she felt in no mood +for that. She hated herself and everybody; she was half-mad with fatigue +and despondency. + +Oh, what was the use of living--what was the use of living! Chris +despised her; that was quite plain. He had advised her to-night as he +would have advised an ignorant servant--an inexperienced commoner who +might make the family ridiculous--who might lose her head, and descend +to "unnecessary pieces of vulgarity!" Leslie had always "made allowances +for Norma"; Annie considered her an "outsider." Wolf was going to +California without her, and even Aunt Kate--even Aunt Kate had scolded +her, reminded her that the Melroses had always been kind to her! + +Norma's tears flowed fast, there seemed to be no end to the flood. She +sopped them away with the black-bordered handkerchief, and tried walking +about, and drinking cold water, but it was of no use. Her heart seemed +broken, there was no avenue for her thoughts that did not lead to +loneliness and grief. They had all pretended to love her--but not one of +them did--not one of them did! She had never had a father, and never had +a mother, she had never had a fair chance! + +Money--she thought darkly. But what was the use of money if everyone +hated her, if everyone thought she was selfish and stupid and ignorant +and superfluous! Why find a beautiful apartment, and buy beautiful +clothes, if she must flatter and cajole her way into Annie's favour to +enjoy them, and bear Chris's superior disdain for her stumbling literary +criticisms and her amateurish Italian? + +And she was furious at Chris. How dared he--how dared he insult her by +coupling her name with that of Roy Gillespie, to quiet Annie and to +protect himself! She was a married woman; she had never given him any +reason to take such liberties with her dignity! Roy Gillespie, indeed! +Annie was to amuse herself by fancying Norma secretly enamoured of that +big, stupid, simple Gillespie boy, who was twenty-two years old, and +hardly out of college! And it was for him that Norma was presumably +leaving her husband! + +It was insufferable. It was insufferable. She would go straight to +Annie--but no, she couldn't do that. She couldn't tell Annie, on the +night before Annie's sister was buried, that that same sister's husband +loved and was beloved by another woman. + +"Still, it's true," Norma mused, darkly. "Only we seem unable to speak +the truth in this house! Well, I'm stifling here----" + +She had been leaning out of the open window, the night was soft and +warm. Norma looked at her wrist watch; it was nine o'clock. A sudden mad +impulse took her: she would go over to Jersey, and see Rose. It was not +so very late, the babies kept Rose and Harry up until almost eleven. She +thirsted suddenly for Rose, for Rose's beautiful, pure little face, her +puzzled, earnest blue eyes under black eyebrows, her pleasant, unready +words that were always so true and so kind. + +Rapidly Norma buttoned the new black coat, dropped the filmy veil, fled +down the back stairway, and through a bright, hot pantry, where maids +were laughing and eating gaily. She explained to their horrified silence +that she was slipping out for a breath of air, went through doorways +and gratings, and found herself in the blessed coolness and darkness of +the side street. + +Ah--this was delicious! She belonged here, flying along inconspicuous +and unmolested in light and darkness, just one of the hurrying and +indifferent millions. The shop windows, the subways, the very +gum-machines and the chestnut ovens with their blowing lamps looked +friendly to Norma to-night; she loved every detail of blowing newspapers +and yawning fellow-passengers, in the hot, bright tube. + +On the other side she was hurrying off the train with the plunging crowd +when her heart jumped wildly at the sight of a familiar shabby overcoat +some fifty feet ahead of her, topped by the slightly tipped slouch hat +that Wolf always wore. Friday night! her thoughts flashed joyously, and +he was coming to New Jersey to see his mother and Rose! Of all fortunate +accidents--the one person in the world she wanted to see--and must see +now! + +Norma fled after the coat, dodging and slipping through every opening, +and keeping the rapidly moving slouch hat before her. She was quite out +of breath when she came abreast of the man, and saw, with a sickening +revulsion, that it was not Wolf. + +What the man thought Norma never knew or cared. The surprising blankness +of the disappointment made her almost dizzy; she turned aside blindly, +and stumbled into the quiet backwater behind a stairway, where she could +recover her self-possession and endure unobserved the first pangs of +bitterness. It seemed to her that she would die if she could not see +Wolf, if she had to endure another minute of loneliness and darkness and +aimless wandering through the night. + +Rose's house was only three well-lighted blocks from the station; Norma +almost ran them. Other houses, she noted, were still brightly lighted at +quarter to eleven o'clock, and Rose's might be. Aunt Kate was there, and +she and Rose might well be sitting up, with the restless smaller baby, +or to finish some bit of sewing. + +It was a double house, and the windows that matched Rose's bedroom and +dining-room were lighted in the wrong half. But all Rose's side was +black and dark and silent. + +Norma, for the first time in her life, needed courage for the knocking +and ringing and explaining. If they would surely be kind to her, she +might chance it, she thought. But if Aunt Kate was angry with her +vacillations in regard to Wolf, and if Rose had also taken Wolf's side, +then she knew that she, Norma, would begin to cry, and disgrace herself, +and have good-natured simple old Harry poking about and wondering what +was the matter---- + +No, she didn't dare risk it. So she waited in the little garden, looking +up at the windows, praying that little Harry would wake up, or that the +baby's little acid wail would drift through the open window, and then +the dim light bloom suddenly, and show a silhouette of Rose, tall and +sweet in her wrapper, with a great rope of braid falling over one +shoulder. + +But moments went by, and there was no sound. Norma went to the street +lamp a hundred feet away and looked at her wrist watch. Quarter past +eleven; it was useless to wait any longer; it had been a senseless quest +from the beginning. + +She went back to the city by train and boat, crying desolately in the +darkness above the ploughing of the invisible waters. She cried with +pity for herself, for it seemed to her that life was very unfair to her. + +"Is it _my_ fault that I inherit all that money?" she asked the dark +night angrily. "Is it my fault that I love Chris Liggett? Isn't it +better to be honest about it than live with a man I don't love? Isn't +that the worst thing that woman can endure--a loveless marriage? + +"But that's just the High School Debating Society!" she interrupted +herself, suddenly, using a phrase that she and Wolf had coined long ago +for glib argument that is untouched by actual knowledge of life. +"Loveless marriage--and wife in name only! I wonder if I am getting to +be one of the women who throw those terms about as an excuse for just +sheer selfishness and stupidity!" + +And her aunt's phrases came back to her, making her wonder unhappily +just where the trouble lay, just what sort of a woman she was. + +"I think you will be whatever you want to be, Norma," Mrs. Sheridan had +said, "you're a woman now--you're Wolf's wife----" + +But that was just what she did not feel herself, a woman and Wolf's +wife. She was a girl--interested in shaggy sport coats and lace +stockings; she did not want to be any one's wife! She wanted to punish +Leslie and Aunt Annie, and to have plenty of money, and to have a +wonderful little apartment on the east side of the Park, and delicious +clothes; she wanted to become a well-known figure in New York society, +at Palm Beach and the summer resorts, and at the opera and the big +dining-rooms of the hotels. + +"And I could do it, too!" Norma thought, walking through the cool, dark +night restlessly. "In two years--in three or four, anyway, I would be +where Aunt Annie is; or at least I would if Chris and I were married--he +could do anything! I suppose," she added, with youthful recklessness, "I +suppose there are lots of old fogies who would never understand my +getting separated from Wolf, but it isn't as if _he_ didn't understand, +for I know he does! Wolf has always known that it took just _certain +things_ to make me happy!" + +Something petty, and contemptible, and unworthy, in this last argument +smote her ears unpleasantly, and she was conscious of flushing in the +dark. + +"Well, people have to be happy, don't they?" she reasoned, with a rising +inflection at the end of the phrase that surprised and a trifle +disquieted her. "Don't they?" she asked herself, thoughtfully, as she +crept in at the side door of the magnificent, cumbersome old house that +was her own now. No one but an amazed-looking maid saw her, as she +regained her room, and fifteen minutes later she was circulating about +the dim and mournful upper floor again. Annie called her into her room. + +"You look fearfully tired, Norma! Do get some sleep," her aunt said, +with unusual kindness. "I'm going to try to, although my head is aching +terribly, and I know I can't. To-morrow will be hard on us all. I shall +go home to-morrow night, and I'm trying to persuade Leslie to come with +me." + +"No, I shan't! I'm going to stay here," Leslie said, with a sort of +weary pettishness. "My house is closed, and poor Chris is going to begin +closing Aunt Alice's house, and he doesn't want to go to a club--he'd +much rather be here, wouldn't he, Norma?" + +Something in the tired way that both aunt and niece appealed to her +touched Norma, and she answered sympathetically: + +"Truly, I think he would, Aunt Annie. And if little Patricia and the +nurse get here on Sunday, she won't be lonely." + +"Norma, why don't you stay here, too--your husband's in Philadelphia," +Leslie asked her. "Do! We shall have so much to do----" + +"We haven't seen the will, but I believe Judge Lee is going to bring it +on Wednesday," Annie said, "and Chris said that Mama left you--well, I +don't know what! I wish you could arrange to stay the rest of the week, +at least!" + +"I will!" Norma agreed. She had been feeling neglected and lonely, and +this unexpected friendliness was heartwarming. + +"You've been a real comfort," Annie said, good-naturedly. "You're such a +sensible child, Norma. I hope one of these days--afterward"--and Annie +faintly indicated with her eyebrows the direction of the front room from +which the funeral procession would start to-morrow--"afterward, that +you'll let us know your husband better. And now it's long past midnight, +girls, and you ought to be in bed!" + +It was mere casual civility on Annie's part, as accidental as had been +her casual unkindness a few hours before. But it lifted Norma's heart, +and she went out into the hall in a softer frame of mind than she had +known for a long time. She managed another word with Chris before going +to her room for almost nine hours of reviving and restoring sleep. + +"Chris, I feel terribly about breaking this news to Aunt Annie and +Leslie while they feel so badly about Aunt Alice and Aunt Marianna!" she +said. Again Chris gave the hallway, where she had met him, a quick, +uneasy scrutiny before he answered her: + +"Well, of course! But it can't be helped." + +"But do you think that we could put it off until Wednesday, Chris, when +the will is to be read? Everyone will be here then, and it would seem a +good time to do it!" + +"Yes," he consented, after a moment's thought, "I think that is a good +idea!" And so they left it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Regina roused Norma just in time for the long, wearisome ceremonials of +the following day, a cold, bright gusty day, when the wet streets +flashed back sombre reflections of the motor wheels, and the newly +turned earth oozed flashing drops of water. The cortège left the old +Melrose house at ten minutes before ten o'clock, and it was four before +the tired, headachy, cramped members of the immediate family group +regathered there, to discard the crape-smothered hats, and the odorous, +sombre furs, and to talk quietly together as they sipped hot soup and +crumbled rolls. Everything had been changed, the flowers were gone, +furniture was back in place, and the upper front room had been opened +widely to the suddenly spring-like afternoon. There was not a fallen +violet petal to remind her descendants that the old mistress of forty +full years was gone for ever. + +Annie's boys came to bring Mother home, after so many strange days' +absence, and Norma liked the way that Annie smiled wearily at Hendrick, +and pressed her white face hungrily against the boys' blonde, firm +little faces. Leslie, in an unwontedly tender mood, drew Acton's arm +about her, as she sat in a big chair, and told him with watering eyes +that she would be glad to see old Patsie-baby on Sunday. Norma sat +alone, the carved Tudor oak rising high above her little tired head with +its crushed soft hair, and Chris sat alone, too, at the other end of +the table, and somehow, in the soul fatigue that was worse than any +bodily fatigue, she did not want the distance between them bridged, she +did not want--she shuddered away from the word--love-making from Chris +again! + +Leslie, who felt quite ill with strain and sorrow, went upstairs to bed, +the Von Behrens went away, and presently Acton disappeared, to telephone +old Doctor Murray that his wife would like a sedative--or a heart +stimulant, or some other little attention as a recognition of her broken +state. + +Then Chris and Norma were alone, and with a quiet dignity that surprised +him she beckoned him to the chair next to her, and, leaning both elbows +on the cloth, fixed him with her beautiful, tired eyes. + +"I want to talk to you, Chris, and this seems to be the time!" she said. +"You'll be deep in all sorts of horrible things for weeks now, poor old +Chris, and I want this said first! I've been thinking very seriously all +these days--they seem months--since Aunt Marianna died, and I've come to +the conclusion that I'm--well, I'm a fool!" + +She said the last word so unexpectedly, with such obvious surprise, that +Chris's tired, colourless face broke into something like a smile. He had +seated himself next to her, and was evidently bending upon her problem +his most earnest attention. + +"Some months ago," Norma said in a low voice, "I thought--I +_thought_--that I fell in love! The man was rich, and handsome, and +clever, and he knew more--of certain things!--in his little finger, than +I shall ever know in my whole life. Not exactly more French, or more of +politics, or more persons--I don't mean quite that. But I mean a +conglomerate sort of--I'm expressing myself badly, but you understand--a +conglomerate total of all these things that make him an aristocrat! +That's what he is, an aristocrat. Now, I'm not! I've found that out. I'm +different." + +"Nonsense!" Chris said, lightly, but listening patiently none the less. + +"I know," Norma resumed, hammering her thought out slowly, and frowning +down at the teaspoon that she was measuring between her finger-tips, "I +know that there are two women in me. One is the Melrose, who +_could_--for I know I could!--push her husband out of sight, take up the +whole business of doing things correctly, from hair-dressing and writing +notes of condolence to being"--she could manage a hint of a smile under +swiftly raised lashes--"being presented at Saint James's!" she said. "In +five years she would be an admired and correct and popular woman, and +perhaps even married to this man I speak of! The other woman is my +little plain French mother's sort--who was a servant--my Aunt Kate's +kind," and Norma suddenly felt the tears in her eyes, and winked them +away with an April smile, "who belongs to her husband, who likes to cook +and tramp about in the woods, and send Christmas boxes to Rose's babies, +and--and go to movies, and picnics! And that's the sort of woman I _am_, +Chris," Norma ended, with a sudden firmness, and even a certain relief +in her voice. "I've just discovered it! I've been spoiled all my +life--I've been loved too much, I think, but I've thought it all out--it +really came to me, as I stood beside Aunt Marianna's grave to-day, and +you don't know how happy it's made me!" + +"You are talking very recklessly, Norma," Chris said, as she paused, in +his quiet, definite voice. "You are over-excited now. There is no such +difference in the two--the two classes, to call them that, as you fancy! +The richer people, the people who, as you say, do things correctly, and +are presented at Saint James's, have all the simple pleasures, too. One +likes moving pictures now and then; I'm sure we often have picnics in +the summer. But there are women in New York--hundreds of them, who would +give the last twenty years of their lives to step into exactly what you +can take for the asking now. You will have Annie and me back of +you--this isn't the time, Norma, for me to say just how entirely you +will have my championship! But surely you know----" + +He was just what he had always been: self-possessed, finished, +splendidly sure in voice and manner. He was rich, he was popular, he was +a dictator in his quiet way. And she knew even if the shock of his +wife's sudden going had pushed his thought of her into the background, +that in a few months he would be hovering about her again, +conventionally freed for conventional devotion. + +She saw all this, and for the first time to-day she saw other things, +too. That he was forty, and looked it. That there was just the faintest +suggestion of thinning in his smooth hair, where Wolf's magnificent mane +was the thickest. That it was just a little bloodless, this decorous +mourning that had so instantly engulfed him, who had actually told her, +another man's wife, a few weeks before, that his own wife was dying, and +so would free him for the woman he loved at last! + +In short, Norma mused, watching him as he fell into moody silence, he +had not scrupled to break the spirit of his bond to Alice, he had not +hesitated to tell Norma that he loved her when only Norma, and possibly +Alice, might suffer from his disloyalty. But when the sacred letter was +touched, the sacred outside of the vessel that must be kept clean before +the world, then Chris was instantly the impeccable, the irreproachable +man of his caste again. It was all part of the superficial smallness of +that world where arbitrary form ruled, where to send a wedding +invitation printed and not engraved, or to mispronounce the name of a +visiting Italian tenor or Russian dancer, would mark the noblest woman +in the world as hopelessly "not belonging." + +"One of the things you do that really you oughtn't to, Norma," he +resumed, presently, in quiet distaste, "is assume that there is some +mysterious difference between, say, the Craigies, and well--your +husband. The Craigies are enormously wealthy, of course. That means that +they have always had fine service, music, travel, the best of everything +in educational ways, friendship with the best people--and those things +_are_ an advantage, generation after generation. It's absurd to deny +that Annie's children, for example, haven't any real and tremendous +advantages over--well, some child of a perfectly respectable family that +manages nicely on ten thousand a year. But that Annie's pleasures are +not as real, or that there must necessarily be something +dangerous--something detestable--in the life of the best people, is +ridiculous!" + +"That's just what I do assert," she answered, bravely. "It may not be so +for you, for you were born to it! But when you've lived, as I have, in a +different sort of life, with people to whom meals, and the rent, and +their jobs, really matter--this sort of thing doesn't seem _real_. You +feel like bursting out laughing and saying, 'Oh, get out! What's the +difference if I _don't_ make calls, and broaden my vowels, and wear just +this and that, and say just this and that!' It all seems so _tame_." + +"Not at all," Chris said, really roused. "Take Betty Doane, now, the +Craigies' cousin. There's nothing conventional about her. There's a girl +who dresses like a man all summer, who ran away from school and tramped +into Hungary dressed as a gipsy, who slapped Joe Brinckerhoff's face for +him last winter, and who says that when she loves a man she's going off +with him--no matter who he is, or whether he's married or not, or +whether she is!" + +"I'll tell you what she sounds like to me, Chris, a little saucy girl of +about eight trying to see how naughty she can be! Why, that," said +Norma, eagerly, "that's not _real_. That isn't like house-hunting when +you know you can't pay more than thirty dollars' rent, or surprising +your husband with a new thermos bottle that he didn't think he could +afford!" + +"Ah, well, if you _like_ slums, of course!" Chris said, coldly. "But +nothing can prevent your inheriting an enormous sum of money, Norma," he +said, ending the conversation, "and in six months you'll feel very +differently!" + +"There is just one chance in ten--one chance in a hundred--that I +might!" she said to herself, going upstairs, after Chris and Acton, who +presently returned to the dining-room, had begun an undertoned +conversation. And with a sudden flood of radiance and happiness at her +heart, she sat down at her desk, and wrote to Wolf. + +The note said: + + WOLF DEAR: + + I have been thinking very seriously, during these serious days, + and I am writing you more earnestly than I ever wrote any one in + my life. I want you to forgive me all my foolishness, and let me + come back to you. I have missed you so bitterly, and thought how + good and how sensible you were, and how you took care of us all + years ago, and gave Rose and me skates that Christmas that you + didn't have your bicycle mended, and how we all sat up and cried + the night Aunt Kate was sick, and you made us chocolate by the + rule on the box. I have been very silly, and I thought I + cared--and perhaps I _did_ care--for somebody else; or at least + I cared for what he stood for, but I am over that now, and I + feel so much older, and as if I needed you so. I shall have a + tremendous lot of money, and we'll just have to decide what to + do with it, but I think I know now that there won't be any + particular pleasure in spending it. We'll always love the old + car, and----But it just occurs to me that we _could_ send poor + Kitty Barry to the hospital, and perhaps ship them all off + somewhere where they'd get better. Aunt Kate would like that. + But won't you come up, Wolf, and see me? I'll meet you anywhere, + and we can talk, on Monday or Tuesday. Will you write me or wire + me? I can't wait to see you! + +She cried over the letter, and over the signature that she was his +loving Nono, but she mailed it with a dancing heart. The road had been +dark and troubled for awhile, but it was all clear now! The wrong had +been--the whole wretched trouble had been--in her thinking that she +could toss aside the solemn oath that she had taken on the bewildering +day of her marriage almost a year ago. + +Never since old, old days of childhood, when she and Wolf and Rose had +wiped the dishes and raked the yard, and walked a mile to the +twenty-five-cent seats at the circus, had Norma been so sure of +herself, and so happy. She felt herself promoted, lifted above the old +feelings and the old ways, and dedicated to the work before her. And one +by one the shadows lifted, and the illusions blew away, and she could +see her way clear for the first time in more than three years. It was +all simple, all right, all just as she would have had it. She would +never be a petted and wealthy little Leslie, she would never be a +leader, like Mrs. von Behrens, and she would never stand before the +world as the woman chosen by the incomparable Chris. Yet she was the +last Melrose, and she knew now how she could prove herself the proudest +of them all, how she could do these kinspeople of hers a greater favour +than any they had ever dreamed of doing her. And in the richness of +renouncing Norma knew herself to be for the first time truly rich. + +Chris saw the difference in her next day, felt the new dignity, the +sudden transition from girl to woman, but he had no inkling of its +cause. Leslie saw it, and Annie, but Norma gave them no clue. At +luncheon Annie, who had joined them for the meal, proposed that Leslie +and Norma and the Liggetts come to her for a quiet family dinner, but +Norma begged off; she really must see Aunt Kate, and would seize this +opportunity to go home for a night. But leaving the table Norma asked +Chris if she might talk business to him for a few minutes. + +They sat in the old library, Chris sunk in a great leather chair, +smoking cigarettes, Norma opposite, her white hands clasped on the +blackness of her simple gown, and her eyes moving occasionally from +their quiet study of the fire to rest on Chris's face. + +"Chris," she said, "I've thought this all out, now, and I'm not really +asking your advice, I'm telling you what I am going to do! I'm going to +California with Wolf in a week or two--that's the first thing!" + +He stared at her blankly, and as the minutes of silence between them +lengthened Norma noticed his lips compress themselves into a thin, +colourless line. But she returned his look bravely, and in her eyes +there was something that told the man she was determined in her +decision. + +"I don't quite follow you, Norma," he said at last with difficulty. "You +mean that all the plans and hopes we shared and discussed----" He +faltered a moment and then made another effort: "Now that whatever +obstacles there were have been removed, and you and I are free to +fulfill our destinies, am I to understand that--that you are going back +to your husband?" + +"Exactly." The girl's answer was firm and determined. + +The colour fled from Chris's face, and a cold light came into his eye; +his jaw stiffened. + +"You must use your own judgment, Norma," he answered, with a displeased +shrug. + +"I'll leave with you, or send you, my power of attorney," the girl went +on, "and you and Hendrick as executors must do whatever you think right +and just--just deposit the money in the bank!" + +"I see," Chris said, noncommittally. + +"And there's another thing," Norma went on, with heightened colour. "I +don't want either Leslie or Aunt Annie ever to know--what you and I +know!" + +Chris looked at her, frowning slightly. + +"That's impossible, of course," he said. "What are they going to think?" + +"They'll think nothing," Norma said, confidently, but with anxious eyes +fixed on his face, "because they'll know nothing. There'll be no change, +nothing to make them suspect anything." + +"But--great God! You don't seem to understand, Norma. Proofs of your +birth, of your rightful heritage, your identity, the fact that you are +Theodore's child, must be shown them, of course. You have inherited by +Aunt Marianna's will the bulk of her personal fortune, but besides this, +as Theodore's child, you inherit the Melrose estate, and Leslie must +turn this all over to you, and make such restitution as she is able, of +all income from it which she has received since Judge Lee and I turned +it over to her on her eighteenth birthday." + +"No, that's just what she is _not_ to do! I will get exactly what is +mentioned in the will--as Norma Sheridan, bonds and the Melrose +Building, and so on," Norma broke in, eagerly. "And that's enough, +goodness knows, and a thousand times more than Wolf and I ever expected +to have. Aunt Annie and Leslie are reconciled to that. But for the rest, +I refuse to accept it. I don't want it. I've never been so unhappy in my +life as I've been in this house, for all the money and the good times +and the beautiful clothes. And if that much didn't make me happy, why +should ten times more? Isn't it far, far better--all round----" + +"You are talking absurdities," said Chris. "Do you think that Hendrick +and I could consent to this? Do you suppose----" + +"Hendrick doesn't know it, Chris. It is only you and I and Aunt +Kate--that's all! And if I do this, and swear you and Aunt Kate to +secrecy, who is responsible, except me?" + +Chris shook his head. "Aunt Marianna wished you righted--wished you to +take your place as Theodore's daughter. It is her wish, and it is only +our duty----" + +"But think a minute, Chris, think a minute," Norma said, eagerly, +leaning forward in her chair, so that her locked hands almost touched +his knees. "_Was_ it her wish? She wanted me to _know_--that's certain! +And I do know. But do you really think she wanted Leslie to be shamed +and crushed, and to take away the money Leslie has had all her life, to +shock Aunt Annie, and stir that old miserable matter up with Hendrick? +Chris, you _can't_ think that! The one thing she would have wished and +prayed would have been that somehow the matter would have been righted +without hurting any one. Chris, _think_ before you tear the whole family +up by the roots. What harm is there in this way? I have plenty of +money--and I go away. The others go on just as they always have, and in +a little way--in just a hundredth part--I pay back dear old Aunt +Marianna for all the worrying and planning she did, to make up to me for +what should have been mine, and was Leslie's. Please--_please_, help me +to do this, Chris. I can't be happy any other way. Aunt Kate will +approve--you don't know how much she will approve, and it will repay +her, too, just a little, to feel that it's all known now, and that it +has turned out this way. And she will destroy every last line and shred +of letters and papers, and the photographs she said she had, and it will +all be over--for ever and for ever!" + +"You put a terrible responsibility upon me," Chris said, slowly. + +"No--I take it myself!" Norma answered. He had gotten to his feet, and +was standing at the hearth, and now she rose, too, and looked eagerly up +at him. "It isn't anything like the responsibility of facing the world +with the whole horrible story!" + +Chris was silent, thinking. Presently he turned upon her the old smile +that she had always found irresistible, and put his two hands on her +shoulders. + +"You are a wonderful woman, Norma!" he said, slowly. "What woman in the +world, but you, would do that? Yes, I'll do it--for Leslie's sake, and +Acton's sake, and because I believe Alice would think it as wonderful in +you as I do. But think," Chris said, "think just a few days, Norma. You +and I--you and I might go a long way, my dear!" + +If he had said it even at this hour yesterday, he might have shaken her, +for the voice was the voice of the old Chris, and she had been even then +puzzled and confused to see the wisest way. But now everything was +changed; he could not reach her now, even when he put his arm about her, +and said that this was one of their rare last chances to be alone +together, and asked if it must be good-bye. + +She looked up at him gravely and unashamedly. + +"Yes, it must be good-bye--dear Chris!" she said, with a little emotion. +"Although I hope we will see each other often, if ever Wolf and I come +back. Engineers live in Canada and Panama and India and Alaska, you +know, and we never will know we are coming until we get here! And I'm +not going to try to thank you, Chris, for what you did for an ignorant, +silly, strange little girl; you've been a big brother to me all these +last years! And something more, of course," Norma added, bravely, "and +I won't say--I can't say--that if it hadn't been for Wolf, and all the +changes this year--changes in me, too--I wouldn't have loved you all my +life. But there's no place that you could take me, as Wolf Sheridan's +divorced wife, that would seem worth while to me, when I got there--not +if it was in the peerage!" + +"There's just one thing that I want to say, too, Norma," Chris said, +suddenly, when she had finished. "I'm not good enough for you; I know +it. I see myself as I am, sometimes, I suppose. I think you're going to +be happy--and God knows I hope so; perhaps it _is_ a realer life, your +husband's: and perhaps a man who works for his wife with his hands and +his head has got something on us other fellows after all! I've often +wished----But that doesn't matter now. But I want you to know I'll +always remember you as the finest woman I ever knew--just the best there +is! And if ever I've hurt you, forgive me, won't you, Norma?--and--and +let me kiss you good-bye!" + +She raised her face to his confidently, and her eyes were misty when she +went upstairs, because she had seen that his were wet. But there was no +more unhappiness; indeed an overwhelming sense that everything was +right--that every life had shifted back into normal and manageable and +infinitely better lines, went with her as she walked slowly out into the +sunshine, and wandered in the general direction of Aunt Kate's. As she +left the old Melrose home, the big limousine was standing at the door, +and presently Annie and Leslie would sweep out in their flowing veils +and crapes, and whirl off to the Von Behrens mansion. But Norma Sheridan +was content to walk to the omnibus, and to take the jolting front seat, +and to look down in all brotherly love and companionship at the moving +and shifting crowds that were glorying in the warm spring weather. + +To be busy--to be needed--to be loved--she said to herself. That was the +sweet of life, and it could not be taken from the policeman at the +crossing or the humblest little shop-girl who scampered under his big +arm, or bought by the bored women in limousines who, furred and flowered +and feathered, were moving from the matinée to the tea table. Caroline +Craigie, Aunt Annie, Leslie; she had seen the material advantages of +life fail them all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +Aunt Kate was out when Norma reached the apartment, but she knew that +the key was always on the top of the door frame, and entered the +familiar old rooms without any trouble. But she saw in a dismayed flash +that Aunt Kate was not coming back, for that night at least. The kitchen +window had been left four inches open, to accommodate the cat, milk and +bones were laid in waiting, and a note in the bottle notified the +milkman "no milk until to-morrow." There was also a note in pencil, on +the bottom of an egg-box, for the nurses who rented two rooms, should +either one of them chance to come in and be hungry, she was to eat "the +pudding and the chicken stew, and get herself a good supper." + +Norma, chuckling a little, got herself the good supper instead. It was +with a delightful sense of solitude and irresponsibility that she sat +eating it, at the only window in the flat that possessed a good view, +the kitchen window. Aunt Kate, she decided, was with Rose, who had no +telephone; Norma thought that she would wait until Aunt Kate got home +the next day, rather than chance the long trip to the Oranges again. An +alternative would have been to go to Aunt Annie's house, but somehow the +thought of the big, silent handsome place, with the men in evening wear, +Aunt Annie and Leslie in just the correct mourning décolleté, and the +conversation decorously funereal, did not appeal to her. Instead it +seemed a real adventure to dine alone, and after dinner to put on a +less conspicuous hat and coat, and slip out into the streets, and walk +about in her new-found freedom. + +The night was soft and balmy, and the sidewalks filled with sauntering +groups enjoying the first delicious promise of summer as much as Norma +did. The winter had been long and cold and snowy; great masses of +thawing ice from far-away rivers were slowly drifting down the +star-lighted surface of the Hudson, and the trees were still bare. But +the air was warm, and the breezes lifted and stirred the tender darkness +above her head with a summery sweetness. + +Norma loved all the world to-night; the work-tired world that was +revelling in idleness and fresh air. Romance seemed all about her, the +doorways into which children reluctantly vanished, the gossiping women +coming back from bakery or market, the candy stores flooded with light, +and crowded with young people who were having the brightest and most +thrilling moments of all their lives over banana specials and chocolate +sundaes. The usual whirlpools eddied about the subway openings and +moving-picture houses, the usual lovers locked arms, in the high rocking +darkness of the omnibus tops, and looked down in apathetic indifference +upon the disappointment of other lovers at the crossings. In the bright +windows of dairy restaurants grapefruit were piled, and big baked apples +ranged in saucers, and beyond there were hungry men leaning far over the +table while they discussed doughnuts and strong coffee, and shook open +evening papers. + +She and Wolf had studied it all for years; it was sordid and crowded and +cheap, perhaps, but it was honest and happy, too, and it was real. There +was no affectation here, even the premature spring hats, and the rouge, +and the high heels were an ingenuous bid for just a little notice, just +a little admiration, just a little longer youth. + +Sauntering along in the very heart of it, hearing the flirtation, the +theatrical chatter, the homely gossip about her, Norma knew that she was +at home. Leslie, perhaps, might have loathed it had she been put down in +the midst of it; to Aunt Annie it would always seem entirely beneath +even contempt. But Norma realized to-night, as she slipped into church +for a few minutes, as she dropped a coin into a beggar's tin cup, as she +entered into casual conversation with the angry mother of a defiant boy, +that this, to her, was life. It was life--to work, to plan, to marry and +bear children, to wrest her own home from unfavourable conditions, and +help her own man to win. She would live, because she would care--care +deeply how Wolf fared in his work, how her house prospered, how her +children developed. She would not be Aunt Annie's sort of woman--Chris's +sort--she would be herself, judged not by what she had, but by what she +could do--what she could give. + +"And that's the kind of woman I am, after all," she said to herself, +rejoicingly. "The child of a French maid and a spoiled, rich young man! +But no, I'm not their child. I'm Aunt Kate's--just as much as Rose and +Wolf are----!" And at the thought of Wolf she smiled. "Won't Wolf +Sheridan _open his eyes_?" + +When she reached Forty-first Street she turned east, and went past the +familiar door of the opera house. It was a special performance, and the +waiting line stretched from the box office down the street, and around +the corner, into the dark. They would only be able to buy standing +room, these patient happy music lovers who grew weary and cold waiting +for their treat, and even standing, they would be behind an immovable +crowd, they would catch only occasional glimpses of the stage. But Norma +told herself that she would rather be in that line, than yawningly +deciding, as she had so often seen Annie decide, that she would perhaps +rustle into the box at ten o'clock for the third act--although it was +rather a bore. + +She flitted near enough to see the general stir, and to see once more +the sign "No Footmen Allowed in This Lobby," and then, smiling at the +old memories, she slipped away into the darkness, drinking in insatiably +the intimate friendliness of the big city and the spring night. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +It was ten o'clock the next day, a silent gray day, when Aunt Kate let +herself into the apartment, and "let out," to use her own phrase, a +startled exclamation at finding her young daughter-in-law deeply asleep +in her bed. Norma, a vision of cloudy dark tumbled hair and beautiful +sleepy blue eyes, half-strangled the older woman in a rapturous embrace, +and explained that she had come home the night before, and eaten the +chicken stew, and perhaps overslept--at any rate would love some coffee. + +Something faintly shadowed in her aunt's welcome, however, was +immediately apparent, and Norma asked, with a trace of anxiety, if +Rose's babies were well. For answer her aunt merely asked if Wolf had +telephoned. + +"Wolf!" said Wolf's wife. "Is he home?" + +"My dear," Mrs. Sheridan said. "He's going--he's gone!--to California!" + +Norma did not move. But the colour went out of her face, and the +brightness from her eyes. + +"Gone!" she whispered. + +"Well--he goes to-day! At six o'clock----" + +"At six o'clock!" Norma leaped from her bed, stood with clenched hands +and wild eyes, thinking, in the middle of the floor. "It's twenty-two +minutes past ten," she breathed. "Where does he leave?" + +"Rose and I were to see him at the Grand Central at quarter past five," +his mother began, catching the contagious excitement. "But, darling, I +don't know where you can get him before that!--Here, let me do that," +she added, for Norma had dashed into the kitchen, and was measuring +coffee recklessly. A brown stream trickled to the floor. + +"Oh, Lord--Lord--help me to get hold of him somewhere!" she heard Norma +breathe. "And you weren't going to let me know--but it's my fault," she +said, putting her hands over her face, and rocking to and fro in +desperate suspense. "Oh, how can I get him?--I must! Oh, Aunt +Kate--_help me_! Oh, I'm not even dressed--and that clock says half-past +ten! Aunt Kate, will you help me!" + +"Norma, my darling," her aunt said, arresting the whirling little figure +with a big arm, and looking down at her with all the love and sadness of +her great heart in her face, "why do you want to see him, dear? He told +me--he had to tell his mother, poor boy, for his heart is broken--that +you were not going with him!" + +"Oh, but Aunt Kate--he'll have to wait for me!" Norma said, stamping a +slippered foot, and beginning to cry with hurt and helplessness. "Oh, +won't you help me? You always help me! Don't--don't mind what I said to +Wolf; you know how silly I am! But please--_please_----" + +"But, Baby--you're sure?" Mrs. Sheridan asked, feeling as if ice that +had been packed about her heart for days was breaking and stirring, and +as if the exquisite pain of it would kill her. "Don't--hurt him again, +Norma!" + +"But he's going off--without me," Norma wailed, rushing to the bathroom, +and pinning her magnificent mass of soft dark hair into a stern knob for +her bath. "Aunt Kate, I've always loved Wolf, always!" she said, +passionately. "And if he really had gone away without me I think it +would have broken my heart! You _know_ how I love him! We'll catch him +somewhere, I know we will! We'll telephone--or else Harry----" + +She trailed into the kitchen half-dressed, ten minutes later. + +"I've telephoned for a taxi, Aunt Kate, and we'll find him somewhere," +she said, gulping hot coffee appreciatively. "I must--I've something to +tell him. But I'll have to tell you everything in the cab. To begin +with--it's all over. I'm done with the Melroses. I appreciate all they +did for me, and I appreciate your worrying and planning about that old +secret. But I've made up my mind. Whatever you have of letters, and +papers and proofs, I want you please to do the family a last favour by +burning--every last shred. I've told Chris, I won't touch a cent of the +money, except what Aunt Marianna left me; and I never, never, never +intend to say one more word on the subject! Thousands didn't make me +happy, so why should a million? The best thing my father ever did for me +was to give my mother a chance to bring me here to you!" + +She had gotten into her aunt's lap as she spoke, and was rubbing her +cheek against the older, roughened cheek, and punctuating her +conversation with little kisses. Mrs. Sheridan looked at her, and +blinked, and seemed to find nothing to say. + +"Perhaps some day when it's hot--and the jelly doesn't jell--and the +children break the fence," pursued Norma, "I will be sorry! I haven't +much sense, and I may feel that I've been a fool. But then I just want +you to remind me of Leslie--and the Craigies--or better, of what a beast +I am myself in that atmosphere! So it's all over, Aunt Kate, and if +Wolf will forgive me--and he always does----" + +"He's bitterly hurt this time, Nono," said her aunt, gently. + +Norma looked a little anxious. + +"I wrote him in Philadelphia," she said, "but he won't get that letter. +Oh, Aunt Kate--if we don't find him! But we will--if I have to walk up +to him in the station the last minute--and stop him----" + +"Ah, Norma, you love him!" his mother said, in a great burst of +thankfulness. "And may God be thanked for all His goodness! That's all I +care about--that you love him, and that you two will be together again. +We'll get hold of him, dear, somehow----!" + +"But, my darling," she added, coming presently to the bedroom door to +see the dashing little feathered hat go on, and the dotted veil pinned +with exquisite nicety over Norma's glowing face, and the belted brown +coat and loose brown fur rapidly assumed, "you're not wearing your +mourning!" + +"Not to-day," Norma said, abstractedly. And aloud she read a list: + +"Bank; Grand Central; drawing-room; new suit-case; notary for power of +attorney; Kitty Barry; telephone Chris, Leslie, Annie; telephone Regina +about trunks. Can we be back here at say--four, Aunt Kate?" + +"But what's all that for?" her aunt asked, dazedly. + +Norma looked at a check book; put it in her coat pocket. Then as her +aunt's question reached her preoccupied mind, she turned toward her with +a puzzled expression. + +"Why, Aunt Kate--you don't seem to understand; I'm going with Wolf to +California this evening." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +It was exactly nineteen minutes past five o'clock when Wolf Sheridan +walked into the Grand Central Station that afternoon. He had stopped +outside to send his wife some flowers, and just a brief line of +farewell, and he was thinking so hard of Norma that it seemed natural +that the woman who was coming toward him, in the great central +concourse, should suggest her. The woman was pretty, too, and wore the +sort of dashing little hat that Norma often wore, and there was +something so familiar about the belted brown coat and the soft brown +furs that Wolf's heart gave a great plunge, and began to +ache--ache--ache--hopelessly again. + +The brown coat came nearer--and nearer. And then he saw that the wearer +was indeed his wife. She had dewy violets in her belt, and her violet +eyes were dewy, too, and her face paled suddenly as she put her hand on +his arm. + +What Norma all that tired and panicky afternoon had planned to say to +Wolf on this occasion was something like this: + +"Wolf, if you ever loved me, and if I ever did anything that made you +happy, and if all these years when I have been your little sister, and +your chum, and your wife, mean anything to you--don't push me away now! +I am sorrier for my foolishness, and more ashamed of it, than you can +possibly be! I think it was never anything but weakness and vanity that +made me want to flirt with Chris Liggett. I think that if he had once +stopped flattering me, and if ever our meetings had been anything but +stolen fruit, as it were, I would have seen how utterly blind I was! I'm +different now, Wolf; I know that what I felt for him was only shallow +vanity, and that what I feel for you is the deepest and realest love +that any woman ever knew! There's nothing--no minute of the day or night +when I don't need you. There's nothing that you think that isn't what I +think! I want to go West with you, and make a home there, and when you +go to China, or go to India, I want you to go because your wife has +helped you--because you have had happy years of working and +experimenting and picnicking and planning--with me! + +"It's all over, Wolf, that Melrose business--that dream! I've said +good-bye to them, and they have to me, and they know I'm never coming +back! I'm a Sheridan now--really and truly--for ever." + +And in the lonesome and bitter days in which his great dream had come +true, without Norma to share it, days in which he had been thinking of +her as affiliated more and more with the element he despised, identified +more and more with the man who had wrecked--or tried to wreck--her life, +Wolf had imagined this meeting, and imagined her as tentatively holding +out the olive branch of peace; and he had had time to formulate exactly +what he should answer to such an appeal. + +"I'm sorry, Norma," he had imagined himself saying. "I'm terribly sorry! +But just talking doesn't undo these things, just _saying_ that you +didn't mean it, and that it's all over. No, married life can't be picked +up and put down again like a coat. You _were_ my wife, and God knows I +worshipped you--heart and soul! If some day these people get tired of +you, or you get tired of them, that'll be different! But you've cut me +too deep--you've killed a part of me, and it won't come alive again! +I've been through hell--wondering what you were doing, what you were +going to do! I never should have married you; now let's call it all +quits, and get out of it the best way we can!" + +But when he saw her, the familiar, lovely face that he had loved for so +many years, when he felt the little gloved hand on his arm, and realized +that somehow, out of the utter desolation and loneliness of the big +city, she had come to him again, that she was here, mistily smiling at +him, and he could touch her and hear her voice, everything else +vanished, as if it had never been, and he put his big arm about her +hungrily, and kissed her, and they were both in tears. + +"Oh, Wolf----!" Norma faltered, the dry spaces of her soul flooding with +springtime warmth and greenness, and a great happiness sweeping away all +consciousness of the place in which they stood, and the interested eyes +about them. "Oh, Wolf----!" She thought that she added, "Would you have +gone away without me!" but as a matter of fact words were not needed +now. + +"Nono--you _do_ love me?" he whispered. Or perhaps he only thought he +enunciated the phrase, for although Norma answered, it was not audibly. +Neither of them ever remembered anything coherent of that first five +minutes, in which momentous questions were settled between Norma's +admiring comment upon Wolf's new coat, and in which they laughed and +cried and clung together in shameless indifference to the general +public. + +But presently they were calm enough to talk, and Wolf's first +constructive remark, not even now very steady or clear, was that he must +put off his going, get hold of Voorhies somehow---- + +But no, Norma said, even while they were dashing toward the telegraph +office. She had already bought her ticket; she was going, +too--to-night--this very hour----! + +Wolf brought her up short, ecstatic bewilderment in his face. + +"But your trunks----?" + +"Regina--I tell you it's all settled--Regina sends them on after me. And +I've got a new big suit-case, and my old brown one, that's plenty for +the present! They're checked here, in the parcel-room----" + +"But we'll----" They had started automatically to rush toward the +parcel-room, but now he brought her up short again. "It's five-thirty +now," he muttered, turning briskly in still another direction, "let me +have your ticket, we'll have to try for a section--it's pretty late, but +there may be cancellations!" + +"Oh, but see, Wolf----! I've been here since half-past four. I've got +the A drawing-room in Car 131----" She brought forth an official-looking +envelope, and flashed a flimsy bit of coloured paper. For a third time +Wolf checked his hurried rushing, and they both broke into delicious +laughter. "I've been at it all day, with Aunt Kate," Norma said, +proudly. "I've been to banks and to Judge Lee's office, and I've seen +Annie and Leslie, and I bought a new wrapper and a suit-case, and--oh, +and I saw Kitty Barry, and I got you a book for the train, and I got +myself one----" + +"Oh, Norma," Wolf said, his eyes filling, "you God-blessèd little +adorable idiot, do you know how I love you? My darling--my own wife, do +you know that I want to die, to-night, I'm so happy! Do you realize what +it's going to mean to us, poking about Chicago, and sending home little +presents to Rose and the kids, and reaching San Francisco, and going up +to the big mine? Do you realize that I feel like a man out of jail--like +a kid who knows it's Saturday morning?" + +"Well--I feel that way, too!" Norma smiled. "And now," she added, in a +businesslike tone, "we've got to look for Aunt Kate and Rose, and get +our bags; and Leslie said to-day that it was a good idea to wire a +Chicago hotel for a room, just for the few hours before the Overland +pulls out, because one feels so dirty and tired; do you realize that +I've never spent a night on a Pullman yet?" + +"And I'll turn in the ticket for my lower," Wolf said; "we'll have +dinner on board, so that's all right----" + +"Oh, Wolf, and won't that be fun?" Norma exulted. And then, joyously: +"Oh, there they are!" + +And she fled across the great space to meet Rose, pretty and matronly, +at the foot of the great stairway, and Harry grinning and proud, with +his little sturdy white-caped boy in his arms, and Aunt Kate beaming +utter happiness upon them all. And then ensued that thrilling time of +incoherencies and confusions, laughter and tears, to which the big place +is, by nature, dedicated. They were parting so lightly, but they all +knew that there would be changes before they six met again. To Aunt +Kate, holding close the child whose destinies had been so strangely +entangled with her own, the moment held a poignant pleasure as well as +pain. She was launched now, their imperious, beloved youngest; she had +been taken to the mountain-tops, and shown the world at her feet, and +she had chosen bravely and wisely, chosen her part of service and +simplicity and love. Life would go on, changes indeed and growth +everywhere, but she knew that the years would bring her back a new +Norma--a developed, sweetened, self-reliant woman--and a new Wolf, his +hard childhood all swept away and forgotten in the richness and beauty +of this woman's love and companionship. And she was content. + +"And, Wolf--she told you about Kitty! Every month, as long as they need +it," Rose said, crying heartily, as she clung to her brother. "Why, it's +the most wonderful thing I ever heard! Poor Louis Barry can't believe +it--he broke down completely! And Kitty was crying, and kissing the +children, and she knelt down, and put her arms about Norma's knees; and +Norma was crying, too--you never saw anything like it!" + +"She never told me a word about it," Wolf said, trying to laugh, and +blinking, as he looked at her, a few feet away. One of her arms was +about his mother, her hand was in Harry's, her face close to the rosy +baby's face. + +"Wolf," his sister said, earnestly, drying her eyes, "it will bring a +blessing on your own children----!" + +"Ah, Rose!" he answered, quickly. "Pray that there is one, some day--one +of our own as sweet as yours are!" + +"Ah, you'll have everything, you two, never fear!" she said, radiantly. +And then a gate opened, and the bustle about them thickened, and +laughing faces grew pale, and last words faltered. + +Harry gave Rose the baby, and put his arm about Rose's mother, and they +watched them go, the red-cap leading with the suit-cases, Wolf carrying +another, Norma on his arm, twisting herself about, at the very last +second, to smile an April smile over her shoulder, and wave the green +jade handle of her slim little umbrella. There was just a glimpse of +Wolf's old boyish, proud, protecting smile, and then his head drooped +toward his companion, and the surging crowd shut them out of sight. + +Then Rose immediately was concerned for the little baby. Wouldn't it be +wiser to go straight home, just for fear that Mrs. Noon might have +fallen asleep--and the house caught on fire----? Mrs. Sheridan blew her +nose and dried her eyes, and straightened her widow's bonnet, and +cleared her throat, and agreed that it would. And they all went away. + +But there was another watcher who had shared, unseen, all this last +half-hour, and who stood immovable to the last second, until the iron +gates had actually clashed shut. It was a well-built, keen-eyed man, in +an irreproachably fitting fur-collared overcoat, who finally turned +away, fitting his eyeglasses, on their black ribbon, firmly upon the +bridge of his nose, and sighing just a little as he went back to the +sidewalk, and climbed into a waiting roadster. + +Even after he took his seat at the wheel, he made no effort to start the +car, but sat slowly drawing on his heavy gloves, and staring +abstractedly at the dull, uninteresting stretch of street before him, +where a dismal spring wind was stirring chaff and papers about the +subway entrance, and surface cars were grinding and ringing on the +curve. + +It looked dull and empty--dull and empty, he thought. She had been very +happy, looking up at her man, kissing her people good-bye. She was a +remarkable woman, Norma. + +"A remarkable woman--Norma," he said, half-aloud. "She will make him a +wonderful wife; she will help him to go a long way. And she never would +have had patience for formal living; it wasn't in her!" + +But he remembered what was in her, what eager gaiety, what hunger for +new impressions, what courage in seizing her dilemmas the instant she +saw them. He remembered the flash of her eyes, and the curve of her +proud little mouth. + +"Theodore had more charm than any of them," he said, "and she is like +him. Well--perhaps I'll meet somebody like her, some day, and the story +will have a different ending!" + +But he knew in his heart that there was nobody like her, and that she +had gone out of his life for ever. + + * * * * * + +They had hung the belted brown coat over the big new gray one in the +drawing-room, and Norma had brushed her hair, and Wolf had shoved the +suit-cases under the seats, and they had gone straight into the +dining-car, and were at a lighted little shining table by this time. +Wolf had had no lunch; Norma was, she said, starving. They ordered their +meal just as the train drew out of the underground arcades and swept +over the city, in the twilight of the dull, sunless day. + +Norma looked down, and joy and a vague heartache struggled within her. +The little city blocks, draped with their frail tangles of fire-escapes, +were as clean-cut as toys. In the streets children were screaming and +racing, at the doorways women loitered and talked. Great trucks lumbered +in and out among surging pedestrians, and women and children stood +before the green-grocers' displays of oranges and cabbages, and trickled +in and out of the markets, where cheap cuts were advertised in great +chalk signs on the windows. Red brick, yellow brick, gray cement, the +streets fled by; the dear, familiar streets that she and Wolf, and she +and Rose, had tramped and explored, in the burning dry heat of July, in +the flutter of November's first snows. + +"Say good-bye to it, Wolf; it will be a long time before we see New York +again!" + +Wolf looked down, grinning. Then, as they left the city, and the dusk +deepened, his eyes went toward the river, went toward the vague and +waiting West. The Palisades lay, a wide bar of soft dull gray, against +the paler dove-colour of the sky. Above them, bare trees were etched +sharply, and beneath them was the satiny surface of the full Hudson. + +It was still water, and the river was smooth enough to give back a clear +reflection of the buildings and the wharves on the opposite shore, and +the floating ice from the north looked like rounded bunches of foam +arrested on the shining waters. + +Suddenly the sinking sun evaded the smother of cloud, and flashed out +red and shining, for only a few brilliant minutes. It caught window +glass like flame, twinkled and smouldered in the mirror of the river, +and lighted the under edges of low clouds with a crisp touch of apricot +and pink. Wet streets shone joyously, doves rose in a circling whirl +from a near-by roof, and all the world shone and sparkled in the last +breath of the spring day. Then dusk came indeed, and the villages +across the river were strung with increasing lights, and in the tender +opal softness of the evening sky Norma saw a great star hanging. + +"That's a good omen--that's our own little star!" she said softly to +herself. She looked up to see Wolf smiling at her, and the smile in her +own eyes deepened, and she stretched a warm and comradely hand to him +across the little table. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beloved Woman, by Kathleen Norris + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BELOVED WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 28301-8.txt or 28301-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/3/0/28301/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Katherine Ward and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Beloved Woman + +Author: Kathleen Norris + +Release Date: March 10, 2009 [EBook #28301] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BELOVED WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Katherine Ward and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + [Transcriber's Note: + Hyphenation standardized. + Archaic and variable spelling was preserved as printed. + Missing quotation marks were added to standardize usage. Otherwise, + the editor's punctuation style was preserved. + Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).] + + + + + THE + BELOVED WOMAN + + + BY KATHLEEN NORRIS + + + AUTHOR OF + _"Harriet and the Piper," etc._ + + + A. L. BURT COMPANY + + Publishers + New York + + Published by arrangement with Doubleday, Page & Company + Printed in U. S. A. + + + COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY + KATHLEEN NORRIS + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION + INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN + + COPYRIGHT 1920, 1921, BY THE PICTORIAL REVIEW COMPANY + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES + AT + THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. + + + TO + MARY O'SULLIVAN SUTRO + + For gifts beyond all counting and esteeming, + For kindness than which Heaven's self is not kinder, + For the old days of tears, and smiles, and dreaming, + This in acknowledgment, and in reminder. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +For forty-eight hours the snow-storm had been raging unabated over New +York. After a wild and windy Thursday night the world had awakened to a +mysterious whirl of white on Friday morning, and to a dark, strange day +of steady snowing. Now, on Saturday, dirty snow was banked and heaped +in great blocks everywhere, and still the clean, new flakes fluttered +and twirled softly down, powdering and feathering every little ledge +and sill, blanketing areas in spotless white, capping and hooding every +unsightly hydrant and rubbish-can with exquisite and lavish beauty. +Shovels had clinked on icy sidewalks all the first day, and even during +the night the sound of shouting and scraping had not ceased for a +moment, and their more and more obvious helplessness in the teeth of +the storm awakened at last in the snow-shovellers, and in the men and +women who gasped and stumbled along the choked thoroughfares, a sort of +heady exhilaration in the emergency, a tendency to be proud of the +storm, and of its effect upon their humdrum lives. They laughed and +shouted as they battled with it, and as Nature's great barrier of snow +threw down the little barriers of convention and shyness. Men held out +their hands to slipping and stumbling women, caught them by their +shoulders, panted to them that this was a storm, all right, this was +the worst yet! Girls, staggering in through the revolving glass doors +of the big department stores, must stand laughing helplessly for a few +seconds in the gush of reviving warmth, while they beat their wet +gloves together, regaining breath and self-possession, and straightened +outraged millinery. + +Traffic was congested, deserted trucks and motor-cars lined the side +streets, the subways were jammed, the surface cars helpless. Here and +there long lines of the omnibuses stood blocked in snow, and the press +frantically heralded impending shortages of milk and coal, reiterating +pessimistically: "No relief in sight." + +But late in Saturday morning there was a sudden lull. The snow stopped, +the wind fell, and the pure, cold air was motionless and sweet. The city +emerged exhausted from its temporary blanketing, and from the buried +benches of Bowling Green to the virgin sweep of pure white beyond Van +Cortlandt Park, began its usual January fight with the snow. + +A handsome, rosy old lady, wrapped regally in furs, and with a maid +picking her way cautiously beside her, was one of the first to take +advantage of the sudden change in the weather. Mrs. Melrose had been +held captive for almost two days, first by Thursday's inclement winds, +and then by the blizzard. Her motor-car was useless, and although at +sixty she was an extremely youthful and vigorous woman, her daughters +and granddaughter had threatened to use force rather than let her risk +the danger of an expedition on foot, at least while the storm continued. + +But now the wind was gone, and by the time Mrs. Melrose had been +properly shod, and coated, and hatted, there was even a dull glimmer +toward the southeast that indicated the location of the long-lost sun. +The old lady looked her approval at Fifth Avenue, with all its crudities +veiled and softened by the snowfall, and as she climbed into an omnibus +expressed herself firmly to Regina. + +"You mark my words, the sun will be out before we come home!" + +Regina, punching the two dimes carefully into the jolting receiver, made +only a respectful murmur for answer. She was, like many a maid, a snob +where her mistress was concerned, and she did not like to have Mrs. +Melrose ride in public omnibuses. For Regina herself it did not matter, +but Mrs. Melrose was one of the city's prominent and wealthy women, and +Regina could not remember that she had ever sunk to the use of a public +conveyance before to-day. The maid was glad when they descended at a +street in the East Sixties. They would probably be sent home, she +reflected, in Mrs. Liggett's car. For Regina noticed that private cars +were beginning to grind and slip over the snow again. + +Old Mrs. Melrose was going to see her daughter Alice, who was Mrs. +Christopher Liggett, because Alice was an invalid. It had been only a +few years after Alice's most felicitous marriage, a dozen years ago, +when an accident had laid the lovely and brilliant woman upon the bed of +helplessness that she might never leave again. There was no real reason +why the spine should continue useless, the great specialists said, there +was a hope--even a probability--that as Alice grew rested and strong, +after the serious accident, she might find herself walking again. But +Alice had been a prisoner for ten years now, and the mother and sister +who idolized her feared that she would never again be the old dancing +Alice and feared that she knew it. What Christopher Liggett feared they +did not know. He insisted that Alice's illness was but temporary, and +was tireless in his energetic pursuit of treatment for his wife. +Everything must be hoped, and everything must be tried, and Alice's +mother knew that one of the real crosses of her daughter's life was +sorrowful pity for Chris's optimistic delusions. + +The young Liggetts had sold the old house of Christopher's father, an +immense brownstone mansion a few squares away, and lived in a modern, +flat-faced gray-stone house that rose five stories from the beautifully +arranged basement entrance. There were stone benches at the entrance, +and a great iron grill, and two potted trees, and the small square +windows were leaded, and showed blossoming plants inside. The three long +windows above gave upon a little-used formal drawing-room, with a Gothic +fireplace of white stone at one end, and a dim jumble of rich colours +and polished surfaces between that and the big piano at the other. The +room at the back, on this floor, was an equally large and formal +dining-room, gleaming with carved mahogany and fretted plate, used only +on the rare occasions of a dinner-party. + +But on the floor above the gracious mistress of the house had her +domain, and here there was enough beauty and colour to make the whole +house live. The front room, cool all summer because it faced north, and +warm all winter, because of the great open fireplace that augmented the +furnace heat, was Alice's sitting-room; comfortable, beautiful, and +exquisitely ordered. None of the usual clutter of the invalid was there. +The fireplace was of plain creamy tiling, the rugs dull-toned upon a +dark, polished floor. There were only two canvases on the dove-gray +walls, and the six or seven photographs that were arranged together on +the top of one of the low, plain, built-in bookcases, were framed alike. +There were no meaningless vases, no jars or trays or plaques or +ornaments in Alice's room. Her flowers she liked to see in shining glass +bowls; her flat-topped desk was severely bare. + +But the cretonne that dressed her big comfortable chairs and her couch +was bright with roses and parrots and hollyhocks, and the same cretonne, +with plain net undercurtaining, hung at her four front windows. The room +was big enough to accommodate besides, even with an air of space and +simplicity, the little grand piano that Christopher played for her +almost every night. A great Persian tortoise-shell cat was at home here, +and sometimes Alice had her magnificent parrot besides, hanging himself +upside down on his gaily-painted stand, and veiling the beady, sharp eye +with which he watched her. The indulgent extravagance of her mother had +bound all the books that Alice loved in the same tone of stony-blue +vellum, the countless cushions with which the aching back was so +skillfully packed were of the same dull tone, and it pleased the persons +who loved her to amuse the prisoner sometimes with a ring in which her +favourite note was repeated, or a chain of old lapis-lazuli that made +Alice's appreciative blue eyes more blue. + +Back of Alice's room was a den in which Christopher could conduct much +of his personal business, and beyond that was the luxurious bathroom, a +modern miracle of enamel tiling and shining glass. Across the +sun-flooded back of the house were Alice's little bedroom, nunlike in +its rigid austerity, her nurse's room adjoining, and a square sun-room, +giving glimpses of roofs and trim back-gardens, full of flowers, with a +little fountain and goldfish, a floor of dull pink tiling, and plants in +great jars of Chinese enamel. Christopher had planned this delightful +addition to Alice's domain only a few years ago, and, with that +knowledge of her secret heart that only Christopher could claim, had let +her share the pleasure of designing and arranging it. It stretched out +across the west side of the spacious backyard, almost touching the +branches of the great plane tree, and when, after the painful move to +her mother's house, and the necessary absence during the building of it, +Alice had been brought back to this new evidence of their love and +goodness, she had buried her face against Christopher's shoulder, and +told him that she didn't think people with all the world to wander in +had ever had anything lovelier than this! + +One of the paintings that Alice might look at idly, in the silence of +the winter noon, was of a daisied meadow, stretching between walls of +heavy summer woodland to the roof of a half-buried farmhouse in the +valley below. The other picture was of the very mother who was coming +toward Alice now, in the jolting omnibus. But it was a younger mother, +and a younger Alice, that had been captured by the painter's genius. It +was a stout, imperious, magnificently gowned woman, of not much more +than thirty, in whose spreading silk lap a fair little girl was sitting. +This little earnest-eyed child was Alice at seven. The splendid, +dark-eyed, proud-looking boy of about fourteen, who stood beside the +mother, was Teddy, her only son, dead now for many years, and perhaps +mercifully dead. The fourth and last person pictured was the elder +daughter, Annie, who had been about nine years old then, Alice +remembered. Annie and Alice had been unusually alike, even for sisters, +but even then Annie's fair, aristocratic type of blonde prettiness had +been definite where Alice's was vague, and Annie's expression had been +just a trifle haughty and discontented where Alice's was always grave +and sweet. Annie had almost been a beauty, she was extremely and +conspicuously good-looking even now, when as Mrs. Hendrick von Behrens, +wife of a son of an old and wealthy Knickerbocker family, she was +supreme in the very holy of holies of the city's social life. + +Mrs. Melrose came unannounced upon her daughter to-day, and Alice's +colourless warm cheek flushed with happiness under her mother's fresh, +cold kiss. + +"Mummy--you darling! But how did you get here? Miss Slater says that the +streets are absolutely impassable!" + +"I came in the 'bus, dear," Mrs. Melrose said, very much pleased with +herself. "How warm and comfy you are in here, darling. But what did I +interrupt?" + +"You didn't interrupt anything," Alice said, quickly. "Chris telephoned, +and he's bringing Henrici--the Frenchman who wrote that play I loved +so--to tea. Isn't that fun? I'm so excited--and I think Chris was such a +duck to get hold of him. I was translating it, you know, and Bowditch, +who was here for dinner last night, told me he'd place it, if I finished +it. And now I can talk it over with Henrici himself--thanks to Chris! +Chris met my man at the club, and told him about me, and he said he +would be charmed. So I telephoned several persons, and I tried to get +hold of Annie----" + +"Annie has a lunch--and a board meeting at the hospital at four," +Annie's mother remembered, "and Leslie is at a girls' luncheon +somewhere. Annie had breakfast with me, and was rushing off afterward. +She's quite wonderfully faithful about those things." + +"Well, but you'll stay for lunch and tea, too, Mummy?" Alice pleaded. +She was lying back in her pillows, feasting her eyes upon her mother's +face with that peculiarly tense devotion that was part of her nature. +Rarely did a day pass without their meeting, and no detail touching +Annie's life, Annie's boys or husband, was too small to interest Alice. +She was especially interested, too, in Leslie, the eighteen-year-old +daughter that her brother Theodore had left to his mother's care; in +fact, between the mother and daughters, the one granddaughter and two +little grandsons, and the two sons-in-law of the Melrose family, a deep +bond existed, a bond of pride as well as affection. It was one of their +favourite boasts that to the Melroses the unity and honour of the family +was the first consideration in the world. + +But to-day Mrs. Melrose could not stay. At one o'clock she left Alice to +be put into her prettiest robe by the devoted Miss Slater, saw with +satisfaction that preparations for tea were noiselessly under way, +called Regina, odorous of tea and mutton chops, from the pantry, and +went out into the quiet cold of the winter noon. + +The old Melrose house was a substantial, roomy, brownstone building in +Madison Avenue, inconspicuous perhaps among several notoriously handsome +homes, but irreproachably dignified none the less. A few blocks below it +the commercial current of East Thirty-fourth Street ebbed and flowed; a +few blocks north the great facade of the Grand Central Station shut off +the street completely. Third Avenue, behind it, swarmed and rattled +alarmingly close, and Broadway flared its impudent signs only five +minutes' walk in the other direction, but here, in a little oasis of +quiet street, two score of old families serenely held their place +against the rising tide, and among them the Melroses confidently felt +themselves valued and significant. + +Mrs. Melrose mounted her steps with the householder's secret +complacency. They were scrupulously brushed of the last trace of snow, +and the heavy door at the top swung noiselessly open to admit her. She +suddenly realized that she was very tired, that her fur coat was heavy, +and her back ached. She swept straight to the dark old curving stairway, +and mounted slowly. + +"Joseph," she said over her shoulder, "send luncheon upstairs, please. +And when Miss Leslie comes in, tell her I should like to see her, if it +isn't too late. Anybody coming to-night?" + +"Mr. von Behrens telephoned that he and Mr. Liggett might come in for a +moment, on his way to the banquet at the Waldorf, Madam. But that was +all." + +"I may have dinner upstairs, too, if Leslie is going anywhere," Mrs. +Melrose said to herself, mounting slowly. And it seemed to her fatigue +very restful to find her big room warm and orderly, her coal fire +burning behind the old-fashioned steel rods, all the homely, +comfortable treasures of her busy years awaiting her. She sank into a +chair, and Regina flew noiselessly about with slippers and a loose silk +robe. Presently a maid was serving smoking-hot bouillon, and Mrs. +Melrose felt herself relaxed and soothed; it was good to be home. + +Yet there was trace of uneasiness, of something almost like +apprehension, in the look that wandered thoughtfully about the +overcrowded room. Presently she reached a plump, well-groomed hand +toward the bell. But when Regina came to stand expectantly near her, +Mrs. Melrose roused herself from a profound abstraction to assure her +that she had not rung--it must have been a mistake. + +"Miss Leslie hasn't come in?" + +"Not yet, Madam, Miss Melrose is at Miss Higgins's luncheon." + +"Yes; but it was an early luncheon," the grandmother said, +discontentedly. "She was playing squash, or tennis, or something! +Regina----" + +"Yes, Madam?" + +But Mrs. Melrose was musing again. + +"Regina, I am expecting a caller at four o'clock, a Mrs. Sheridan. +Please see that she is shown up at once. I want to see her here. And +please----" + +A pause. Regina waited. + +"That's all!" her mistress announced, suddenly. + +Alone again, the old lady stirred her tea, ruminated for a few moments +with narrowed eyes fixed on space, recalled herself to her surroundings, +and finished her cup. + +Her room was large, filled with chairs and tables, lamps and cushions, +silver trays and lacquer boxes, vases and jars and bowls, gift books +and current magazines. There was not an unbroken inch of surface +anywhere, the walls were closely set with pictures of all sorts. Along +the old-fashioned mantel, a scalloped, narrow shelf of marble, was a +crowding line of photographs in silver frames, and there were other +framed photographs all about the room. There were the young mothers of +the late eighties, seated to best display their bustles and their French +twists, with heavy-headed infants in their tightly cased arms, and there +were children's pictures, babes in shells, in swings, or leaning on +gates. There were three Annies: one in ringlets, plaid silk, and +tasselled boots, at eight; one magnificent in drawing-room plumes; and a +recent one, a cloudy study of the severely superb mother, with a +sleek-headed, wide-collared boy on each side of her. There was a +photograph of the son Theodore, handsome, sullen, dressed in the fashion +of the opening century, and there was more than one of Theodore's +daughter, the last of the Melroses. Leslie had been a wide-eyed, sturdy +little girl who carried a perpetually surprised, even a babyish +expression into her teens, but her last pictures showed the debutante, +the piquant and charming eighteen-year-old, whose knowingly tipped hat +and high fur collar left only a glimpse of pretty and pouting face +between. + +Leslie came in upon her grandmother at about three o'clock. She was +genuinely tired, after an athletic morning at the club, a luncheon amid +a group of chattering intimates, and a walk with the young man whose +attentions to her were thrilling not only her grandmother and aunts, but +the cool-blooded little Leslie herself. Acton Liggett was Christopher's +only brother, only relative indeed, and promised already to be as great +a favourite as the irresistible Chris himself. Both were rich, both +fine-looking, straightforward, honourable men, proud of their own +integrity, their long-established family, and their old firm. Acton was +pleasantly at home in the Melrose, Liggett, and Von Behrens houses, the +very maids loved him, and his quiet singling out of Leslie for his +devotion had satisfied everyone's sense of what was fitting and +delightful. Pretty Leslie, back from a summer's idling with Aunt Annie +and the little boys, in California and Hawaii, had found Acton's +admiration waiting for her, with all the other joys of her debutante +winter. + +And even the critical Aunt Annie had to admit that the little minx was +managing the whole matter with consummate skill. Leslie was not in the +least self-conscious with Acton; she turned to him with all the artless +confidence of a little sister. She asked him about her dancing partners, +and about her gowns, and she discussed with him all the various bits of +small gossip that concerned their own friends. + +"Should I have said that, Acton?" she would ask, trustfully. "Shall I be +Marion's bridesmaid? Would you?--after I refused Linda Fox, you know. I +don't like to dance with Louis Davis, after what you told me; what shall +I do when he comes up to me?" + +Acton was twenty-five, seven years her senior. He advised her earnestly, +over many a confidential cup of tea. And just lately, the grandmother +noticed exultantly, hardly a day passed that did not find the young +couple together. + +"How did Acton happen to meet you, lovey?" she asked to-day, _apropos_ +of the walk. + +"Why, he telephoned Vesta Higgins's, and asked me how I was going to get +home. I said, walk. There was no use trying motor-cars, anyway, for they +were slipping and bumping terribly! He said he was in the neighbourhood, +and he came up. Granny----" + +She paused, and her grandmother was conscious of a quickened heart-beat. +The thoughtful almost tremulous tone was not like giddy little Leslie. + +"Granny," the girl repeated, presently, "how old was my mother when she +got married?" + +"About twenty-two," the old woman said. + +"And how old was Aunt Annie when she did?" + +"Annie's about thirty-seven," her mother considered. "She was about +twenty-five. But why, dear?" + +"Nothing," said Leslie, and fell silent. + +She was still in the silk blouse and short homespun skirt that she had +worn at the athletic club luncheon, but she had thrown aside her loose +woolly coat, and the narrow furs that were no softer than her own fair +skin. Flung back into a deep chair, and relaxed after her vigorous day, +she looked peculiarly childish and charming, her grandmother thought. +She was like both her aunts, with Annie's fair, almost ashen hair and +Alice's full, pretty mouth. But she was more squarely built than either, +and a hint of a tip, at the end of her nose, gave her an expression at +once infantile and astonished. When Leslie opened her blue eyes widely, +and stared at anything, she looked like an amazed baby, and the effect +of her round eyes and tilted nose was augmented by her very fair skin, +and by just a sixteenth of an inch shortness in her upper lip. Of course +she knew all this. Her acquaintance with her own good and bad points had +begun in school days, and while through her grandmother's care her +teeth were being straightened, and her eyes and throat subjected to mild +forms of surgery, her Aunt Annie had seen to it that her masses of fair +hair had been burnished and groomed, her hands scraped and polished into +beauty, and finally that her weight was watched with scrupulous care. +Nature had perhaps intended Leslie to be plump and ruddy, but modern +fashion had decreed otherwise, and, with half the girls of her own age +and set, Leslie took saccharine in her tea, rarely touched sweets or +fried food, and had the supreme satisfaction of knowing that she was +actually too slim and too willowy for her height, and interestingly +colourless into the bargain. + +Could Acton possibly have said anything definite to start this unusual +train of thought, the grandmother speculated. With Leslie so +felicitously married, she would have felt ready for her _nunc dimittis_. +She watched Leslie expectantly. But the girl was apparently dreaming, +and was staring absently at the tip of one sturdy oxford above which a +stretch of thick white woollen stocking was visible almost to her knee. + +"How can they fall in love with them, dressed like Welsh peasants!" the +grandmother said to herself, in mild disapproval. And aloud she said: +"Ah, don't, lovey!" + +For Leslie had taken out a small gold case, and was regarding it +thoughtfully. + +"My first to-day, on my honour!" Leslie said, as she lazily lighted a +sweet-scented cigarette. It never occurred to her to pay any attention +to her grandmother's protest, for Grandmother had been regularly +protesting against everything Leslie had done since her adored and +despotic childhood. She had fainted when Leslie had dived off the dock +at Newport, and had wept when Leslie had galloped through the big iron +gates on her own roan stallion; she had called in Christopher, as +Leslie's guardian, when Leslie, at fifteen, had calmly climbed into one +of the big cars, and driven it seven miles, alone and unadvised, and +totally without instruction or experience. Leslie knew that this +half-scandalized and wholly-admiring opposition was one of her +grandmother's secret satisfactions, and she combatted it only +mechanically. + +"Have one, Grandma?" + +"Have one--you wild girl you! I'd like to know what a nice young man +thinks when a refined girl offers him----" + +"All the nice young men are smoking themselves, like chimneys!" + +"Ah, but that's a very different thing. No, my dear, no man, whether he +smokes himself or not, likes to have a sweet, womanly girl descend----" + +"Darling, didn't you ever do anything that my revered great-grandmother +Murison disapproved of?" Leslie teased, dropping on her knees before her +grandmother, and resting her arms on her lap. + +"Smoke----! My mother would have fainted," said Mrs. Melrose. "And don't +blow that nasty-smelling stuff in my face!" + +But she could not resist the pleasure that the lovely young face, so +near her own, gave her, and she patted it with her soft, wrinkled hand. +Suddenly Leslie jumped up eagerly, listening to the sound of voices in +the hall. + +"There's Aunt Annie--oh, goody! I wanted to ask her----" + +But it was Regina who opened the door, showing in two callers. The first +was a splendid-looking woman of perhaps forty-five, with a rosy, +cheerful face, and wide, shrewd gray eyes shining under a somewhat +shabby mourning veil. With her was a pretty girl of eighteen, or perhaps +a little more. + +Leslie glanced astonished at her grandmother. It was extremely unusual +to have callers shown in in this unceremonious fashion, even if she had +been rather unprepossessed by these particular callers. The younger +woman's clothing, indeed, if plain, was smart and simple; her severe +tailor-made had a collar of beaver fur to relieve its dark blue, and her +little hat of blue beaver felt was trimmed only by a band of the same +fur. She had attractive dark-blue eyes and a flashing smile. + +But her companion's comfortable dowdiness, her black cotton gloves, her +squarely built figure, and worn shoes, all awakened a certain contempt +in the granddaughter of the house, and caused Leslie shrewdly to surmise +that these humble strangers were pensioners of her grandmother, the +older one probably an old servant. + +"Kate Sheridan!" Old Mrs. Melrose had gotten to her feet, and had put +her arm about the visitor. "Well, my dear, my dear, I've not seen you +these----What is it? Don't tell me how many years it is! And which +daughter is this?" + +"This is my niece, Norma," the older woman said, in a delightful rich +voice that was full of easy confidence and friendliness. "This is Mrs. +Melrose, Norma, darling, that was such a good friend to me and mine +years ago!" + +"No warmer friend than you were to me, Kate," the old lady said, +quickly, still keeping an arm about the sturdy figure. "This is my +granddaughter, Theodore's little girl," Mrs. Melrose added, catching +Leslie with her free hand. + +Leslie was not more of a snob than is natural to a girl of her age and +upbringing, but she could not but give Mrs. Sheridan a pretty cool +glance. Grandmother's old friends were all very well---- + +But Mrs. Sheridan was studying her with affectionate freedom. + +"And isn't she Miss Alice's image! But she's like you all--she's like +Mr. Theodore, too, especially through the eyes!" + +And she turned back to her hostess, interested, animated, and as +oblivious to Leslie's hostile look as if the girl were her own picture +on the wall. + +"And you and my Norma must know each other," she said, presently, +watching the girls as they shook hands, with a world of love and +solicitude in her eyes. + +"Sit down, both you two," Mrs. Melrose said. Leslie glanced at the +strapped watch at her wrist. + +"Grandmother, I really----" she began. + +"No, you don't really!" her grandmother smiled. "Talk to Miss Sheridan +while I talk"--she turned smiling to her old friend--"to Kate! Tell me, +how are you all, Kate? And where are you all--you were in Detroit?" + +"We've been in New York more than two years now, and why I haven't been +to see you before, perhaps _you_ can tell me, for _I_ can't!" Kate +Sheridan said. "But my boy is a great big fellow now; Wolf's +twenty-four, and Rose is twenty-one, and this one," she nodded toward +Norma, who was exchanging comments on the great storm with Leslie, "this +one is nearly nineteen! And you see they're all working: Wolf's doing +wonderfully with a firm of machine manufacturers, in Newark, and Rose +has been with one real estate firm since we came. And Norma here works +in a bookstore, up the Avenue a bit, Biretta's." + +"Why, I go in there nearly every week!" the old lady said. + +"She told me the other night that she had been selling some books to Mr. +Christopher Liggett, and that's Miss Alice's husband, I hear," said Mrs. +Sheridan. "She's in what they call the Old Book Room," she added, +lowering her voice. "She's wonderful about books, reads them, and knows +them as if they were children--they think the world of her in there! And +I keep house for the three of them, and what with this and that--I never +have any time!" + +"But you have someone to help you, Kate?" the old lady asked, with her +amused and affectionate eyes on the other's wholesome face. + +"Why would I?" demanded Mrs. Sheridan, roundly. "The girls are a great +help----" + +"She always assumes a terrific brogue the minute you ask her why we +don't have someone in to help her," Norma contributed, with a sort of +shy and loving audacity. "She'll tell you in a minute that faith, she +and her sister used to run barefoot over the primroses, and they +blooming beyond anything the Lord ever created, and the spring on +them----" + +Leslie Melrose laughed out suddenly, in delighted appreciation, and the +tension between the two girls was over. They had not quite known how to +talk to each other; Norma naturally assuming that Leslie looked down +upon a seller of books, and anxious to show her that she was unconscious +of either envy or inferiority, and Leslie at a loss because her usual +social chatter was as foreign here as a strange tongue would be. But no +type is quicker to grasp upon amusement, and to appreciate the amuser, +than Leslie's, unable to amuse itself, and skilled in seeking for +entertainment. She was too shy to ask Norma to imitate her aunt again, +but her stiffness relaxed, and she asked Norma if it was not great "fun" +to sell things--especially at Christmas, for instance. Norma asked in +turn if Mr. Liggett was not Leslie's uncle, and said that she had sold +him hundreds of beautiful books for his wife, and had even had a note +from Leslie's Aunt Alice, thanking her for some little courtesy. + +"But isn't that funny!" Leslie said, with her childish widening of the +eyes. "That you should know Chris!" + +"Well, now," said Mrs. Sheridan's voice, cutting across both +conversations, "where can these girls go for about fifteen minutes? I'll +tell you my little bit of business, Mrs. Melrose, and then Norma and I +will go along. It won't take me fifteen minutes, for there's nothing to +decide to-day," the girls heard her add, comfortably, as they went into +the hall. + +"Leslie!" her grandmother called after her. "If you must change, +dear--but wait a minute, is that Aunt Annie out there?" + +"No, Grandma, just ourselves. What were you going to say?" + +"I was going to say, lovey, that you could ask Miss Sheridan to wait in +the library; her aunt tells me she is fond of books." Mrs. Melrose did +not quite like to commit Leslie to entertaining the strange girl for +perhaps half an hour. She was pleasantly reassured by Leslie's answering +voice: + +"We'll have tea in my room, Grandma. Marion and Doris may come in!" + +"That's right, have a good time!" her grandmother answered. And then +settling back comfortably, she added with her kind, fussy superiority, +"Well, Kate, I've wondered where you were hiding yourself all this time! +Let's have the business. But first I want to say that I appreciate your +turning to me. If it's money--I've got it. If it's something else, Chris +Liggett is one of the cleverest men in New York, and we'll consult him." + +"It's not money, thank God!" Mrs. Sheridan said, in her forthright +voice. "Lord knows where it all comes from, these days, but the children +always have plenty," she added, glad of a diversion. "They bought +themselves a car two years ago, and if it isn't a Victrola this week, +it's a thermos bottle, or a pair of white buckskin shoes! Rose told me +she paid eight dollars for her corsets. 'Eight dollars for what,' I +said, 'a dozen?' But then I've the two houses in Brooklyn, you know----" + +"You still have those?" + +"I have, indeed. And even the baby--we call Norma the baby--is earning +good money now." + +"She has your name, Kate--Sheridan. Had your husband a brother?" + +Kate Sheridan's face grew a trifle pale. She glanced at the door to see +that it was shut, and at the one to the adjoining room to make sure +that it was closed also. Then she turned to Mrs. Melrose, and it was an +anxious glance she directed at the older woman. + +"Well, now, there's no hurry about this," she began, "and you may say +that it's all nonsense, and send me packing--and God knows I hope you +will! But it just began to get on my mind--and I've never been a great +one to worry! I'll begin at the beginning----" + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Marion Duer and Doris Alexander duly arrived for tea with Leslie, and +Norma was introduced. They all sat in Leslie's room, and laughed as they +reached for crumpets, and marvelled at the storm. Norma found them +rather younger than their years, and shyly anxious to be gracious. On +her part she realized with some surprise that they were not really +unapproachable, and that Leslie was genuinely anxious to take her to tea +with Aunt Alice some day, and have them "talk books and things." The +barriers between such girls as this one and herself, Norma was honest +enough to admit, were largely of her own imagining. They were neither so +contemptibly helpless nor so scornfully clever as she had fancied them; +they were just laughing girls, absorbed in thoughts of gowns and +admirers and good times, like her cousin Rose and herself. + +There had been perhaps one chance in one hundred that she and Leslie +Melrose might at once become friends, but by fortunate accident that +chance had favoured them. Leslie's spontaneous laugh in Mrs. Melrose's +room, her casual mention of tea, her appreciative little phrases as she +introduced to Marion and Doris the young lady who picked out books for +Aunt Alice, had all helped to crush out the vaguely hostile impulse +Norma Sheridan had toward rich little members of a society she only knew +by hearsay. Norma had found herself sitting on Leslie's big velvet +couch laughing and chatting quite naturally, and where Norma chatted +naturally the day was won. She could be all friendliness, and all +sparkle and fun, and presently Leslie was listening to her in actual +fascination. + +The butler announced a motor-car, a maid came up; Doris and Marion had +to go. Leslie and Norma went into Leslie's dressing-room, and Leslie's +maid went obsequiously to and fro, and the girls talked almost +intimately as they washed their hands and brushed their hair. Neither +cared that the time was passing. + +But the time was passing none the less. Five o'clock came with a pale +and uncertain sunset, and a cold twilight began to settle over the snowy +city. Leslie and Norma came back to the fire, and were standing there, a +trifle uncertainly, but still talking hard and fast, when there was an +interruption. + +They looked at each other, paling. What was that? + +There was utter silence in the old house. Leslie, with a frightened look +at Norma, ran to the hall door. As she opened it Mrs. Sheridan opened +the door of her grandmother's room opposite, and called, quite loudly: + +"It's nothing, dear! Get hold of your grandmother's maid--somebody! She +feels a little--but she's quite all right!" + +Leslie and Norma ran across the hall, and into Mrs. Melrose's room. By +this time Regina had come flying in, and two of the younger maids, and +Joseph had run upstairs. Leslie had only one glimpse of her grandmother, +leaning against Regina's arm, and drinking from a glass of water that +shook in the maid's hands. Then Mrs. Sheridan guided both herself and +Norma firmly into the hall, and reassured them cheerfully: + +"The room was very hot, dear, and your grandmother said that she had +gotten tired, walking in the wind. She's quite all right--you can go in +immediately. No; she didn't faint--she just had a moment of dizziness, +and called out." + +Regina came out, too evidently convinced that she had to deal with a +murderess, and coldly asked that Mrs. Sheridan would please step back +for a minute. Mrs. Sheridan immediately complied, but it was hardly more +than a minute when she joined the girls again. + +"She wants to see you, dear," she said to Leslie, whose first frightened +tears had dried from bewilderment and curiosity, "and we must hurry on. +Come, Norma, we'll say good-night!" + +"Good-night, Miss Melrose," Norma said. + +"Good-night," Leslie answered, hesitating over the name. Her wide +babyish smile, the more appealing because of her wet lashes, made a +sudden impression upon Norma's heart. Leslie hung childishly on the +upstairs balustrade, in the dim wide upper hall, and watched them go. +"I--I almost called you Norma!" she confessed, mischievously. + +"I wish you had!" Norma called up from below. She was in great spirits +as they went out into the deepening cold blue of the street, and almost +persuaded her aunt to take the omnibus up the Avenue. But Mrs. Sheridan +protested rather absent-mindedly against this extravagance. They were +close to the subway and that was quicker. + +Norma could not talk in the packed and swaying train, and when they +emerged at Sixty-fifth Street they had only one slippery, cold, dark +block to walk. But when they had reached the flat, and snapped on +lights everywhere, and cast off outer garments, aproned and busy, in the +kitchen, she burst out: + +"What on earth was the matter with that old lady, Aunt Kate?" + +"Oh, I suppose they all eat too much, and sleep too much, and pamper +themselves as if they were babies," her aunt returned, composedly, "and +so it doesn't take much to upset 'em!" + +"Oh, come now!" the girl said, stopping with arrested knife. "That +wasn't what made her let out a yell like that!" + +Mrs. Sheridan, kneeling at the oven of the gas stove, laughed uneasily. + +"Oh, you could hear that, could you?" + +"Hear it! They heard it in Yonkers." + +"Well," Mrs. Sheridan said, "she has always been high-strung, that one. +I remember years ago she'd be going into crying and raving fits. She's +got very deep affections, Mrs. Melrose, and when she gets thinking of +Theodore, and of Alice's accident, and this and that, she'll go right +off the handle. She had been crying, poor soul, and suddenly she began +this moaning and rocking. I told her I'd call someone if she didn't +stop, for she'd go from bad to worse, with me." + +"But why with you, Aunt Kate? Do you know her so well?" + +"Do I know them?" Mrs. Sheridan dug an opener into a can of corn with a +vigorous hand. "I know them all!" + +"But how was that?" Norma persisted, now dropping her peeled potatoes +into dancing hot water. + +"I've told you five thousand times, but you and Rose would likely have +one of your giggling fits on, and not a word would you remember!" her +aunt said. "I've told you that years ago, when your Uncle Tom died, and +I was left with two babies, and not much money, a friend of mine, a +milliner she was, told me that she knew a lady that wanted someone to +help manage her affairs--household affairs. Well, I'd often helped your +Uncle Tom with his books, and my mother was with me, to look out for the +children----" + +"Where was I, Aunt Kate?" + +"You! Wolf wasn't but three, and Rose a year old--where would you be?" + +"I was minus two years," Norma said, sententiously. "I was part of the +cosmic all----" + +"You be very careful how you talk about such things until you're a +married woman!" her aunt said. "Salt those potatoes, darling. Norma, can +you remember what I did with the corn that Rose liked so?" + +Norma was attentive. + +"You beat it up with eggs, and it came out a sort of puff," she +recalled. "I know--you put a little cornstarch in, to give it body! +Listen, Aunt Kate, how long did you stay with Mrs. Melrose?" + +"Well, first I just watched her help for her, and paid the bills, and +went to market. And then I got gradually managing more and more; I'd go +to pay her interest, or deposit money, or talk to tenants; I liked it +and she liked me. And then she talked me into going to France with her, +but I cried all the way for my children, and I was glad enough to come +home again! She and Miss Annie spent some time over there, but I came +back. Miss Alice was in school, and Theodore--dear knows where he +was--into some mischief somewhere! But I'd saved money, and she'd given +me the Brooklyn houses, and I took a boarder or two, and that was the +last I ever worked for any one but my own!" + +"Well, that's a nice girl, that Leslie," Norma said, "if her father +_was_ wild!" + +"Her mother was a good girl," Kate said, "I knew her. But the old lady +was proud, Baby--God save any one of us from pride like that! You'd +never know it, to see her now, but she was very proud. Theodore's wife +was a good girl, but she was Miss Annie's maid, and what Mrs. Melrose +never could forgive was that when she ordered the girl out of the house, +she showed her her wedding certificate. She was Mrs. Theodore Melrose, +fast enough--though his mother never would see her or acknowledge her in +any way." + +"They must think the Lord has made a special arrangement for +them--people like that!" Norma commented, turning a lovely flushed face +from the pan where she was dexterously crisping bacon. "What business is +it of hers if her son marries a working girl? That gives me a feeling +akin to pain--just because she happens to have a lot of money! What does +Miss Leslie Melrose think of that?" + +"I don't know what she thinks--she loves her grandmother, I suppose. +Mrs. Melrose took her in when she was only a tiny girl, and she's been +the apple of her eye ever since. Theodore and his wife were divorced, +and when Leslie was about four or five he came back to his mother to +die--poor fellow! It was a terrible sorrow to the old lady--she'd had +her share, one way and another! My goodness, Norma," Mrs. Sheridan +interrupted herself to say, in half-reproachful appreciation, "I wish +you'd always help me like this, my dear! You can be as useful as ten +girls, when you've a mind to! And then perhaps to-morrow you'll be as +contrary----!" + +"Oh, Aunt Kate, aren't you ashamed! When I ironed all your dish-towels +last night, when you were setting bread, and I made the popovers +Sunday!" Norma kissed her aunt, brushed a dab of cornstarch from the +older woman's firm cheek, and performed a sort of erratic dance about +the protestant and solid figure. "I'm a poor working girl," she said, +"and I get dragged out with my long, hard day!" + +"Well, God knows that's true, too," her aunt said, with a sudden look of +compunction; "you may make a joke of it, but it's no life for a girl. My +dear," she added, seriously, holding Norma with a firm arm, and looking +into her eyes, "I hope I did no harm by what I did to-day! I did it for +the best, whatever comes of it." + +"You mean stirring up the whole thing?" Norma asked, frowning a little +in curiosity and bewilderment. "Going to see her?" + +"That--yes." Mrs. Sheridan rubbed her forehead with her hand, a fashion +she had when puzzled or troubled, and suddenly resumed, with a great +rattling of pans and hissing of water, her operations at the sink. +"Well, nothing may come of it--we'll see!" she added, briskly. Norma, +who was watching her expectantly, sighed disappointedly; the subject was +too evidently closed. But a second later she was happily distracted by +the slamming of the front door; Wolf and Rose Sheridan had come in +together, and dinner was immediately served. + +Norma recounted, with her own spirited embellishments, her adventures of +the afternoon as the meal progressed. She had had "fun" getting to the +office in the first place, a man had helped her, and they had both +skidded into another man, and bing!--they had all gone down on the ice +together. And then at the shop nobody had come in, and the lights had +been lighted, and the clerks had all gathered together and talked. Then +Aunt Kate had come in to have lunch, and to have Norma go with her to +the gas company's office about the disputed charge, and they had decided +to make, at last, that long-planned call on the Melroses. There followed +a description of the big house and the spoiled, pretty girl, and the +impressive yet friendly old lady. + +"And Aunt Kate--I'm sorry to say!--talked her into a nervous convulsion. +You did, Aunt Kate--the poor old lady gave one piercing yell----" + +"You awful girl, there'll be a judgment on you for your impudence!" her +aunt said, fondly. But Rose looked solicitously at her mother, and said: + +"Mother looks as if she had had a nervous convulsion, too. You look +terribly tired, Mother!" + +"Well, I had a little business to discuss with Mrs. Melrose," Mrs. +Sheridan said, "and I'm no hand for business!" + +"You know it!" Wolf Sheridan concurred, with his ready laugh. "Why +didn't you send me?" + +"It was her business, lovey," his mother said, mildly, over her second +heartening cup of strong black tea. + +The Sheridan apartment was, in exterior at least, exactly like one +hundred thousand others that line the side streets of New York. It faced +the familiar grimy street, fringed on the great arteries each side by +cigarette stands and saloons, and it was entered by the usual flight of +stained and shabby steps, its doorway showing a set of some dozen +letter-boxes, and looking down upon a basement entrance frequently +embellished with ash-cans and milk-bottles, and, just at present, with +banks of soiled and sooty snow. The Sheridans climbed three long flights +inside, to their own rooms, but as this gained them a glimpse of river, +and a sense in summer of airiness and height, to say nothing of pleasant +nearness to the roof, they rarely complained of the stairs--in fact, +rarely thought of them at all. + +With the opening of their own door, however, all likeness to their +neighbours ceased. Even in a class where home ties and home comforts are +far more common than is generally suspected, Kate Sheridan was +exceptional, and her young persons fortunate among their kind. Her +training had been, she used to tell them, "old country" training, but it +was not only in fresh linen and hot, good food that their advantage lay. +It was in the great heart that held family love a divine gift, that had +stood between them and life's cold realities for some twenty courageous +years. Kate idolized her own two children and her foster-child with a +passion that is the purest and the strongest in the world. In possessing +them, she thought herself the most blessed of women. To keep a roof over +their heads, to watch them progress triumphantly through long division +and measles and skates, to see milk glasses emptied and plates scraped, +to realize that Wolf was as strong morally as he was physically, and +that all her teachers called Rose an angel, to spoil and adore the +beautiful, mischievous, and amusing "Baby"; this made a life full to the +brim, for Kate, of pride and happiness. Kate had never had a servant, +or a fur coat; for long intervals she had not had a night's unbroken +rest; and there had been times, when Wolf's fractured arm necessitated a +doctor's bill, or when coal for the little Detroit house had made a +disproportionate hole in her bank account, in which even the thrifty +Kate had known biting financial worry. + +But the children never knew it. They knew only her law of service and +love. They must love each other, whatever happened. There was no +quarrelling at meals at Kate's house. Rose must of course oblige her +brother, sew on the button, or take his book to the library; Wolf must +always protect the girls, and consider them. Wolf firmly believed his +sister and cousin to be the sweetest girls in the world; Rose and Norma +regarded Wolf as perfection in human form. They rarely met without +embraces, never without brightening eyes and light hearts. + +That this attitude toward each other was only the result of the healthy +bodies and honest souls that Kate had given them they would hardly have +believed. That her resolute training had literally forced them to love +and depend upon themselves in a world where brothers and sisters as +habitually teased and annoyed each other, would have struck them as +fantastic. Perhaps Kate herself hardly knew the power of her own will +upon them. Her commands in their babyhood had not been couched in the +language of modern child-analysts, nor had she given, or been able to +give, any particular reason for her law. But the instinct by which she +drew Wolf's attention to his sister's goodness, or noted Wolf's +cleverness for Rose's benefit, was better than any reason. She summed +the situation up simply for the few friends she had, with the phrase: + +"They're all crazy about each other, every one of them!" + +Kate's parlour would have caused Annie von Behrens actual faintness. But +it was a delightful place to Rose and Wolf and their friends. The +cushioned divan on Sunday nights customarily held a row of them, the +upright ebony piano sifted popular music impartially upon the taboret, +the patent rocker, and the Rover rug. They laughed, gossiped, munched +candy, and experimented in love-making quite as happily as did Leslie +and her own intimates. They streamed out into the streets, and sauntered +along under the lights to the moving pictures, or on hot summer nights +they perched like tiers of birds on the steps, and the world and youth +seemed sweet to them. In Kate's dining-room, finished in black wood and +red paper, they made Welsh rarebits and fudge, and in Kate's spotless +kitchen odours of toast and coffee rose at unseemly hours. + +Lately, Rose and Norma had been talking of changes. Rose was employed in +an office whose severe and beautiful interior decoration had cost +thousands of dollars, and Norma's Old Book Room was a study in dull +carved woods, Oriental rugs, dull bronzes, and flawless glass. The girls +began to feel that a plain cartridge paper and net curtains might well +replace the parlour's florid green scrolling and Nottingham lace. But +they did not worry about it; it served as a topic to amuse their leisure +hours. The subject was generally routed by a shrewd allusion, from Norma +or Wolf, to the sort of parlour people would like if they got married, +married to someone who was doing very well in the shoe business, for +example. + +These allusions deepened the colour in Rose's happy face; she had been +"going" for some three months with an attractive young man who exactly +met these specifications--not her first admirer, not noticeable for any +especial quality, yet Rose and Norma, and Kate, too, felt in their souls +that Rose's hour had come. Young Harry Redding was a big, broad, rather +inarticulate fellow, whose humble calling was not the more attractive to +the average young woman because he supported his mother by it. But he +suited Rose, more, he seemed wonderful to Rose, and because her dreams +had always been humble and self-sacrificing, Harry was a thousand times +more than she had dreamed. She felt herself the luckiest girl in the +world. + +Kate sat at the head of her table, and Wolf at the foot. Rose, a gentle, +quiet copy of her handsome mother, was nearest the kitchen door, to +which she made constant flying trips. Norma was opposite Rose, and by +falling back heavily could tip her entire chair against the sideboard, +from which she extracted forks or salt or candy, as the case might be. +The telephone was in the dining-room, Wolf's especial responsibility, +and Mrs. Sheridan herself occasionally left the table for calls to the +front door or the dumb-waiter. + +To-night, after supper, the girls flew through their share of +clearing-up. It never weighed very heavily upon them; they usually began +the process of piling and scraping dishes before they left the table, +Rose whisking the tablecloth into its drawer as Norma bumped through the +swinging door with the last dishes, and Kate halfway through the washing +even then. Chattering and busy, they hustled the hot plates onto their +shelves, rattled the hot plated ware into its basket, clanked saucepans, +and splashed water. Not fifteen minutes after the serving of the dessert +the last signs of the meal had been obliterated, and Kate was guilty of +what the girls called "making excuses" to linger in the kitchen. She was +mixing cereal, storing cold potatoes and cut bread, soaking dish-towels. +But these things did not belong to the duties of Norma and Rose, and the +younger girl could flash with a free conscience to the little room she +shared with Rose. Wolf had called out for a companion, they were going +to take a walk and see what the blizzard had done! + +Norma washed her face, the velvety skin emerging with its bloom +untouched, the lips crimson, the blue eyes blazing. She pressed a great +wave of silky dark hair across her white forehead, and put the +fur-trimmed hat at a dashing angle. The lace blouse, the pearl beads, +her fur-collared coat again, and Norma was ready to dance out beside +Wolf as if fatigue and labours did not exist. + +"Where's Rose?" he said, as they went downstairs. + +"Oh, Wolf--Saturday night! Harry's coming, of course!" Norma slipped her +little hand, in its shabby glove, through his big arm. "She and Aunt +Kate were gossiping!" + +"Suits me!" Wolf said, contentedly. He held her firmly on the slippery +lumps of packed snow. The sidewalks were almost impassable, yet hundreds +of other happy persons were stumbling and scrambling over them in the +mild winter darkness. Stars were out; and whether Norma was blinking up +at them, or staring into lighted windows of candy stores and fruit +markets, her own eyes danced and twinkled. The elevated trains thundered +above their heads, and the subway roared under their feet; great +advertising signs, with thousands of coloured lights, fanned up and down +in a haze of pink and blue; the air was full of voices, laughing and +shouting, and the screaming of coasting children. + +"I have my pearls on," Norma told her companion. They stopped for some +molasses peppermints, and their pungent odour mingled for Norma in the +impression of this happy hour. "Wolf, how do they do that?" the girl +asked, watching an electric sign on which a maid mopped a dirty floor +with some prepared cleaner, leaving the floor clean after her mop. Wolf, +interested, explained, and Norma listened. They stopped at a drug store, +and studied a picture that subtly altered from Roosevelt's face to +Lincoln's, and thence to Wilson's face, and Wolf explained that, too. +Norma knew that he understood everything of that nature, but she liked +to impress him, too, and did so far more often than she realized, with +her book-lore. When Norma spoke lightly of a full calf edition de luxe +of the Sonnets from the Portuguese, she might almost have been speaking +in that language for all she conveyed to Wolf, but he watched the +animated face proudly just the same. Rose had always been good and +steady and thoughtful, but Wolf knew that Norma was clever, taking his +big-brotherly patronage with admiring awe, but daring where he +hesitated, and boldly at home where he was ill at ease. When she said +that when she got married she wanted Dedham china, and just a plain, +glass bowl for goldfish, Wolf nodded, but he would have nodded just as +placidly if she had wanted a Turkish corner and bead portieres. And +to-night when she asserted that she wouldn't be Leslie Melrose for +anything in the world, Wolf asked in simple wonderment why she should +be. + +"Imagine, a maid came to take those big girls home, Wolf! They can speak +French," Norma confided. Wolf did not look for coherence from her, and +took the two statements on their face value. "Now, I know I'm not +pretty," she continued, following, as was usual with her, some obscure +line of thought, "but I'm prettier than Doris Alexander, and she had her +picture in the paper!" + +"Who broke it to you that you're not pretty?" Wolf asked. + +"Well, I _know_ I'm not!" Norma jumped along at his side for a few +minutes, eyeing him expectantly, but Wolf's mind was honestly busy with +this assertion, and he did not speak. Wasn't she pretty? Girls had funny +standards. "You know," she resumed, "you'd hate a girl like Leslie +Melrose, Wolf!" + +"Would I?" + +"Oh, you'd loathe her. But I'll tell you who you _would_ like," Norma +added, in a sudden burst. "You'd love Mr. Liggett!" + +"Why should I?" Wolf asked, in some surprise. + +"Oh, because he's nice--he's very good-looking, and he has such a +pleasant voice, as if he knew everything, but wasn't a bit conceited!" +Norma said. "And he picks out books for his wife, and when I try to tell +him something about them, he always knows lots more. You know, in a +pleasant, careless sort of way, not a bit as if he was showing off. And +I'll tell you what he did. Miss Drake was showing him a pottery bowl +one day, and she dropped it, and she told me he sort of caught at it +with his hand, and he said to Mr. Biretta, 'I've very stupidly broken +this--just put it on my bill, will you?' Of course," Norma added, +vivaciously, "old B. G. immediately said that it was nothing at all, but +_you know_ what Miss Drake would have caught, if _she'd_ broken it!" + +Perhaps Wolf did, but he was thinking at the moment that the family baby +was very cunning, with her bright eyes and indignant mouth. He stopped +her before a vaudeville house, in a flare of bright light. + +"Want to go in?" + +"Oh, Wolf! Would Aunt Kate care? Oh, Wolf, _let's_!" + +There was absolute ecstasy in her eyes as they went through the +enchanted doorway and up the rising empty foyer toward the house. It was +nine o'clock; the performance was fairly under way. Norma rustled into a +seat beside her companion without moving her eyes from the coloured +comedian on the stage; she could remove hat and gloves and jacket +without losing an instant of him. + +When the lights went up Wolf approved the dark hair and the pearls, and +bent toward her to hear the unending confidences. Norma thought she had +never seen anything better, and even Wolf admitted that it was a good +show. They finished the peppermints, and were very happy. + +They had seen the big film, and so could cut the last third of the +programme, and reach home at ten o'clock. There was no comment from Aunt +Kate, who was yawning over the evening paper in the dining-room. Rose +and Harry were murmuring in the dimly lighted parlour. Wolf, who was of +the slow-thinking, intense type that discovers a new world every time it +reads a new book, was halfway through a shabby library copy of "War and +Peace," and went off to his room with the second volume under his arm. +Norma went to her room, too, but she sat dreaming before the mirror, +thinking of that Melrose house, and of Leslie's friendliness, until Rose +came in at eleven o'clock. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +At almost this same moment Norma's self was the subject of a rather +unusual talk between Christopher Liggett and his wife. + +Christopher had come softly into his house, at about half-past ten, to +find Alice awake, still on the big couch before her fire. Her little +bedroom beyond was softly lighted, the white bed turned down, and the +religious books she always read before going to sleep laid in place by +Miss Slater. But Alice had no light except her fire and two or three +candles in old sconces. + +She welcomed Christopher with a smile, and he sat down, in his somewhat +rumpled evening dress, and smiled back at her in a rather weary fashion. +He often told her that these rooms of hers were a sanctuary, that he +tested the men and women he met daily in the world by her fine and lofty +standard. It was part of his utter generosity to her that he talked to +her as frankly as if he thought aloud, and it was Alice's pride and joy +to know that this marriage of theirs, which had so sadly and suddenly +become no marriage at all, was not as one-sided as the world might have +suspected. Her clear, dispassionate viewpoint and her dignified +companionship were not wifehood, but they were dear and valuable to him +none the less, a part of his life that he would not have spared. And he +could still admire her, too, not only for the exquisite clearness of her +intellect, her French and Italian, her knowledge of countries and +affairs, but physically--the clear, childish forehead that was as +unwrinkled as Leslie's, the fair, beautifully brushed hair, the mouth +with its chiselling of wisdom and of pain, and the transparent hand from +which she shook back transparent laces. She was always proud, always +fresh and fragrant, always free for him and for his problems, and it was +proverbial in the circle of their intimates that Chris admired Alice +with all his heart, and never felt himself anything but the privileged +guardian of a treasure. + +To-night he dropped into a chair before her fire, and she watched him +for five or six restful minutes in silence. + +"Stupid dinner?" she ventured. + +"Rotten!" he answered, cheerfully. "I was late, but I got in to hear +Hendrick's speech. The Vice-President was there, everyone else I knew. I +cut away finally; I'm done up." + +"I thought you picked up Hendrick on your way and went together," Mrs. +Liggett said, sympathetically. "I'm sorry it was dull--I suppose men +have to go to these political things!" + +Chris was leaning forward, his locked hands dropped between his knees, +and his eyes on the fire. + +"Hendrick and I stopped at your mother's," he said, deliberately, "and +she was so upset that I sent Hendrick on alone!" + +Alice's eyes lighted apprehensively, but she spoke very quietly. + +"What was it, Chris? Leslie getting saucy?" + +"Oh, no, no! It was a complication of things, I imagine!" Christopher +took out his cigarette-case, looked at its moire surface reflectively, +and selected a smoke. "She was tired--she'd been out in the +snow--Leslie had gone off with Annie to some debutante affair--I daresay +she felt blue. Alice, do you remember a woman named Kate Sheridan?" + +The question was sudden, and Alice blinked. + +"Yes, I do," she answered, after a moment's thought, "she was a sort of +maid or travelling companion of Mama's. We called her Mrs. Sheridan--she +was quite a superior sort of person." + +"What do you remember about her, dear?" + +"Well--just that. She came when I was only a child--and then when Annie +was ill in Paris she went abroad with Mama--and I remember that she came +back, and she used to come see me at school, for Mama, and once she took +me up to Grandma's, in Brookline. She was a widow, and she had a +child--or two, maybe. Why, Chris?" + +Her husband did not answer, and she repeated the question. + +"Well," he said, at last, flinging the end of his cigarette into the +fire, "she came to see your mother to-day." + +Alice waited, a little at a loss. To her this had no particular +significance. + +"She had her niece with her, young girl about eighteen," Christopher +said. + +"Well--what _of_ it?" Alice demanded, with a sort of superb indifference +to anything such a woman might do. + +He looked at her through his round eyeglasses, with the slight frown +that many of life's problems brought to his handsome face. Then the +glass fell, on its black ribbon, and he laughed. + +"That's just what I don't _get_," he said, good-humouredly. "But I'll +tell you exactly what occurred. What's-His-Name, your mother's +butler----" + +"Joseph." + +"Joseph. Joseph told me that at about four o'clock this Mrs. Sheridan +came in. Your mother had told him that she was expecting the lady, and +that he was to bring her upstairs. With her came this girl--I can't +remember her name--but it was something Sheridan--Nora Sheridan, maybe. +Leslie carried the girl off for tea, and the woman stayed with your +mother. + +"Well, at five--or later, this Mrs. Sheridan ran into the hall, and it +seems--she's all right now!--it seems that your mother had fainted." + +"Mama!" Alice said, anxiously, with an incredulous frown. + +"Yes, but don't worry. She's absolutely all right now. Leslie," +Christopher went back to his narrative, "Leslie cried, and I suppose +there was a scene. Mrs. Sheridan and the girl went home--Leslie dressed +and went out--and your mother immediately telephoned Lee----" + +"Judge Lee?" + +"Yes--she said so. Lee's up in Westchester with his daughter, she +couldn't get him----" + +"But, Chris, why did she want her lawyer?" + +"That's just it--_why_? Well, then she telephoned here for me--I was on +my way there, as it happened, and just before eight Hendrick and I went +in. I could see she was altogether up stage, so I sent Von on and had it +out with her." + +"And what was her explanation, Chris?" + +Christopher laughed again. + +"I'll be darned," he said, thoughtfully, "if I can make head or tail of +it! It would be funny if it wasn't that she's taking it so hard. She was +in bed, and she had been crying--wouldn't eat any dinner----" + +"But, Chris," Alice said, worriedly, "what do you _make_ of it! What did +she _say_?" + +"Well, she clasped my hand, and she said that she had an opportunity to +undo a great wrong--and that I must help her--and not ask any +questions--she was just acting as you and I would have her act under the +circumstances----" + +"What circumstances?" Alice said, at an utter loss, as he paused. + +"She didn't say," he smiled. + +"Oh, come, now, Chris, she must have said more than that!" + +"No, she didn't. She said that she must make it up to this girl, and she +wished to see Lee about it immediately." + +"To change her will!" Alice exclaimed. + +"She didn't say so. Of course, it may be some sort of blackmail." +Christopher looked whimsically at his wife. "As I remember my +father-in-law," he said, "it seems to me improbable that out of the past +could come this engaging young girl--very pretty, they said----" + +"Father! Oh, nonsense!" Alice exclaimed, almost in relief at the +absurdity. "No, but it might be some business--some claim against the +firm," she suggested. + +"Well, I thought of that. But there are one or two reasons why it +doesn't seem the solution. I asked your mother if it was money, and she +said no, said it positively and repeatedly. Then I asked her if she +would like this Sheridan woman shut up, and she was quite indignant. +Kate!--Kate was one of the most magnificent women God had ever made, and +so on!" + +"Well, I do remember Mrs. Sheridan as a lovely sort of person," Alice +contributed. "Plain, you know, but quite wonderful for--well, +_goodness_. It's funny--but then you know Mama is terribly excitable," +she added, "she gets frightfully worked up over nothing, or almost +nothing. It's quite possible that when Kate recalled old times to her +she suddenly wished that she had done more for Kate--something like +that. She'd think nothing of sending for Judge Lee on the spot. You +remember her recalling us from our wedding-trip because she couldn't +find the pearls? All the way from Lake Louise to hear that they had been +lost!" + +"I know," Christopher smiled. "She is--unique, _ma belle mere_. By +George, I'll never forget our rushing into the house like maniacs, not +knowing what had happened to Leslie or Acton, and having her fall +sobbing into your arms, with the pearls in her hands!" + +"Mama's wonderful," Alice laughed. "Chris, did you eat any dinner?" + +He considered. + +"But I'm really not hungry, dear," he protested. + +Alice, superbly incredulous, rang at once. Who was in the kitchen? Well, +she was to be asked to send up a tray at once to Mr. Liggett. "Now that +you asked me, the dinner had reached the point of ice-cream in a paper +tub, as I sat down," he remembered. "You're a little miracle of healing +to me, Alice. When I came in here I didn't know _what_ we were up +against, as a family. Your mother wished the girl pensioned----" + +"Oh, Chris, not really?" + +"I give you my word!" But he was enough his usual self to have taken his +seat at the piano, now, and was looking at her across it, while his +fingers fitted themselves lazily to chords and harmonics. + +"I'll tell you something, if you'll promise to stop playing the instant +your supper comes up!" + +"I'll promise!" + +"Well, then--the new Puccini is there!" She nodded toward the +music-shelves, and he turned to the new score with an eager exclamation. +Fifteen minutes later she had to scold him to bring him to the fire +again, and to the smoking little supper. While Alice sipped ginger ale, +Christopher fell upon his meal, and they discussed the probable +presentation of the opera, and its quality. + +But an hour later, when she was in bed, and Christopher was going back +to the piano for another half-hour of music, she caught his hand. + +"Chris, you're not worried about this Sheridan matter?" + +"Worried? No, dearest child, what is there to worry about? It isn't +blackmail, apparently it's nothing but an overdose of imagination on +your mother's part. If the girl really was promised something, or +has--for example!--old stock, or if her father was an employee who did +this or that or the other--Mrs. Sheridan's husband was employed by your +father at the time of his death, by the way--why, it's easy enough to +pay the claim, whatever it is! The girl seems to have made a nice +impression--your mother tells me she's sold me books, but that doesn't +mean much, I buy books everywhere! No, I don't think you'll ever hear of +her again. But your mother will be here in a day or two; see what you +can make of it all!" + +"Oh, of course, it's nothing _wrong_!" Alice said, confidently. + +And Christopher returned to his beloved piano, relieved in mind by his +wife's counsel, refreshed in body by the impromptu supper, and ready for +the music that soothed in him all the restless and unsatisfied fibres of +his soul. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Annie, who signed herself "Anne Melrose von Behrens," was the real +dictator in the various circles of the allied families, and had a +fashion of finding herself supreme in larger circles, as well. Annie was +thirty-seven or eight, tall, thin, ash-blonde, superb in manner and +bearing. Nature had been generous to her, but she had done far more for +herself than Nature had. Her matchless skin, her figure, her hands, her +voice, were all the result of painstaking and intelligent care. Annie +had been a headstrong, undisciplined girl twenty years ago. She had come +back from a European visit, at twenty-three, with a vague if general +reputation of being "a terror." But Annie was clever, and she had real +charm. She spoke familiarly of European courts, had been presented even +in inaccessible Vienna. She spoke languages, quoted poets, had great +writers and painters for her friends, and rippled through songs that had +been indisputably dedicated, in flowing foreign hands, to the beautiful +Mademoiselle Melrose. Society bowed before Annie; she was the sensation +of her winter, and the marriage she promptly made was the most brilliant +in many winters. + +Annie proceeded to bear her sober, fine, dull, and devoted Hendrick two +splendid sons, and thus riveted to herself his lasting devotion and +trust. The old name was safe, the millions would descend duly to young +Hendrick and Piet. The family had been rich, conspicuous, and respected +in the city, since its sturdy Holstein cattle had browsed along the +fields of lower Broadway, but under Annie's hands it began to shine. +Annie's handsome motor-cars bore the family arms, her china had been +made in the ancestral village, two miles from Rotterdam, and also +carried the shield. Her city home, in Fifth Avenue, was so magnificent, +so chastely restrained and sober, so sternly dignified, that it set the +cue for half the other homes of the ultra-aristocratic set. Annie's +servants had been in the Von Behrens family for years; there was nothing +in the Avenue house, or the Newport summer home, that was not as +handsome, as old, as solid, as carven, as richly dull, or as purely +shining, as human ingenuity could contrive to have it. Collectors saved +their choicest discoveries for Annie; and there was no painter in the +new world who would not have been proud to have Annie place a canvas of +his among her treasures from the old. + +If family relics were worth preserving, what could be more remarkable +than Annie's Washington letter, her Jefferson tray, her Gainsboroughs of +the Murisons who had been the only Americans so honoured by the painter? +Melrose and Von Behrens honours crowded each other--here was the thin +old silver "shepherdess" cup awarded that Johanna von Behrens who had +won a prize with her sheep, while Washington was yet a boy; and here the +quaint tortoise-shell snuff-box that a great prince, homeless and +unknown, had given the American family that took him in; and the silver +buttons from Lafayette's waistcoat that the great Frenchman had +presented Colonel Horace Murison of the "Continentals." + +These things were not thrust at the visitor, nor indeed were they +conspicuous among the thousand other priceless souvenirs that Annie had +gathered about her. + +"Rather nice, isn't it?" Annie would say, abstractedly, when some +enthusiastic girl pored over the colonial letters or the old portraits. +"See here, Margaret," she might add, casually, "do you see the inside of +this little slipper, my dear? Read what's written there: 'In these +slippers Deborah Murison danced with Governor Winthrop, on the night of +her fifteenth birthday, July 1st, 1742.' Isn't that rather quaint?" + +Annie could afford to be casual, to be abstracted. In her all the pride +of the Melrose and Murison families was gathered; hers was an arrogance +so sure of itself, a self-confidence so supreme, that the world +questioned it no more than it questioned the heat of the sun. The old +silver, the Copleys, and the colonial china, the Knickerbocker "court +chests" with their great locks of Dutch silver, and the laces that had +been shown at the Hague two hundred years before, were all confirmed, +all reinforced, as it were, by the power and prosperity of to-day. It +was no by-gone glory that made brilliant the lives of Hendrick and Anne +Melrose von Behrens. Hendrick's cousins and uncles, magnificent persons +of title, were prominent in Holland to-day, their names associated with +that of royalty, and their gracious friendship extended to the American +branch of the family whenever Hendrick chose to claim it. Old maps of +New York bore the boundary lines of the Von Behrens farm; early +histories of the city mingled the names of Melrose and Von Behrens among +those of the men who had served the public need. + +Wherever there was needed that tone that only names of prominence and +wealth can bestow Annie's name was solicited. Wherever it appeared it +gave the instant stamp of dignity and integrity. She had seen this goal +dimly in the distance, when she stepped from her rather spoiled and +wilful girlhood into this splendid wifehood, but even Annie was +astonished at the rapidity with which it had come about. Mama, of +course, had known all the right people, even if she _had_ dropped all +social ties after Papa's death. And Hendrick's name was an open sesame. +But even so it was surprising, and it was gratifying. + +In appearance Annie had no problem. If she was not a beauty she was near +enough to being one. She was smart enough, and blonde enough, and +splendidly dressed enough to be instantly identifiable, and that was all +she desired. Financially, Annie had no problem. Her own inheritance and +her husband's great wealth silenced all question there. The Murison +pearls and the famous diamond tiara that her father had given her mother +years ago had come to Annie, but they were eclipsed by the Von Behrens +family jewels, and these were all hers, with the laces, and the ivories, +and the brocades. Life could give nothing more to Annie, but not many +women would have made so much of what Annie had. There was, far down and +out of sight, a little streak of the adventuress in her, and she never +stopped halfway. + +A young wife, Annie had dutifully considered her nursery. + +"Hendrick's is the elder line, of course, although it is the colonial +one," Annie had said, superintending a princely layette. The child was a +son, his father's image, and nobody who knew Annie was in the least +surprised that fortune had fallen in with her plans. It was the +magnificent Annie who was quoted as telling Madame Modiste to give her a +fitter who would not talk; it was Annie who decided what should be done +in recognizing the principals of the Jacqmain divorce, and that old +Floyd Densmore's actress-wife should not be accepted. Annie's neat and +quiet answer to a certain social acquaintance who remarked, in Annie's +little gallery, "I have seen the original of that picture, in one of the +European galleries," was still quoted by Annie's friends. "This _is_ the +original!" Annie had said quite simply and truthfully. + +Leslie admired her aunt more than any one else in the world. Grandma was +old-fashioned, and Aunt Alice insignificant, in Leslie's eyes, but +stunning, arrogant, fearless Aunt Annie was the model upon which she +would have based herself if she had known how. Annie's quick +positiveness with her servants, her cool friendliness with big men, and +clever men, her calm assurance as to which hats she liked, and which +hats she didn't, her utter belief in everything that was of Melrose or +von Behrens, and her calm contempt for everything that was not, were +masterly in Leslie's eyes. + +Annie might have been a strong royalist had she been born a few +generations earlier. But in Annie's day the ideal of social service had +been laid down by fashion, and she was consequently a tremendously +independent and energetic person, with small time for languishing airs. +She headed committees and boards, knew hundreds of working girls by +name, kept a secretary and a stenographer, and mentioned topics at big +dinners that would not have shocked either old Goodwife Melrose of +Boston, or Vrouw von Behrens of Nieu Amsterdam, for neither had the +faintest idea that such things, or their names, existed. + +Withal, Annie was attractive, even her little affectations were +impressive, and as she went about from luncheons to meetings, swept up +to her model nursery to revel in her model boys, tossed aside regal furs +and tore off princely rings the better to play with them, wrapped her +beautiful figure in satins and jewels to descend to formal dinners, she +was almost as much admired and envied and copied as she might fondly +have hoped to be. She managed her life on modern lines of efficiency, +planned ahead what she wished, tutored herself not to think of anything +undesirable as being even in the range of possibility, trod lightly upon +the sensitive souls of others, and asked no quarter herself, aimed high, +and enjoyed her life and its countless successes to the full. + +Of course there had been setbacks. Her brother Theodore, his most +unfortunate marriage to a servant, his intemperance, the general scandal +of his mother's violent detestation of his wife, all this was most +unpleasant. But Louison, the wife, upon sufficient pressure, had brought +her child to the Melroses, and had doubtfully disappeared, and Theodore +had returned from his wanderings to live, silent and unobtrusive, in his +mother's home, for several years, and to die with his daughter beside +him, and be duly laid in the Melrose plot at Woodlawn. And +Leslie--Leslie had repaid them all, for all of it. + +Alice was another disappointment, or had been one, to Annie. For Alice, +after having achieved a most unexpectedly satisfactory marriage, and +having set up her household gods in the very shadow of her sister's +brilliant example, as it were, had met with that most unfortunate +accident. For a few years Annie had been utterly exasperated whenever +she thought of it. For Christopher was really an extraordinary husband +for Alice to hold, even in normal circumstances. He was so outrageously, +frightfully, irresistibly popular with women everywhere, his wife must +needs keep a very sharp, albeit loving, eye upon him. A sickly wife--a +wife who was a burden and a reproach, that would be fatal to them all! + +But Alice had showed unsuspected courage and pride in this hard trial. +She had made herself beautiful, well-informed, tactful; she had made +herself a magnet to her husband's friends, and his home the centre of a +real social group. Annie respected her for it, and helped her by +flashing into her rooms not less often than every alternate day, with +gossip, with books, with hints that showed Alice just where her course +in this or that matter must lie. + +So Alice had come to be an actual asset, and now to her Aunt Annie's +tremendous satisfaction, Leslie promised to add one more feather to the +family cap by announcing her engagement to Acton Liggett. Annie smiled +to herself whenever she thought of it. When this was consummated she +would have nothing left but the selection of suitable wives for Hendrick +Junior, now aged ten, and Piet, who was four years younger. + +Two or three days after the ending of the big snow-storm, and the +beginning of that domestic storm that was destined strangely to change +some of the lives nearest her, Annie went in to have luncheon with her +sister. It was a brilliant sunshiny winter day, with crossings swimming +in melting snow and roofs steaming brightly into the clear air. + +Annie went straight upstairs to Alice's room, with the usual apology for +lateness. She kissed Alice lightly on the forehead, and while Freda was +coming and going with their meal, they discussed the little boys, books, +politics, and the difficulties of the city in the snow. + +But when they were alone Annie asked immediately: + +"What on earth is the matter with Mama, Alice?" + +"You mean about----? Did she tell you?" + +"No; she didn't have to. Leslie ran in yesterday afternoon, and told me +that Mama has been in bed since Saturday! I telephoned Sunday morning, +but Hendrick and I were taking the boys up to his uncle's house, in +Westchester, and--as she didn't say one word about being ill--I didn't +see her that day, nor yesterday, as it happened, for we didn't come down +until noon. When Leslie came in, there were other people there for tea, +and I didn't have a chance to speak to her alone. But I went over to +Mama this morning, and she seems all broken up!" + +"What did she tell you?" Alice asked, anxiously. + +"Oh, my dear, you know Mama! She wept, and patted my hand, and said that +it was sad to be the last of your own generation, and she hoped you and +I would always have each other, and that she had always loved us, and +tried to do her best for us----" + +Alice laughed. + +"Poor Mama! She gets so worked up!" she said. + +"But what do you make of it?" demanded Annie. "She talked of this Kate +Sheridan--I remember her perfectly, she came to Paris when I was so +ill, years ago. Poor Mama cried, and said that she wished to do +something for Kate. Now you know, Alice," Annie went on reasonably, +"nobody is tying Mama's hands! If she wants to educate this young +girl--this Norma person--to please Kate, or all her children for that +matter, she doesn't have to go into hysterics, and send for Judge Lee. +She said she didn't feel at all well, and she wanted to secure to Kate +some money in her will I told her it was ridiculous--she never looked +better in her life! I wish she could get over to see you, Alice; you +always soothe her so. What on earth does Chris make of it?" + +"Well, I'll tell you what we've done," Alice smiled. "Chris went to see +her Sunday, and they had a long talk. He tells me that she was just as +vague and unsatisfactory as ever, but calmer, and she finally admitted +that all she really wanted to do was to befriend this niece of Kate +Sheridan. Of course Chris and I think Mama has one of her funny notions +about it, but if the child's mother had befriended Mama, for example, a +thousand years ago, or if Mama had borrowed five dollars from Kate, and +forgotten to return it, you know that would be enough to account for all +this excitement." + +"Yes, I know!" Annie admitted, with her favourite look of intolerant, +yet indulgent, scorn. + +"Well, it seems the girl is in Biretta's Bookshop, and Chris has often +bought books of her. So to quiet Mama he promised that he would bring +her out here to have tea with me some day soon. Mama was delighted, and +I think she hopes that a friendship will come of it." Alice threw +herself back into the pillows, and drew a great breath as if she were +weary. "I only want to please Mama!" she finished. + +"You're an angel," Annie said, absently. "I suppose I could get the +truth out of Mama in five seconds," she mused. "It looks to me rather +like blackmail!" + +"No; she said not!" Alice contradicted, quickly. + +"Well, it's all so silly," the elder sister said, impatiently. "And +coming just now----" she added, significantly. + +"Yes. I know!" Alice agreed, with a comprehending look. And in lowered +tones they began to talk of Leslie's possible engagement. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Norma Sheridan saw the engagement announced in a morning paper two weeks +later, and carried the picture of pretty Miss Melrose home, to entertain +the dinner table. The news had been made known at a dinner given to +forty young persons, in the home of the debutante's aunt, Mrs. Hendrick +von Behrens. Miss Melrose, said the paper, was the daughter and heiress +of the late Theodore Melrose, and made her home with her grandmother. +Mr. Liggett was the brother of Christopher Liggett, whose marriage to +Miss Alice Melrose was a social event some years ago. A number of +dinners and dances were already planned in honour of the young pair. + +Norma looked at the pictured face with a little stir of feelings so +confused that she could not define them, at her heart. But she passed +the paper to her aunt with no comment. + +"You might send them two dozen kitchen towels, Mother," Wolf suggested, +drily, and Rose laughed joyously. Her own engagement present from her +mother had been this extremely practical one, and Rose loved to open her +lower bureau drawer, and gloat over the incredible richness of +possessing twenty-four smooth, red-striped, well-hemmed glass-towels, +all her own. Norma had brought her two thick, dull gray Dedham bowls, +with ducks waddling around them, and these were in the drawer, too, +wrapped in tissue paper. And beside these were the length of +lemon-coloured silk that Rose had had for a year, without making up, and +six of her mother's fine sheets of Irish linen, and two glass +candlesticks that Rose had won at a Five-hundred party. Altogether, Rose +felt that she was making great strides toward home-making, especially as +she and Harry must wait for months, perhaps a year. Norma had promised +her two towels a month, until there were a whole dozen, and Wolf, +prompted by the same generous little heart, told her not to give the +gas-stove a thought, for she was to have the handsomest one that money +could buy, with a stand-up oven and a water-heater, from her brother. +Rose walked upon air. + +But Norma was in a mood that she herself seemed unable to understand or +to combat. She felt a constant inclination toward tears. She didn't hate +the Melroses--no, they had been most friendly and kind. But--but it was +a funny world in which one girl had everything, like Leslie, and another +girl had no brighter prospect than to drudge away in a bookstore all her +life, or to go out on Sundays with her cousin. Norma dreamed for hours +of Leslie's life, the ease and warmth and beauty of it, and when Leslie +was actually heralded as engaged the younger girl felt a pang of the +first actual jealousy she had ever known. She imagined the beautiful +drawing-room in which Acton Liggett--perhaps as fascinating a person as +his brother!--would clasp pearls about Leslie's fair little throat; she +imagined the shining dinner tables at which Leslie's modestly dropped +blonde head would be stormed with compliments and congratulations. + +And suddenly molasses peppermints and dish-washing became odious to +her, and she almost disliked Rose for her pitiable ecstasies over china +bowls and glass-towels. All the pleasant excitement of her call upon +Mrs. Melrose, with Aunt Kate, died away. It had seemed the beginning of +some vaguely dreamed-of progress toward a life of beauty and +achievement, but it was two weeks ago now, and its glamour was fading. + +True, Christopher Liggett had come into Biretta's bookstore, with +Leslie, and he and Norma had talked together for a few minutes, and +Leslie had extended her Aunt Alice's kind invitation for tea. But no day +had been set for the tea, Norma reflected gloomily. Now, she supposed, +the stir of Leslie's engagement would put all that out of Christopher's +head. + +Wolf was not particularly sympathetic with her, she mused, +disconsolately. Wolf had been acting in an unprecedented manner of late. +Rose's engagement seemed to have completely turned his head. He laughed +at Norma, hardly heard her words when she spoke to him, and never moved +his eyes from her when they were together. Norma could not look up from +her book, or her plate, or from the study of a Broadway shop window, +without encountering that same steady, unembarrassed, half-puzzled +stare. + +"What's the matter with you, Wolf?" she would ask, impatiently. But Wolf +never told her. + +As a matter of fact, he did not know. He was a silent, thoughtful +fellow, old for his years in many ways, and in some still a boy. Norma +and Rose had known only the more prosperous years of Kate's life, but +Wolf remembered many a vigil with his mother, remembered her lonely +struggles to make a living for him and for the girls. He himself was the +type that inevitably prospers--industrious, good, intelligent, and +painstaking, but as a young boy in the working world he had early seen +the terrors in the lives of men about him: drink, dirt, unemployment and +disease, debt and dishonour. Wolf was not quick of thought; he had +little imagination, rather marvelling at other men's cleverness than +displaying any of his own, and he had reached perhaps his twenty-second +or twenty-third summer before he realized that these terrors did not +menace him, that whatever changes he made in his work would be +improvements, steps upward. For actual months after the move to New York +Wolf had pondered it, in quiet gratitude and pleasure. Rent and bills +could be paid, there might be theatre treats for the girls, and chicken +for Sunday supper, and yet the savings account in the Broadway bank +might grow steadily, too. Far from being a slave to his employer, Wolf +began to realize that this rather simple person was afraid of him, +afraid that young Sheridan and some of the other smart, ingenious, +practically educated men in his employ might recognize too soon their +own independence. + +And when the second summer in New York came, and Wolf could negotiate +the modest financial deal that gave him and the girls a second-hand +motor-car to cruise about in on Sundays and holidays, when they could +picnic up in beautiful Connecticut, or unpack the little fringed red +napkins far down on the Long Island shore, life had begun to seem very +pleasant to him. Debt and dirt and all the squalid horrors of what he +had seen, and what he had read, had faded from his mind, and for awhile +he had felt that his cup could hold no more. + +But now, just lately, there was something else, and although the full +significance of it had not yet actually dawned upon him, Wolf began to +realize that a change was near. It was the most miraculous thing that +had ever come to him, although it concerned only little Norma--only the +little cousin who had been an actual member of his family for all these +years. + +He had heard his mother say a thousand times that she was pretty; he had +laughed himself a thousand times at her quick wit. But he had never +dreamed that it would make his heart come up into his throat and +suffocate him whenever he thought of her, or that her lightest and +simplest words, her most casual and unconscious glance, would burn in +his heart for hours. + +During his busy days Wolf found himself musing about this undefined and +nebulous happiness that began to tremble, like a growing brightness +behind clouds, through all his days and nights. Had there ever been a +time, he wondered, when he had taken her for granted, helped her into +her blessed little coat as coolly as he had Rose? Had it been this same +Norma who scolded him about throwing his collars on the floor, and who +had sent his coat to the cleaner with a ten-dollar bill in the pocket? + +Wolf remembered summer days, and little Norma chattering beside him on +the front seat, as the shabby motor-car fled through the hot, dry city +toward shade and coolness. He remembered early Christmas Mass, and Norma +and Rose kneeling between him and his mother, in the warm, fir-scented +church. He remembered breakfast afterward, in a general sense of hunger +and relaxation and well-being, and the girls exulting over their +presents. And every time that straight-shouldered, childish figure came +into his dream, that mop of cloudy dark hair and flashing laugh, the +new delicious sense of some unknown felicity touched him, and he would +glance about the busy factory self-consciously, as if his thoughts were +written on his face for all the world to read. + +Wolf had never had a sweetheart. It came to him with the blinding flash +of all epoch-making discoveries that Norma was his girl--that he wanted +Norma for his own, and that there was no barrier between them. And in +the ecstasy of this new vision, which changed the whole face of his +world, he was content to wait with no special impatience for the hour in +which he should claim her. Of course Norma must like him--must love him, +as he did her, unworthy as he felt himself of her, and wonderful as this +new Norma seemed to be. Wolf, in his simple way, felt that this had been +his destiny from the beginning. + +That a glimpse of life as foreign and unnatural as the Melrose life +might seriously disenchant Norma never occurred to him. Norma had always +been fanciful, it was a part of her charm. Wolf, who worked in the great +Forman shops, had felt it no particular distinction when by chance one +day he had been called from his luncheon to look at the engine of young +Stanley Forman's car. He had left his seat upon a pile of lumber, bolted +the last of his pie, and leaned over the hood of the specially designed +racer interested only in its peculiarities, and entirely indifferent to +the respectful young owner, who was aware that he knew far less about it +than this mechanic did. Sauntering back to his work in the autumn +sunlight, Wolf had followed the youthful millionaire by not even a +thought. If he had done so, it might have been a half-contemptuous +decision that a man who knew so little of engines ought not to drive a +racer. + +So Norma's half-formed jealousies, desires, and dreams were a sealed +book to him. But this very unreasonableness lent her an odd exotic charm +in his eyes. She was to Wolf like a baby who wants the moon. The moon +might be an awkward and useless possession, and the baby much better +without it, still there is something winning and touching about the +little imperious mouth and the little upstretched arms. + +One night, when he had reached home earlier than either of the girls, +Wolf was in the warm bright kitchen, alone with his mother. He was +seated at the end of the scrubbed and bleached little table; Kate at the +other end was neatly and dexterously packing a yellow bowl with bread +pudding. + +"Do you remember, years and years ago, Mother," Wolf said, chewing a +raisin, thoughtfully, "that you told me that Norma isn't my real +cousin?" + +Kate's ruddy colour paled a little, and she looked anxious. Not Perseus, +coming at last in sight of his Gorgon, had a heart more sick with fear +than hers was at that instant. + +"What put that into your head, dear?" + +"Well, I don't know. But it's true, isn't it?" + +Kate scattered chopped nuts from the bowl of her spoon. + +"Yes, it's true," she said. "There's not a drop of the same blood in +your veins, although I love her as I do you and Rose." + +She was silent, and Wolf, idly turning the egg-beater in an empty dish, +smiled to himself. + +"But what made you think of that, Wolf?" his mother asked. + +"I don't know!" Wolf did not look at her, but his big handsome face was +suffused with happy colour. "Harry and Rose, maybe," he admitted. + +Kate sat down suddenly, her eyes upon him. + +"Not the Baby?" she half whispered. + +Her son leaned back in his chair, and folded his big arms across his +chest. When he looked at her the smile had faded from his face, and his +eyes were a trifle narrowed, and his mouth set. + +"I guess so!" he said, simply. "I guess it's always been--Norma. But I +didn't always know it. I used to think of her as just another +sister--like Rose. But I know now that she'll never seem that +again--never did, really." + +He was silent, and Kate sat staring at him in silence. + +"Has she any relatives, Mother?" + +"Has--what?" + +"Has she people--who are they?" + +Kate looked at the floor. + +"She has no one but me, Son." + +"Of course, she's not nineteen, and I don't believe it's ever crossed +her mind," Wolf said. "I don't think Norma ever had a real affair--just +kid affairs, like Paul Harrison, and that man at the store who used to +send her flowers. But I don't believe those count." + +"I don't think she ever has," Kate said, heavily getting to her feet, +and beginning to pour her custard slowly through the packed bread. +Presently she stopped, and set the saucepan down, her eyes narrowed and +fixed on space. Then Wolf saw her press the fingers of one hand upon +her mouth, a sure sign of mental perturbation. + +"I know I'm not worthy to tie her little shoes for her, Mother," he +said, suddenly, and very low. + +"There's no woman in the world good enough for you," his mother +answered, with a troubled laugh. And she gave the top of his head one of +her rare, brisk kisses as she passed him, on her way out of the room. + +Wolf was sufficiently familiar with the domestic routine to know that +every minute was precious now, and that she was setting the table. But +his heart was heavy with a vague uneasiness; she had not encouraged him +very much. She had not accepted this suggestion as she did almost all of +the young people's ideas, with eager cooperation and sympathy. He sat +brooding at the kitchen table, her notable lack of enthusiasm chilling +him, and infusing him with her own doubts. + +When she came back, she stood with her back turned to him, busied with +some manipulation of platters and jars in the ice-box. + +"Wolf, dear," she said, "I want to ask you something. The child's too +young to listen to you--or any one!--now. Promise me--_promise me_, that +you'll speak to me again before you----" + +"Certainly I'll promise that, Mother!" Wolf said, quickly, hurt to the +soul. She read his tone aright, and came to lay her cheek against his +hair. + +"Listen to me, Son. Since the day her mother gave her to me I've hoped +it would be this way! But there's nothing to be gained by hurry. +You----" + +"But you would be glad, Mother! You do think that she might have me?" +poor Wolf said, eagerly and humbly. He was amazed to see tears brimming +his mother's eyes as she nodded and turned away. + +Before either spoke again a rush in the hall announced the home-coming +girls, who entered the kitchen gasping and laughing with the cold. + +"Whew!" panted Norma, catching Wolf's hands in her own half-frozen ones. +"I'm dying! Oh, Wolf, feel my nose!" She pressed it against his +forehead. "Oh, there's a wind like a knife--and look at my shoe--in I +went, right through the ice! Oh, Aunt Kate, let me stay here!" and +locking both slender arms about the older woman's neck, she dropped her +dark, shining head upon her breast like a storm-blown bird. "It's four +below zero in Broadway this minute," she added, looking sidewise under +her curling lashes at Wolf. + +"Who said so?" Wolf demanded. + +"The man I bought that paper from said so; go back and ask him. Oh, joy, +that looks good!" said Norma, eyeing the pudding that was now being +drawn, crackling, bubbling, and crisp, from the oven. "Rose and I fell +over the new lineoleum in the hall; I thought it was a dead body!" she +went on, cheerfully. "I came _down_ on my family feature with such a +noise that I thought the woman downstairs would be rattling the +dumb-waiter ropes again long before this!" She stepped to the +dumb-waiter, and put her head into the shaft. "What is it, darling?" she +called. + +"Norma, behave yourself. It would serve you good and right if she heard +you," Mrs. Sheridan said, in a panic. "Go change your shoes, and come +and eat your dinner. I believe," her aunt added, pausing near her, "that +you _did_ skin your nose in the hall." + +"Oh, heavens!" Norma exclaimed, bringing her face close to the dark +window, as to a mirror. "Oh, say it will be gone by Friday! Because on +Friday I'm going to have tea with Mrs. Liggett--her husband came in +to-day and asked me. Oh, the darling! He certainly is the--well, the +most--well, I don't know!----His voice, and the quiet, _quiet_ way----" + +"Oh, for pity's sake go change your shoes!" Rose interrupted. "You are +the biggest idiot! I went into the store to get her," Rose explained, +"and I've had all this once, in the subway. How Mr. Liggett picks up his +glasses, on their ribbon, to read the titles of books----" + +"Oh, you shut up!" Norma called, departing. And unashamed, when dinner +was finished, and the table cleared, she produced a pack of cards and +said that she was going to play _The Idle Year_. + +"... and if I get it, it'll mean that the man I marry is going to look +exactly like Chris Liggett." + +She did not get it, and played it again. The third time she interrupted +Wolf's slow and patient perusal of the _Scientific American_ to announce +that she was now going to play it to see if he was in love with Mary +Redding. + +"Think how nice that would be, Aunt Kate, a double wedding. And if Wolf +or Rose died and left a lot of children, the other one would always be +there to take in whoever was left--you know what I mean!" + +"You're the one Wolf ought to marry, to make it complete," Rose, who was +neatly marking a cross-stitch "R" on a crash towel, retaliated neatly. + +"I can't marry my cousin, Miss Smarty." + +"Oh, don't let a little thing like that worry you," Wolf said, looking +across the table. + +"Our children would be idiots--perhaps they would be, anyway!" Norma +reminded him, in a gale of laughter. Her aunt looked up disapprovingly +over her glasses. + +"Baby, don't talk like that. That's not a nice way to talk at all. Wolf, +you lead her on. Now, we'll not have any more of that, if you please. I +see the President is making himself very unpopular, Wolf--I don't know +why they all make it so hard for the poor man! Mrs. McCrea was in the +market this morning----" + +"If I win this game, Rose, by this time next year," Norma said, in an +undertone, "you'll have----" + +"Norma Sheridan!" + +"Yes, Aunt Kate!" + +"Do you want me to speak to you again?" + +"No, ma'am!" + +Norma subsided for a brief space, Rose covertly watching the game. +Presently the younger girl burst forth anew. + +"Listen, Wolf, I'll bet you that I can get more words out of the letters +in Christopher than you can!" + +Wolf roused himself, smiled, took out his fountain pen, and reached for +a sheet of paper. He was always ready for any sort of game. Norma, +bending herself to the contest, put her pencil into her mouth, and +stared fixedly at the green-shaded drop light. Rose, according to +ancient precedent, was permitted to assist evenly and alternately. + +And Kate, watching them and listening, even while she drowsed over the +Woman's Page, decided that after all they were nothing but a pack of +children. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +To Leslie Melrose had come the very happiest time of her life. She had +always had everything she wanted; it had never occurred to her to +consider a fortunate marriage engagement as anything but a matter of +course, in her case. She was nineteen, she was "mad," in her own terms, +about Acton Liggett, and the engagement was the natural result. + +But the ensuing events were far more delightful than Leslie had dreamed, +even in her happy dreams. All her world turned from its affairs of +business and intrigue and amusement to centre its attention upon her +little person for the moment, and to shower her with ten times enough +flattery and praise to turn a much steadier head. Presents rained upon +Leslie, and every one of them was astonishingly handsome and valuable; +newspapers clamoured for her picture, and wherever she went she was +immediately the focus for all eyes. That old Judge Lee should send her +some of his mother's beautiful diamonds; that Christopher and Alice +should order for her great crates of specially woven linen that were +worthy of a queen; that Emanuel Massaro, the painter of the hour, should +ask her to sit for him, were all just so much sheer pleasure added to +the sum total of her happiness in loving the man of her choice and +knowing herself beloved by him. + +Leslie found herself, for the first time in her life, a person of +importance with Aunt Annie, too. The social leader found time to advise +her little niece in the new contingencies that were perpetually arising, +lent Leslie her private secretary for the expeditious making of lists or +writing of notes, and bullied her own autocratic modiste into promising +at least half of the trousseau. It was Annie who decided that the +marriage must be at a certain Park Avenue church, and at a certain hour, +and that the reception at the house must be arranged in a certain +manner, and no other. Hendrick or Judge Lee would give away the bride, +Christopher would be his brother's best man, and Leslie would be given +time to greet her guests and change her gown and be driven to Alice's +house for just one kiss before she and Acton went away. + +Acton had begged for an Easter wedding, but Leslie, upon her aunt's +advice, held out for June. If the war was over by that time--and +everyone said it must be, for so hideous a combat could not possibly +last more than six or eight months--then they would go to England and +the Continent, but otherwise they might drift through Canada to the +Pacific Coast, and even come back by San Francisco and the newly opened +Canal. + +Meanwhile, Annie entertained her niece royally and untiringly. Formal +dinners to old family friends must come first, but when spring arrived +Leslie was promised house parties and yachting trips more after her own +heart. The girl was so excited, so bewildered and tired, even after the +first two weeks, that she remained in bed until noon every day, and had +a young maid especially detailed to take her dressmaker's fittings for +her. But even so she lost weight, her cheeks burned and her eyes +glittered feverishly, and her voice took an unnaturally high key, her +speech a certain shallow quickness. Acton's undeviating adoration she +took with a pretty, spoiled acquiescence, and with old family friends +she was charmingly dutiful and deferential, but always with the air of +sparing a few glittering drops to their age and dulness from the +overflowing cup of her youth and beauty and power. But with her +grandmother and aunts she had a new attitude of self-confidence, and to +her girl friends she was no longer the old intimate and equal, but a +being who had, for the moment at least, left them all behind. She would +show them the new silver, the new linens, the engagement-time frocks +that were in themselves a trousseau, and wish that Doris or Marion or +Virginia were engaged, too; it was such fun! And with older women, the +debutantes of six and eight and ten years ago, who had failed of all +this glory, who could only listen sweetly to the chatter of plans and +honours, and look in uncomplaining admiration at the blazing ring, +Leslie was quite merciless. The number of times that she managed to +mention her age, the fact that Madame Modiste had tried to give her +fittings after three o'clock under the impression that she was a +schoolgirl, and the "craziness" of "little me" going over all the late +Mrs. Liggett's chests of silver and china, perhaps only these +unsuccessful candidates for matrimony could estimate. Certainly Leslie +herself was quite unconscious of it, and truly believed what she heard +on all sides, that she was "adorable," and "not changed one bit," and +"just as unconscious that there was anything else in the world but +Acton, as a little girl with her first doll." + +Christopher and Alice, in the first years of their married life, had +built a home at Glen Cove, and Christopher made this his wedding +present to his brother. Necessarily, even the handsomest of country +homes, if ten years old, needs an almost complete renovation, and this +renovation Acton and Leslie, guided by a famous architect, began +rapturously to plan, reserving a beautiful apartment not far from Alice +in Park Avenue for autumn furnishing and refitting. + +All these activities and interests kept the lovers busy, and kept them +apart indeed, or united them only in groups of other people. But Acton +could bring his pretty sweetheart home from a dinner now and then, and +come into the old Melrose house for a precious half hour of murmuring +talk, or could sometimes persuade her to leave a tea or a matinee early +enough to walk a few blocks with him. + +In this fashion they slipped away from a box party one Friday afternoon, +and found themselves walking briskly northward, into the neighbourhood +of Alice's house. Leslie had had, for several days, a rather guilty +feeling in regard to this lovely aunt. It was really hard, rising at +noon, and trying to see and please so many persons, to keep in close +touch with the patient and uncomplaining invalid, who had to depend +wholly upon the generosity of those she loved for knowledge of them. So +Leslie was glad to suggest, and Acton glad to agree, that they had +better go in and see Aunt Alice for a few minutes. + +As usual, Mrs. Liggett had company, although it proved only to be the +pretty Miss Sheridan who had called upon Leslie's grandmother on the +first day of that mysterious indisposition that had kept the old lady +bedridden almost ever since. + +Alice looked oddly tired, but her eyes were shining brightly, and Norma +was charmingly happy and at ease. She jumped up to shake hands with +Acton with a bright comment that he was not in the _least_ like his +brother, and recalled herself to Leslie before offering her all sorts of +good wishes. Norma, hoping that it would some day occur, had indeed +anticipated this meeting with Leslie by a little mental consideration of +what she should say, but the effect was so spontaneous and sincere that +the four were enabled to settle down comfortably to tea, in a few +moments, like old friends. + +"Miss Sheridan--or Norma, rather--and I have been having a perfectly +delicious talk," said Alice. "She loves Christina Rossetti, and she knew +the 'Hound of Heaven' by heart, and she has promised to send me a new +man's work that sounds delightful--what was it? Something about General +Booth?" + +"If I haven't chattered you to death!" Norma said, penitentially. And +Leslie added: "Aunt Alice, you _do_ look tired! Not that talking poetry +ever would tire you!" she hastened to add, with a smile for Norma. + +"No, I'm not--or rather, I was, but I feel wonderfully!" Alice said. +"Pour the tea, Kitten. What have you two little adventurers been doing +with yourselves?" + +"Mrs. Dupre's party--Yvette Guilbert," Leslie said. "She is quite too +wonderful!" + +"I've always wanted to see her, and I've always known I would adore +her," Norma interpolated, dreamily. + +Alice glanced at her quickly. + +"Does she give another matinee, Leslie?" + +"Two----" Leslie looked at Acton. "Is it two weeks from to-day?" she +questioned. + +"I'll send you seats for it," Alice said, making a little note on her +ivory memoranda pages, as she nodded to Norma. The colour rushed into +Norma's face, and she bit her lip. + +"But, Mrs. Liggett--honestly--I truly didn't mean--I only meant----" she +began to stammer, half laughing. Alice laid her hand upon Norma's +reassuringly. + +"My dear, you know I don't think you hinted! But I want to do it. I +can't"--Alice said, smiling--"I can't do anything for little Miss +Aladdin here, and it gives me the greatest pleasure, now and then----" + +"I want to tell you something about Mrs. Liggett," Acton said; "she's +got a grasping nature and a mean soul--you can see that! She's the +limit, all right!" He smiled down at her as he gave her her teacup, and +Leslie laughed outright. Acton was a person of few words, but when he +chose to talk, Leslie found his manner amusing. Christopher, coming up +to join them fifteen minutes later, said that from the noise they made +he had supposed at least fifty persons to be in his wife's room. + +Did Norma, as she gave the master of the house her hand, have sudden +memory of all her recent absurd extravagances in his name--the games, +the surmises, the wild statements that had had Chris Liggett as their +inspiration? If she did, she gave no sign of it beyond the bright flush +with which she greeted her oldest acquaintance in this group. +Christopher sat down, content to be a listener and an onlooker, as he +sipped his tea, but Norma saw that his wife's look of white fatigue made +him uneasy, and immediately said that she must go. + +He made no protest, but said that the car was at the door, and she must +let him send her home. Norma agreed, and Acton asked if he and Leslie +might not use it, too. The three departed in high spirits, Alice +detaining the radiant and excited Norma long enough to exact from her +the promise of another visit soon, and to send an affectionate message +to Mrs. Sheridan from "Miss Alice." Then they went down to the big car, +an exciting and delightful experience to Norma. + +Leslie was left first, and Acton, pleading that he was already late for +another engagement, was dropped at his club. Then Norma had the car to +herself, and as it smoothly flew toward the humble doorway of the +Sheridans, could giggle, almost aloud, in her pleasure and exhilaration +at an afternoon that had gone without a single awkward minute, all +pleasant, harmonious, and vaguely flattering. And the wonderful Mrs. +Liggett had asked her to come soon again, and had made that delightful +suggestion about the concert. The name of Yvette Guilbert meant little +to Norma, but the thought that Alice Liggett really wanted to hold her +friendship was nothing less than intoxicating. + +She looked out of the car, the streets were bare of snow now, there was +not a leaf showing in the park, and the ground was dark and unpromising. +But a cool, steady wind was blowing through the lingering twilight, men +were running after rolling hats, and at least the milliners' windows +were radiant with springtime bloom. Children were playing in Norma's +street, wrapped and muffled children, wild with joy to be out of doors +again, and a tiny frail little moon was floating in the opal sky just +above the grim line of roofs. Norma looked up at it, and the pure +blowing air touched her hot face, and her heart sang with the sheer joy +of living. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Christopher had gone down to the door with his brother and the girls, +and had sent a glance up and down the quiet, handsome block, feeling in +the moving air what Norma felt, what all the city felt--the bold, wild +promise of spring. He turned back into the house with something like a +sigh; Acton and Leslie in their young happiness were somehow a little +haunting to-night. + +The butler was starting upstairs with the papers; Christopher took them +from him, and went back to Alice's room with his eyes idly following the +headlines. The pretty apartment was somewhat disordered, and looked dull +and dark in the half light. Christopher walked to a window, and pushed +it open upon its railed balcony. + +"Chris!" whispered his wife's voice, thick and dry in the gloom. + +Aghast in the instant apprehension of something wrong, he sprang to her +couch, dropped to his knees, and put an arm about her. + +"Alice! What is it, my darling?" + +She struggled for speech, and he could see that her face was ashen. + +"Chris--no, don't ring. Chris, _who is that girl_?" + +Christopher touched the chain that flooded the couch with rosy light. He +bent in eager sympathy over his wife's relaxed form. + +"Alice, what is it?" he asked, tenderly. "Don't worry, dear, don't try +to talk too fast! Just tell Chris what frightened you----" + +Alice laughed wretchedly as she detached the fingers he had pressed +anxiously upon her forehead. + +"No, I'm not feverish!" she assured him, holding tight to his hand. "But +I want you to tell me, Chris, I must know--and no matter what promise +you have given Mother--or given any one----" + +"Now, now, now!" he soothed her. "I'll tell you anything, sweetheart, +only don't let yourself get so excited. Just tell me what it is, Alice, +and I'll do anything in the world for you, of course!" + +"Chris," she said, swallowing with a dry throat, and sitting up with an +air of regaining self-control, "you must tell me. You know you can trust +me, you _know_----! That girl----" + +"But _what_ girl--what are you talking about, dear? Do--do try to be +just a little clearer, and calmer----" + +"Who"--said Alice, with a ghastly look, sweeping the hair back from her +damp forehead--"who is that Norma Sheridan?" + +"Why, I told you, dear, that I don't know," her husband protested. "I +told you weeks ago, after your mother made that scene, the night of +Hendrick's speech, that I couldn't make head or tail of it!" + +"Chris"--Alice was regarding him fixedly--"you _must_ know!" + +"Dearest, couldn't your mother simply wish to befriend a girl whose +parents----" + +Alice flung her loosened hair back, and at her gesture and her glance at +the little carafe on her table he poured her a glass of cold water. +Drinking it off, and raising herself in her cushions, she stretched her +hand to touch the chair beside her, and still without a word indicated +that he was to take it. With a face of grave concern Christopher sat +down beside her, holding her hands in both his own. + +"Chris," she said, clearly and quickly, if with occasional catches of +breath, "the minute that girl came into the room I knew that--I knew +that _horror_ had come upon us all! I knew that she was one of us--one +of us Melroses, somehow----" + +"Alice!" he said, pleadingly. + +"But Mama," she said, with a keen look, "didn't tell you that?" + +"She told me only what I told you that night, on my honour as a +gentleman! Alice, what makes you say what you do?" + +"Ah, Chris," his wife cried, almost frantically, "look at her! _Look_ at +her! Why, her voice is Annie's, the same identical voice--she looks like +my father, like Theodore--she looks like us all! She and Leslie were so +much alike, as they sat there, in spite of the colouring, that I almost +screamed it at them! Surely--surely, you see it--everyone sees it!" + +He stared at her, beginning to breathe a little quickly in his turn. + +"By George!" she heard him whisper, as if to himself. + +"Do you see it, Chris?" Alice whispered, almost fearfully. + +"But--but----" He got up and walked restlessly to the window, and came +back to sit down again. "But there's a cousinship somewhere," he said, +sensibly. "There's no reason to suppose that the thing can't be +explained. I do think you're taking this thing pretty hard, my dear. +What can you possibly suppose? There might be a hundred girls----" + +His voice fell. Alice was watching him expectantly. + +"Mama felt it--saw it--as I do," she said. "You may be very sure that +Mama wouldn't have almost lost her mind, as she did, unless something +had given her cause!" + +They looked at each other in silence, in the utter silence of the +lovely, cool-toned room. + +"Alice," Chris said in a puzzled voice after awhile, "you suspect me of +keeping something from you. But on my honour you know all that your +mother told me--all that I know!" + +"Oh, Chris," she said, with a sort of wail. "If I don't know more!" + +Her husband's slow colour rose. + +"How could you know more?" he asked, bewilderedly. + +Alice was unhappily silent. + +"Chris, if I tell you what I'm afraid of--what I fear," she said, +presently, after anxious thought, "will you promise me never, never to +speak of it--never even to think of it!--if it--if it proves not to be +true?" + +"I don't have to tell you that, Alice," he said. + +"No, of course you don't--of course you don't!" she echoed with a +nervous laugh. "I'll tell you what I think, Chris--what has been almost +driving me mad--and you can probably tell me a thousand reasons why it +can't be so! You see, I've never understood Mama's feverish distress +these last weeks. She's been to see me, she's done what had to be done +about Leslie's engagement, but she's not herself--you can see that! +Yesterday she began to cry, almost for nothing, and when I happened to +mention--or rather when I mentioned very deliberately--that Miss +Sheridan was coming here, she almost shrieked. Well, I didn't know what +to make of it, and even then I rather wondered---- + +"Even then," Alice began again, after a painful pause, and with her own +voice rising uncontrollably, "I suspected something. But not this! Oh, +Chris, if I'm wrong about this, I shall be on my knees for gratitude for +the rest of my life; I would die, I would die to have it just--just my +wretched imagination!--A thing like this--to us--the Melroses--who have +always been so straight--so respected!" + +"Now, Alice--now, Alice!" + +"Yes, I know!" she said, quickly. "I know!" And for a moment she lay +back quietly, stroking his hand. "Chris," she resumed, composedly, after +a moment, "you know the tragedy of Annie's life?" + +Chris, taken by surprise, frowned. + +"Why, yes, I suppose so," he admitted, unwillingly. + +"Chris, did it ever occur to you that she might have had a child--by +that fiend?" + +Chris looked at his wife a moment, and his eyes widened, and his mouth +twitched humorously. + +"Oh, come now, Alice--come now!" + +"You think it's folly!" she asked, eagerly. + +"Worse!" he answered, briefly, his eyes smiling reproach. + +Alice's whole tense body relaxed, and she stared at him with light +dawning in her eyes. + +"Well, probably it is," she said, very simply. + +"Of course it is," Chris said. "Now, you are dead tired, dear, and you +have let the thing mill about in your head until you can't see anything +normally. I confess that I don't understand your mother's mysterious +nervousness, but then I am free to say that I don't by any means always +understand your mother! You remember the pearl episode, and the time +that she had Annie and Hendrick cabling from Italy--because Hendrick +Junior had a rash! And then there was Porter--a boy nineteen years old, +and she actually had everyone guessing exactly what she felt toward +him----" + +"Oh, Chris, no, she didn't! She simply felt that he was a genius, and he +hadn't a penny," Alice protested, reproachful and hurt. + +"Well, she had him there at the house until his mother came after him, +and then, when he finally was sent abroad, she asked me seriously if I +thought two hundred dollars a month was enough for his musical +education!" + +"Yes, I know!" Alice said, ruefully, shaking her head. + +"Now this comes along," said Christopher, encouraged by the effect of +his words, "and you begin to fret your poor little soul with all sorts +of wild speculations. I wish to the Lord that your mother was a little +bit more trusting with her confidences, but when it all comes out it'll +prove to be some sister of your grandfather who married a tailor or +something, and left a line of pretty girls to work in Biretta's----" + +"But, Chris, she reminded me so of Annie to-day I almost felt _sick_," +Alice said, still frightened and dubious. + +"Well, that merely shows that you're soft-hearted; it's no reflection on +Annie!" Chris said, giving her her paper, and opening his own. But +Alice did not open her paper. + +A maid came in, and moved about noiselessly setting chairs and rugs in +order. Another soft light was lighted and the little square table set +before the fire. The cool fresh air drifted in at the half-open window, +and sent a delicate breath, from Alice's great bowl of freesia lilies, +through the peaceful room. The fire snapped smartly about a fresh log, +and Alice's great tortoise-shell cat came to make a majestic spring into +her lap. + +"Chris--I'm so worried!" said his wife. + +"As a matter of fact," said Christopher, quietly, after a while, +"did----Annie was very ill, I know, but was there--was there any reason +to suppose that there might have been--that such a situation as to-day's +might have arisen?" + +Alice looked at him with apprehension dawning afresh. + +"Oh, yes--that is, I believe so. I didn't know it then, of course." + +"I never knew that," Christopher said, thoughtfully. + +"Well, I didn't at the time, you know. It was--of course it was +sixteen--eighteen years ago," Alice said. And in a whisper she added, +"Chris, that girl is eighteen!" + +Christopher pursed his lips to whistle, but made no sound, and looked +into the fire. + +"You see I was only about thirteen or fourteen," Alice said. "I was +going to Miss Bennet's school, and we were all living in the Madison +Avenue house. Papa had been dead only a year, or less, for I remember +that Annie was eighteen, and wasn't going out much, because of mourning. +Theodore had been worrying Mama to death, and had left the house then, +and Mama was sending him and his wife money, I believe, but of course +lots of that was kept from me. Annie was terribly wild and excitable +then, always doing reckless things; I can remember when she and Belle +Duer dressed up as boys and had their pictures taken, and once they put +a matrimonial advertisement in the papers--of course they were just +silly--at least that was. But then she began to rave about this man +Mueller----" + +"The acrobat!" Christopher, who was listening intently, supplied. + +"No, dearest! He was their riding master--I suppose that isn't much +better, really. But he was an extremely handsome man--really stunning. +Carry Winchester's mother forbade her taking any more lessons because +_she_ was so wild about him, and Annie told me once that that was why +Ida Burnett was popped into a boarding school. He was big, and dark, and +he had a slight foreign accent, and he was ever so much older than +Annie--forty, at least. She began to spend all her time at the riding +club; it used to make Mama wild--especially as Annie was so headstrong +and saucy about it! Poor Mama, I remember her crying and complaining!" + +"And how long did this go on?" Christopher asked. + +"Oh, weeks! Well, and then one hot day, just before Easter vacation it +was, I remember, I came home early from school with a headache, and when +I reached the upper hall I could hear Mama crying, and Annie shouting +out loud, and this Kate--this very same Kate Sheridan!--trying to quiet +Mama, and everything in an uproar! Finally I heard Annie sobbing--I was +frightened to death of course, and I sat down on the stairs that go up +to the nursery--and I heard Annie say something about being +eighteen--and she was eighteen the very day before; and she ran by me, +in her riding clothes, with the derby hat that girls used to wear then, +and her hair clubbed on her neck, and she ran downstairs, and I could +hear her crying, and saying to herself: 'I'll show them; I'll show +them!' And that was the last I saw of her," Alice finished sadly, "for +almost two years." + +"She went out?" Christopher asked. + +"Yes; she slammed the door. Mama fainted." + +"Of course!" + +"Oh, Chris," said his wife, half crying, "wasn't that enough to make any +one faint?--let alone Mama. Anyway, she was dreadfully ill, and they +rather shut me up about it, and told everyone that Annie had gone +abroad. We had been living very quietly, you know, and nobody cared much +what Annie did, then. And she really had gone abroad, she wrote Mama +from Montreal, and she had been married to Emil Mueller in Albany. They +had taken a train there, and were married that same afternoon. They went +to London, and they were in Germany, and then--then it all broke up, you +know about that!" + +"How much later was that?" + +Alice considered. + +"It was about Christmas time. Don't you remember that I went to your +mother, and Acton and I got measles? Mama was abroad then." + +"And this Kate went with her?" + +"Yes. That was--that was one of the things I was--just thinking about! +Annie wrote Mama that she was very ill, in Munich, and poor Mama just +flew. Mueller had left her; indeed there was a woman and two quite big +girls that had a claim on him, and if Mama hadn't been so anxious to +shut it all up, she might have proved that he was a bigamist--but I +don't know that she was ever sure. Judge Lee put the divorce through for +Annie, and Mama took her to the Riviera and petted her, and pulled her +through. But all her hair came out, and for weeks they didn't think she +would live. She had brain fever. You see, Annie had had some money +waiting for her on her eighteenth birthday, and your own father, who was +her guardian, Chris, had given her the check--interest, it was, about +seven or eight thousand dollars. And he told her to open her own +account, and manage her own income, from then on. And we thought--Mama +and I--that in some way Mueller must have heard of it. Anyway, she never +deposited the check, and when her money gave out he just left her." + +"But what makes you think that her illness didn't commence--or wasn't +entirely--brain fever?" + +"That she might have had a baby?" Alice asked, outright. + +Christopher nodded, the point almost insufferably distasteful to him. + +"Oh, I know it!" Alice said. + +"You _know_ it?" the man echoed, almost in displeasure. + +"Yes, she told me herself! But of course that was years later. At the +time, all I knew was that Kate Sheridan came home, and came to see me at +school, and told me that Mama and Annie were very well, but that Annie +had been frightfully sick, and that Mama wouldn't come back until Annie +was much stronger. As a matter of fact, it was nearly two +years--Theodore took me over to them a year from that following summer, +and then Annie stayed with some friends in England; she was having a +wonderful time! But years afterward, when little Hendrick was coming, in +fact, she was here one day, and she seemed to feel blue, and finally I +happened to say that if motherhood seemed so hard to a person like +herself, whose husband and whose whole family were so mad with joy over +the prospect of a baby, what on earth must it be to the poor girls who +have every reason to hate it. And she looked at me rather oddly, and +said: 'Ah, I know what _that_ is!' Of course I guessed right away what +she meant, and I said: 'Annie--not really!' And she said: 'Oh, yes, that +was what started my illness. I had been so almost crazy--so blue and +lonesome, and so sick with horror at the whole thing, that it all +happened too soon, the day after Mama and Kate got there, in fact!' And +then she burst out crying and said: 'Thank God it was that way! I +couldn't have faced _that_.' And she said that she had been too +desperately ill to realize anything, but that afterward, at Como, when +she was much better, she asked Mama about it, and Mama said she must +only be glad that it was all over, and try to think of it as a terrible +dream!" + +"Well, there you are," said Chris, "she herself says that no child was +born!" + +"Yes, but, Chris, mightn't it be that she didn't know?" Alice submitted, +timidly. + +Her husband eyed her with a faint and thoughtful frown. + +"It seems to me that that is rather a fantastic theory, dear! Where +would this child be all this time?" + +"Kate" Alice said, simply. + +"Kate!" he echoed, struck. And Alice saw, with a sinking heart, that he +was impressed. After a full moment of silence he said, simply: "You +think this is the child?" + +"Chris," his wife cried, appealingly, "I don't say I think so! But it +occurred to me that it might be. I hope, with all my soul, that you +don't think so!" + +"I'm afraid," he answered, thoughtfully, "that I do!" + +Alice's eyes filled with tears, and she tightened her fingers in his +without speaking. + +"The idea being," Christopher mused, "that Mrs. Sheridan brought the +baby home, and has raised her. That makes Miss Sheridan--Norma--the +child of Annie and that German blackguard!" + +"I suppose so!" Alice admitted, despairingly. + +"But why has it been kept quiet all this time!" + +"Well, that," Alice said, "I don't understand. But this I _am_ sure of: +Annie hasn't the faintest suspicion of it! She supposes that the whole +thing ended with her terrible illness. She was only eighteen, and +younger and more childish even than Leslie is! Oh, Chris," said Alice, +her eyes watering, "isn't it horrible! To come to us, of all people! +Will everybody know?" + +"Well, it all depends. It's a nasty sort of business, but I suppose +there's no help for it. How much does Hendrick know?" + +"About Annie? Oh, everything that she does; I know that. Annie told him, +and Judge Lee told him about Mueller and the divorce, or nullification, +or whatever it was! There was nothing left unexplained there. But if the +child lived, she didn't know that--only Mama did, and Kate. Oh, poor +Annie, it would kill her to have all that raked up now! Why Kate kept it +secret all these years----" + +"I must say," Christopher exclaimed, "that----By George, I hate this +sort of thing! No help for it, I suppose. But if it gets out we shall +all be in for a sweet lot of notoriety. We shall just have to make terms +with these Sheridans, and keep our mouths shut. I didn't get the idea +that they were holding your mother up. I believe it's more that she +wants justice done; she would, you know, for the sake of the family. The +girl herself, this Norma, evidently hasn't been raised on any +expectations--probably knows nothing about it!" + +"Oh, I'm sure of that!" Alice agreed, eagerly. "And if she has Melrose +blood in her, you may be sure she'll play the game. But, Chris, I can't +stand the uncertainty. Mama's coming to have luncheon with me to-morrow, +and I'm going to ask her outright. And if this Norma is really--what we +fear, what do you think we ought to do?" + +"Well, it's hard to say. It's all utterly damnable," Christopher said, +distressed. "And Annie, who let us all in for it, gets off scot free! I +wish, since she let it go so long, that your mother had forgotten it +entirely. But, as it is, this child isn't, strictly speaking, +illegitimate. There was a marriage, and some sort of divorce, whether +Mueller deceived Annie as to his being a bachelor or not!" + +A maid stood in the doorway. + +"Mrs. Melrose, Mrs. Liggett." + +"Oh," Alice said, in an animated tone of pleasure, "ask her to come +upstairs!" But the eyes she turned to her husband were full of +apprehension. "Chris, here's Mama now! Shall we----? Would you dare?" + +"Use your own judgment!" he had time to say hastily, before his wife's +mother came in. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Mrs. Melrose frequently came in to join Alice for dinner, especially +when she was aware, as to-night, that Christopher had an evening +engagement. She was almost always sure of finding Annie alone, and +enjoying the leisurely confidences that were crowded out of the daytime +hours. + +She had had several weeks of nervous illness now, but looked better +to-night, looked indeed her handsome and comfortable self, as she +received Chris's filial kiss on her forehead, and bent to embrace her +daughter. Freda carried away her long fur-trimmed cloak, and she pushed +her veil up to her forehead, and looked with affectionate concern from +husband to wife. + +"Now, Chris, I'm spoiling things! But I thought Carry Pope told me that +you were going to her dinner before the opera!" + +"I'm due there at eight," he said, reassuringly. "And by the same token, +I ought to be dressing! But Alice and I have been loafing along here +comfortably, and I'd give about seven dollars to stay at home with my +wife!" + +"He always says that!" Alice said, smilingly. "But he always has a nice +time; and then the next night he plays over the whole score, and tells +me who was there, and so I have it, too!" + +Chris had walked to the white mantelpiece, and was lighting a +cigarette. + +"Alice had that little protegee of yours here, to-day, Aunt Marianna," +he said, casually. + +There was no mistaking the look of miserable and fearful interest that +deepened instantly in the older woman's eyes. + +"Miss Sheridan?" she said. + +"Mama," Alice exclaimed, suddenly, clasping a warm hand over her +mother's trembling one, and looking at her with all love and +reassurance, "you know how Chris and I love you, don't you?" + +Tears came into Mrs. Melrose's eyes. + +"Of course I do, lovey," she faltered. + +"Mama, you know how we would stand behind you--how anxious we are to +share whatever's worrying you!" Alice went on, pleadingly. "Can't +you--I'm not busy like Annie, or young like Leslie, and Chris is your +man of business, after all! Can't you tell us about it? Two heads--three +heads," said Alice, smiling through a sudden mist of tears, "are better +than one!" + +"Why," Mrs. Melrose stammered, with a rather feeble attempt at +lightness, "have I been acting like a person with something on her mind? +It's nothing, children, nothing at all. Don't bother your dear, generous +hearts about it another second!" + +And she looked from one to another with a gallant smile. + +Chris eyed his wife with a faint, hopeless movement of the head, and +Alice correctly interpreted it to mean that the situation was worse +instead of better. + +"You remember the night you sent for me, some weeks ago, Aunt Marianna?" +he ventured. Mrs. Melrose moistened her lips, and swallowed with a dry +throat, looking at him with a sort of alert defiance. + +"I confess that I was all upset that night," she admitted, bravely. "And +to tell you children the truth, Kate Sheridan coming upon me so +unexpectedly----" + +"Joseph quite innocently told me that evening that you had anticipated +her coming!" Christopher said, quietly, as she paused. + +"Joseph was mistaken!" Mrs. Melrose said, warmly, with red colour +beginning to burn in her soft, faded old face. "Kate had been associated +with a terrible time in my life," she went on, almost angrily. "And it +was quite natural--or at least it seems so to me!--I don't know what +other people would feel, but to _me_----But what are you two +cross-examining me for?" she interrupted herself to ask, with a sudden +rush of tears, as Chris looked unconvinced, and Alice still watched her +sorrowfully. "Little do you know, either of you, what I have been +through----" + +"Mama," entreated Alice, earnestly, "will you answer me one question? I +promise you that I won't ask another. You know how anxious we are only +to help you, to make everything run smoothly. You know what the family +is--to us. Don't you _see_ we are?" Alice asked suddenly, seeing that +the desire for sympathy and advice was rapidly breaking up the ice that +had chilled her mother's heart for long weeks. "Won't you tell me just +this--it's about Annie, Mama. When she was so ill in Munich. Was--was +her little baby born there?" + +"Yes!" Mrs. Melrose whispered, with fascinated eyes fixed on her +daughter's face. + +Alice, ashen faced, fell back against her pillows without speaking. + +"Kate Sheridan brought the child home," Christopher stated, rather than +asked, very quietly. His mother-in-law looked at him apathetically. + +"Kate--yes!" + +"Does Annie know it, Mama?" Alice whispered, after a silence. + +"Annie? Oh, my God, no!" The mother's voice rose almost to a wail. "Oh, +Chris--Alice--if you love me, Annie must not know! So proud, so happy; +and she would never bear it! I know her--I know her! She would kill +herself before----" + +"Darling, you must be quiet!" Alice said, commandingly. "No one shall +know it. What we do for this child shall be done for--well, our cousin. +Chris will help you manage everything, and no one shall ever suspect it +from me. It will all work out right, you'll see. Other people aren't +watching us, as we always think they are; it's nobody's business if a +cousin of ours suddenly appears in the family. No one would dare whisper +one word against the Melroses. Only be quiet, Mama darling, and don't +worry. Now that we know it, we will never, never allude to it again, +will we, Chris? You can trust us." + +Mrs. Melrose had sunk back into her chair; her face was putty-coloured, +beads of water stood on her forehead. + +"Oh, the relief--the relief!" she kept whispering, as she clung to +Alice's hand. "Alice, for the sake of the name--dear--for all our +sakes!----" + +"Now, if you two girls will take my advice!" Christopher suggested, +cheerfully, "you'll stop talking about all this, and let it wait until +to-morrow. Then we'll consult, and see just what proposition we can make +to little Miss Sheridan, and what's best to be done. Alice, why don't +you go over that wedding list of Leslie's with your mother? And ring for +dinner. I'm going to dress." + +"We will!" Alice agreed, sensibly. "As a family we've always faced +things courageously. We're fighters--we Melroses--and we'll stand +together!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +This was on Friday, and it was on the following Monday that Wolf and +Rose Sheridan came home to find news awaiting them. The day before had +been surprisingly sunny and sweet, and Wolf and Harry Redding had taken +the girls to Newark, where Wolf's motor-car had been stored all winter, +and they had laughed, and joked, and chattered all the way like the +care-free young things they were. Mrs. Sheridan, urged to join them, had +pleaded business: she had promised old Mrs. Melrose to go and see her. +So she had left them at the church door, after Mass, and they had gone +their way rejoicing in sunshine and warm breezes, a part of the +streaming holiday crowds that were surging and idling along the drying +pavements. + +Wolf was neither of an age nor type for piety, but to-day he had prayed +that this little Norma kneeling beside him, with the youth and fire and +audacity shining in her face even while she prayed, might turn that same +mysterious and solemn smile upon him again some day, as his wife. And +all day long, as she danced along by his side, as she eagerly debated +the question of luncheon, as she enslaved the aged coloured man in the +garage, the new thrill of which he had only recently become so +pleasantly conscious, stirred in his heart, and whatever she touched, or +said, or looked, was beautified almost beyond recognition. + +He had thought, coming home Monday night, that he and she would take a +little walk, in the lingering dusk of the cool spring evening, and +perhaps see the twelfth installment of "The Stripe-Faced Terror," which +was playing in the near-by moving-picture house. + +But he found her in a new mood, almost awed with an unexpected ecstasy +in which he had no part--would never have a part. She and Aunt Kate had +been to see Mrs. Melrose again. + +"And, Wolf, what do you think! They want me to go live there--with the +Liggetts, to help with lists and things for Leslie's wedding. Mrs. +Melrose kissed me, Wolf, and said--didn't she, Aunt Kate?--that I must +try to feel that I belong to them; and she was so sweet--she put her arm +about me, and said that I must have some pretty clothes! And the car is +coming for me on Wednesday; isn't it like a dream? Oh, Rose, if I'm +thankful enough! And I'm to come back here for dinner once a week, and +of course you and Rose are to come there! Oh, Rose, but I wish it was us +both--I wish it was you, you're so good!" + +"I wouldn't have it, Norma," Rose said, in her honest, pleasant voice. +"You know I'd feel like a fool." + +"Oh, but I am so happy!" And Norma, who had gotten into Aunt Kate's lap, +as the marvellous narrative progressed, dug her face into Aunt Kate's +motherly soft shoulder, and tightened her arms about her neck, and cried +a little, for sheer joy. + +But Wolf said almost nothing, and when he went to wash his hands for +supper he went slowly, and found himself staring absently at the towel, +and stopping short in the hall, still staring. He seemed himself at +dinner, and his mother, at first watching him anxiously, could resume +her meal, and later, could fall asleep, in the confident hope that it +would all come right, after all. But Wolf slipped from the house after +awhile, and walked the streets until almost dawn. + +It was almost dawn, too when the old mistress of the Melrose mansion +fell asleep. She had called Regina more than once, she had tried the +effect of reading, and of hot milk, and of a cold foot-bath. But still +the crowded, over-furnished room was filled with ghosts, and still she +watched them, pleaded with them, blamed them. + +"I've done all I could!" she whispered at last, into the heavy dark +before the dawn. "It isn't my fault if they think she's Annie's child! +I've never said so--it was Alice and Chris who said so. Annie and Leslie +will never know anything more, and the girl herself need never know +anything at all. Perhaps, as Kate said yesterday, it will all work out +right, this way! At least it's all we can do now!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +So it came about quite naturally that the little unknown cousin of the +Melroses was made a familiar figure in their different family groups, +and friends of the house grew accustomed to finding pretty little Norma +Sheridan lunching with Leslie, reading beside Alice's couch in the late +summer afternoons, or amusing and delighting the old head of the family +in a hundred charming ways. Norma called Mrs. Melrose "Aunt Marianna" +now, as Chris and Acton did. She did not understand the miracle, it +remained a marvel still, but it was enough that it continued to deepen +and spread with every enchanted hour. + +She had longed--what girl in Biretta's Bookstore did not?--to be rich, +and to move and have her being "in society." And now she had her wish, a +hundred times fulfilled, and of course she was utterly and absolutely +happy. + +That is, except for the momentary embarrassments and jealousies and +uncertainties, and for sometimes being bored, she thought that she might +consider herself happy. And there were crumpled rose-leaves everywhere! +she reminded herself sternly. She--Norma Sheridan--could spend more +money upon the single item of shoes, for example, than Miss Smith, head +of Biretta's Bookshop, could earn in a whole long year of hot months and +cold, of weary days and headachy days. + +That part of it was "fun", she admitted to herself. The clothes were +fun, the boxes and boxes and boxes that came home for her, the +petticoats and stockings, the nightgowns heavy with filet lace, and the +rough boots for tramping and driving, and the silk and satin slippers +for the house. Nothing disappointing there! Norma never would forget the +ecstasies of those first shopping trips with Aunt Marianna. Did she want +them?--the beaded bag, the woolly scarf, the little saucy hat, were all +to be sent to Miss Sheridan, please. Norma lost her breath, and laughed, +and caught it again and lost it afresh. They had so quickly dropped the +little pretence that she was to make herself useful, these wonderful and +generous Melroses; they had so soon forgotten everything except that she +was Leslie's age, and to be petted and spoiled as if she had been +another Leslie! + +And now, after more than half a year, she knew that they liked her; that +all of them liked her in their varying degrees. Old Mrs. Melrose and +Alice--Mrs. Christopher Liggett--were most warmly her champions, +perhaps, but Leslie was too unformed a character to be definitely +hostile, and the little earlier jealousies and misunderstandings were +blown away long ago, and even the awe-inspiring Annie had shown a real +friendliness of late. Acton Liggett and Hendrick von Behrens were always +kind and admiring, and Norma had swiftly captivated Annie's little boys. +But of them all, she still liked Chris Liggett the best, and felt +nearest Chris even when he scolded her, or hurt her feelings with his +frank advice. And she knew that Chris thoroughly liked her, in spite of +the mistakes that she was continually making, and the absurd ways in +which her ignorance and strangeness still occasionally betrayed her. + +It had been a time full of mistakes, of course. Chris often told her +that she had more brains in her little finger than most of the girls of +her set had in their whole bodies, but that had not saved her. If she +was pretty, they were all pretty, too. If she wore beautiful clothes, +they wore clothes just as beautiful, and with more assurance. If her wit +was quick, and her common sense and human experience far greater than +theirs, these were just the qualities they neither needed nor trusted. +They spoke their own language, the language of youthful arrogance and +ignorance, the language of mutual compliments and small personalities, +and Norma could not speak this tongue any more than she could join them +when they broke easily into French or German or Italian. She could ride, +because she was not afraid of the mild-mannered cobs that were used at +the riding school and in the park, but she knew little of correct +posture and proper handling of reins. She could swim, as Wolf had taught +her, in the old river years ago, but she knew nothing of the terms and +affectations of properly taught swimming. When she went to see Aunt +Kate, she was almost ashamed of the splendour of her clothing and the +utter luxury of the life she led, but with Leslie and her friends she +often felt herself what perhaps they thought her, an insignificant +little poor relation of the Melroses, who had appeared from nobody knew +where, and might return unchallenged at any moment to her original +obscurity. + +This phase of the new life was disappointing, and Norma realized herself +that she spent a quite disproportionate amount of time in thinking about +it. Wasn't it enough, she would ask herself impatiently, to be one of +them at all, to see one's picture in the fashionable weeklies, as a +member of the family, at the Liggett-Melrose wedding; to have clothes +and motor-cars, and a bedroom that was like a picture; to know Newport +at first-hand; to have cruised for a week in the Craigies' yacht, and +have driven to Quebec and back in the Von Behrens' car? A year ago, she +reminded herself, it would have seemed Paradise to have had even a +week's freedom from the bookshop; now, she need never step into +Biretta's again! + +But it was not enough, and Norma would come impatiently to the end of +her pondering with the same fretted sense of dissatisfaction. It was not +enough to be tremulously praised by old Aunt Marianna, to be joked by +Chris, greeted by Alice, his wife, with a friendly smile. Norma wanted +to belong to this life, to be admired and sought by Leslie, rather than +endured; to have the same easy familiarity with Duers, and Alexanders, +and Rutgers that Leslie had. + +As was quite natural, she and Leslie had eyed each other, from the very +beginning, somewhat as rivals. But Leslie, even then preparing for her +marriage, had so obviously held all the advantages, that her vague +resentment and curiosity concerning the family's treatment of the +unknown newcomer were brief. If Aunt Alice liked Norma to come in and +talk books and write notes, if Chris chose to be gallant, if Grandma +lavished an unusual affection upon this new protegee, well, it robbed +Leslie of nothing, after all. + +But with Norma it was different. She was brought into sharp contact with +another girl, only slightly her senior, who had everything that this new +turn of fortune had given Norma herself, and a thousand times more. +Norma saw older women, the important and influential matrons of the +social world, paying court to the promised wife of Acton Liggett. Norma +knew that while Alice and Chris were always attentive to her own little +affairs, the solving of Leslie's problems they regarded as their own +sacred obligation. Norma had hours and hours of this new enchanting +leisure to fill; she could be at anybody's beck and call. But Leslie, +she saw, was only too busy. Everybody was claiming Leslie; she was +needed in forty places at once; she must fly from one obligation to +another, and be thanked for sparing just a few minutes here and there +from her crowded days. + +Mrs. Melrose had immediately made Norma an allowance, an allowance so +big that when Norma first told Aunt Kate about it, it was with a sense +of shame. Norma had her check-book, and need ask nobody for spending +money. More than that her generous old patron insisted that she use all +the family charge accounts freely: "You mustn't think of paying in any +shop!" said Aunt Marianna and Aunt Alice, earnestly. + +But Leslie was immensely rich in her own right. The hour in which Norma +realized this was one of real wretchedness. Chris was her innocent +informant. + +It was only two or three days before the wedding, a warm day of rustling +leaves and moving shadows, in late May. The united families were still +in town, but plans for escape to the country were made for the very day +after the event. Norma had been fighting a little sense of hurt pride +because she was not to be included among Leslie's wedding attendants. +She knew that Aunt Marianna had suggested it to Leslie, some weeks +before, and that the bride had quite justifiably reminded her +grandmother that the eight maids, the special maid and matron of honour, +and the two little pages, had all been already asked to perform their +little service of affection, and that a readjustment now would be +difficult. So Norma had been excluded from the luncheons, the +discussions of frocks and bouquets, and the final exciting rehearsals in +the big Park Avenue church. + +She had chanced to be thinking of all these things on the day when Chris +made a casual allusion to "needing" Leslie. + +"The poor kid has got a stupid morning coming to-morrow, I'm afraid!" he +had said, adding, in answer to Norma's raised eyebrows, "Business. She +has to sign some papers, and alter her will--and I want all that done +before they go away!" + +"Has Leslie a will?" Norma had asked. + +"My child, what did you suppose she had? Leslie inherited practically +all of her Grandfather Melrose's estate. At least, her father, Theodore, +did, and Leslie gets it direct through him. Of course your Aunt Annie +got her slice, and my wife hers, but the bulk was left to the son. Poor +Teddy! he didn't get much out of it. But during her minority the +executors--of which I happen to be one--almost doubled it for Leslie. +And to-morrow Judge Lee and I have got to go over certain matters with +her." + +He had been idling at the piano, while Alice dozed in the heat, and +Norma played with a magazine. Now he had turned back to his music, and +Norma had apparently resumed her reading. But she really had been shaken +by a storm of passionate jealousy. + +Jealousy is in its nature selfish, and the old Norma of Aunt Kate's +little group had not been a selfish girl. But Norma had had a few weeks +now of a world governed by a different standard. There was no necessity +here, none of the pure beauty of sacrifice and service and +insufficiency. This was a world of superfluities, a standard of excess. +To have merely meals, clothing, comfort, and ease was not enough here. +All these must be had in superabundance, and she was the best woman and +the happiest who had gowns she could not wear, jewels lying idle, money +stored away in banks, and servants standing about uselessly for hours, +that the momentary needs of them might be instantly met. + +The poison of this creed had reached Norma, in spite of herself. She was +young, and she had always been beloved in her own group for what she +honestly gave of cheer and service and friendship. It hurt her that +nobody needed what she could give now, and she hated the very memory of +Leslie's wedding. + +But when that was over, Mrs. Melrose had taken her to Newport, whither +Alice was carefully moved every June. Leslie was gone now, and Norma +free from pricking reminders of her supremacy, and as old friends of +Mrs. Melrose began to include her in the summer's merrymaking, she had +some happy times. But even here the cloven hoof intruded. + +Norma had always imagined this group as being full of friendly women and +admiring men, as offering her a hundred friendships where the old life +had offered one. She discovered slowly, and with pained surprise, that +although there were plenty of girls, they were not especially anxious +for intimacy with her, and that the men she met were not, somehow, +"real." They were absorbed in amusement, polo and yachting, they moved +about a great deal, and they neither had, nor desired to have, any +genuine work or interest in life. She began to see Leslie's wisdom in +making an early and suitable marriage. As a matron, Leslie was +established; she could entertain, she had dignified duties and +interests, and while Norma felt awkward and bashful in asking young men +to dine with Aunt Marianna, Acton brought his friends to his home, and +Leslie had her girl friends there, and the whole thing was infinitely +simpler and pleasanter. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Norma had indeed chanced to make one girl friend, and one of whom Leslie +and Alice, and even Annie, heartily approved. Caroline, the +seventeen-year-old daughter of the Peter Craigies, was not a debutante +yet, but she would be the most prominent, because the richest, of them +all next winter. Caroline was a heavy-lidded, slow-witted girl, whose +chief companions in life had been servants, foreign-born governesses, +and music-masters. Norma had been seated next to her at the +international tennis tournament, and had befriended the squirming and +bashful Caroline from sheer goodness of heart. They had criticized the +players, and Caroline had laughed the almost hysteric, shaken laugh that +so worried her mother, and had blurted confidences to Norma in her +childish way. + +The next day there had been an invitation for Norma to lunch with +Caroline, and Mrs. von Behrens had promptly given another luncheon for +both girls. Norma was pleased, for a few weeks, with her first social +conquest, but after that Caroline became a dead weight upon her. She +hated the flattery, the inanities, the utter dulness of the great +Craigie mansion, and she began to have a restless conviction that time +spent with Caroline was time lost. + +The friendship had cost her dear, too. Norma hated, even months later to +remember just what she had paid for it. + +In August a letter from Rose had reached her at Newport, announcing +Rose's approaching marriage. Harry Redding's sister Mary was engaged to +a most satisfactory young man of Italian lineage, one Joe Popini, and +Mrs. Redding would hereafter divide her time between the households of +her daughter and her son. Harry, thus free to marry, had persuaded Rose +to wait no longer; the event was to be on a Monday not quite two weeks +ahead, and Norma was please, _please_, PLEASE to come down as soon as +she could. + +Norma had read this letter with a sensation of pain at her heart. She +felt so far away from them nowadays; she felt almost a certain +reluctance to dovetail this life of softness and perfume and amusement +in upon the old life. But she would go. She would go, of course! + +And then she had suddenly remembered that on the Monday before Rose's +wedding, the Craigies' splendid yacht was to put to sea for a four- or +five-days' cruise, and that Caroline had asked her to go--the only other +young person besides the daughter of the house. And great persons were +going, visiting nobility from England, a young American Croesus and his +wife, a tenor from the Metropolitan. Annie had been delighted with this +invitation; even Leslie, just returned from California and Hawaii, had +expressed an almost surprised satisfaction in the Craigies' +friendliness. + +If they got back Friday night, then Norma could go down to the city +early Saturday morning, and have two days with Rose and Aunt Kate. But +if the yacht did not return until Saturday--well, even then there would +be time. She and Rose could get through a tremendous lot of talking in +twenty-four hours. And the voyage certainly would not be prolonged over +Saturday, for had not Mrs. Craigie said, in Norma's hearing, that +Saturday was the very latest minute to which she could postpone the +meeting for the big charity lawn party? + +So Norma and the enslaved Caroline continued to plan for their sea trip, +and Norma commissioned Chris to order Rose's wedding present at +Gorham's. + +Mrs. von Behrens had been a trifle distant with the newcomer in the +family until now, but the day before the cruise began she extended just +a little of her royal graciousness toward Norma. Like Leslie, Norma +admired her Aunt Annie enormously, and hungered for her most casual +word. + +"You've plenty of frocks, Kiddie?" asked Annie. "One uses them up at the +rate of about three a day!" + +"Oh!"--Norma widened her innocent eyes--"I've a wardrobe trunk full of +them: white skirts and white shoes and hats!" + +"Well, I didn't suppose you had them tied in a handkerchief!" Annie had +responded, with her quiet smile. "See if that fits you!" + +They had been up in Mrs. von Behrens's big bedroom, where that lady was +looking at a newly arrived box of gowns. "That" was the frail, +embroidered coat of what Norma thought the prettiest linen suit she had +ever seen. + +"It's charming on you, you little slender thing," Annie had said. "The +skirt will be too long; will you pin it, Keating? And see that it goes +at once to my mother's house." + +Keating had pinned, admired. And Norma, turning herself before the +mirror, with her eyes shy with pleasure and gratitude, had known that +she was gaining ground. + +So they had started radiantly on the cruise. But after the first few +miraculous hours of gliding along beneath the gay awnings that had all +been almost astonishingly disappointing, too. Caroline, to begin with, +was a dreadful weight upon her young guest. Caroline for breakfast, +luncheon, and dinner; Caroline retiring and rising, became almost +hateful. Caroline always wanted to do something, when Norma could have +dreamed and idled in her deck chair by the hour. It must be deck golf or +deck tennis, or they must go up and tease dignified and courteous +Captain Burns, "because he was such an old duck," or they must harass +one or two of the older people into bridge. Norma did not play bridge +well, and she hated it, and hated Caroline's way of paying for her +losses almost more than paying them herself. + +Norma could not lie lazily with her book, raising her eyes to the +exquisite beauty of the slowly tipping sea, revelling in coolness and +airiness, because Caroline, fussing beside her, had never read a book +through in her life. The guest did not know, even now, that Caroline had +been a mental problem for years, that Caroline's family had consulted +great psycho-analysts about her, and had watched the girl's +self-centredness, her odd slyness, her hysteric emotions, with deep +concern. She did not know, even now, that the Cragies were anxious to +encourage this first reaching out, in Caroline, toward a member of her +own sex, and that her fancies for members of the opposite sex--for +severely indifferent teachers, for shocked and unresponsive +chauffeurs--were among the family problems, a part of the girl's +unfortunate under-development. Caroline's family was innocently +surprised to realize that her mind had not developed under the care of +maids who were absorbed in their own affairs, and foreigners who would +not have been free to attend her had they not been impecunious and +unsuccessful in more lucrative ways. They had left her to Mademoiselles +and Fraeuleins quite complacently, but they did not wish her to be like +these too-sullen or too-vivacious ladies. + +So they welcomed her friendship with Norma, and Caroline's passionate +desire to be with her friend was not to find any opposition on the part +of her own family. Little Miss Sheridan had an occasional kindly word +from Caroline's mother, a stout woman, middle-aged at thirty-five, and +good-natured smiles from Caroline's father, a well-groomed young man. +And socially, this meant that the Melroses' young protegee was made. + +But Norma did not realize all this. She only knew that all the charm and +beauty of the yacht were wasted on her. Everyone ate too much, talked +too much, played, flirted, and dressed too much. The women seldom made +their appearance until noon; in the afternoons there was bridge until +six, and much squabbling and writing of checks on the forward deck, with +iced drinks continually being brought up from the bar. At six the women +loitered off to dress for dinner, but the men went on playing for +another half hour. The sun sank in a blaze of splendour; the wonderful +twilight fell; but the yacht might have been boxed up in an armoury for +all that her passengers saw of the sea. + +After the elaborate dinner, with its ices and hot rolls, its warm wines +and chilled champagne, cards began again, and unless the ocean was so +still that they might dance, bridge continued until after midnight. + +Norma's happiest times had been when she arose early, at perhaps seven, +and after dressing noiselessly in their little bathroom, crept upstairs +without waking Caroline. Sunshine would be flooding the ocean, or +perhaps the vessel would be nosing her way through a luminous fog--but +it was always beautiful. The decks, drying in the soft air, would be +ordered, inviting, deserted. Great waves of smooth water would flow +evenly past, curving themselves with lessening ripples into the great +even circle of the sea. A gentle breeze would stir the leaves of the +potted plants on the deck and flap the fringes of the awnings. + +Norma, hanging on the railing, would look down upon a group of maids and +stewards laughing and talking on the open deck below. These were happy, +she would reflect, animated by a thousand honest emotions that never +crept to the luxurious cabins above. They would be waiting for +breakfast, all freshly aproned and brushed, all as pleased with the +_Seagirl_ as if they had been her owners. + +On the fifth day, Friday, she had been almost sick with longing to hear +some mention of going back. Surely--surely, she reasoned, they had all +said that they must get back on Friday night! If the plan had changed, +Norma had determined to ask them to run into harbour somewhere, and put +her on shore. She was so tired of Caroline, so tired of wasting time, so +headachy from the heavy meals and lack of exercise! + +Late on Friday afternoon some idle remark of her hostess had assured her +that the yacht would not make Greble light until Monday. They were +ploughing north now, to play along the Maine coast; the yachting party +was a great success, and nobody wanted to go home. + +Norma, goaded out of her customary shyness, had pleaded her cousin's +marriage. Couldn't they run into Portland--or somewhere?--and let her go +down by train? But Caroline had protested most affectionately and +noisily against this, and Caroline's mother said sweetly that she +couldn't think of letting Norma do that alone--Annie von Behrens would +never forgive her! However, she would speak to Captain Burns, and see +what could be done. Anyway, Mrs. Craigie had finished, with her +comfortable laugh, Norma had only to tell her cousin that she was out +with friends on their yacht, and they had been delayed. Surely that was +excuse enough for any one? + +It was with difficulty that Norma had kept the tears out of her eyes. +She had not wanted an excuse to stay away from Rose's wedding. Her heart +had burned with shame and anger and helplessness. She could hardly +believe, crying herself to sleep on Friday night, that two whole days +were still to spare before Monday, and that she was helpless to use +them. Her mind worked madly, her thoughts rushing to and fro with a +desperation worthy an actual prisoner. + +On Saturday evening, after a day of such homesickness and +heavy-heartedness as she had never known before in her life, she had +realized that they were in some port, lying a short half mile from +shore. + +It was about ten o'clock, warm and star-lighted; there was no moon. +Norma had slipped from the deck, where Caroline was playing bridge, and +had gone to the lowered gang-plank. Captain Burns was there, going over +what appeared to be invoices, with the head steward. + +"Captain," Norma had said, her heart pounding, "can't you put me on +shore? I must be in New York to-morrow--it's very important! If I get a +coat, will you let me go in when you go?" + +He had measured her with his usual polite, impersonal gaze. + +"Miss Sheridan, I really could not do it, Miss! If it was a telegram, or +something of that sort----But if anything was to happen to you, Miss, it +would be--it really would be most unfortunate!" + +Norma had stood still, choking. And in the starlight he had seen the +glitter of tears in her eyes. + +"Couldn't you put it to Mrs. Craigie, Miss? I'm sure she'd send +someone--one of the maids----" + +But Norma shook her head. It would anger Caroline, and perhaps +Caroline's mother, and Annie, too, to have her upset the cruise by her +own foolish plans. There was no hope of her hostess's consent. +What!--send a girl of eighteen down to New York for dear knows what +fanciful purpose, without a hint from parent or guardian? Mrs. Craigie +knew the modern girl far too well for that, even if it had not been +personally extremely inconvenient to herself to spare a maid. They were +rather short of maids, for two or three of them had been quite ill. + +The launch had put off, with Captain Burns in the stern. Norma had stood +watching it, with her heart of lead. Oh, to be running away--flying--on +the train--in the familiar streets! They could forgive her later--or +never---- + +"Norma, aren't you naughty?" Caroline had interrupted her thoughts, and +had slipped a hand through her arm. "Buoso is going to sing--do come in! +My dear, you know that last hand? Well, we made it----!" + +The next two days were the slowest, the hardest, the bitterest of +Norma's life. She felt that nobody had ever had to bear so aching a +heart as hers, as the most beautiful yacht in the world skimmed over the +blue ocean, and the sun shone down on her embroidered linen suit, and +her white shoes, and the pearl ring that Caroline had given her for her +birthday. + +What were they doing at Aunt Kate's? What were they saying as the hours +went by? At what stage was the cake--and the gown? Was Rose really to be +married to-morrow--to-day? + +In New Brunswick she had managed to send a long wire, full of the +disappointment and affection and longing she truly felt, and after that +she had been happier. But it was a very subdued little Norma who had +come quietly into Aunt Kate's kitchen three weeks later, and had +relieved her over-charged heart with a burst of tears on Aunt Kate's +shoulder. + +Aunt Kate had been kind, kind as she always was to the adored +foster-child. And Norma had stayed to dinner, and made soft and penitent +eyes at Wolf until the agonized resolutions of the past lonely months +had all melted out of his heart again, and they had all gone over to +Rose's, for five minutes of kissing and crying, before the big car came +to carry Norma away. + +So the worst of that wound was healed, and life could become bright and +promising to Norma once more. Autumn was an invigorating season, anyway, +full of hope and enchantment, and Caroline Craigie, by what Norma felt +to be a special providence, was visiting her grandmother in Baltimore +for an indefinite term. The truth was that there was a doctor there +whose advice was deemed valuable to Caroline, but Norma did not know +that. Norma did not know the truth, either, about Mrs. von Behrens's +sudden graciousness toward her, but it made her happy. Annie had become +friendly and hospitable toward the newcomer in the family for only one +reason. As a social dictator, she was accustomed to be courted and +followed by scores of women who desired her friendship for the prestige +it gave them. Annie was extremely autocratic in this respect, and could +snub, chill, and ignore even the most hopeful aspirants to her favour, +with the ease of long practice. It made no difference to Annie that +dazzling credentials were produced, or that past obscurity was more than +obliterated by present glory. + +"One truly must be firm," Annie frequently said. "It devolves upon a few +of us, as an actual duty, to see that society is maintained in its true +spirit. Let the bars down once----!" + +Norma, a negligible factor in Annie's life when she first appeared, had +quite innocently become a problem during that first summer. While not a +Melrose, she was a member of the Melrose family, making her home with +one of the daughters of the house. Annie might ignore Norma, but there +were plenty of women, and men, too, who saw in the girl a valuable +social lever. To become intimate with little Miss Sheridan meant that +one might go up to her, at teas and dinners, while she was with Mrs. +Melrose, or young Mrs. Liggett, or even Mrs. von Behrens herself, in a +casual, friendly manner that indicated, to a watching world, a +comfortable footing with the family. Norma was consequently selected +for social attention. + +Annie saw this immediately, and when all the families were settled in +town again, she decided to take Norma's social training in hand, as she +had done Leslie's, and make sure that no undesirable cockle was sown +among the family fields. She would have done exactly the same if Norma +had been the least attractive of girls, but Norma fancied that her own +qualities had won Annie's reluctant friendship, and was accordingly +pleased. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Eight months later, in the clear sunshine of a late autumn morning, a +slender young woman came down the steps of the Melrose house, after an +hour's call on the old mistress, and turned briskly toward Fifth Avenue. +In figure, in carriage, and even in the expression of her charming and +animated face, she was different from the girl who had come to that same +house to make a call with Aunt Kate, on the day after the big blizzard, +yet it was the same Norma Sheridan who nodded a refusal to the driver of +the big motor-car that was waiting, and set off by herself for her walk. + +The old Norma, straight from Biretta's Bookshop, had been pretty in +plain serge and shabby fur. But this Norma--over whose soft thick belted +coat a beautiful silver-fox skin was linked, whose heavy, ribbed silk +hose disappeared into slim, flat, shining pumps that almost caressed the +slender foot, whose dark hair had the lustre that comes from intelligent +care, and whose handsome little English hat was the only one of its +special cut in the world--was a conspicuously attractive figure even in +a world of well-groomed girls, and almost deserved to be catalogued as a +beauty. From the hat to the shoes she was palpably correct, and Norma +knew, and never could quite sufficiently revel in the knowing, that the +blouse and the tailored skirt that were under the coat were correct, +too, and that under blouse and skirt were cobwebby linens and perfumed +ribbons and sheerest silks that were equally perfect in their way. +Leslie's bulldog, pulling on his strap, kept her moving rapidly, and +girl and dog exacted from almost all the passers-by that tribute of +glances to which Norma was now beginning to be accustomed. + +She was walking to Mrs. von Behrens's after an unusually harmonious +luncheon with old Mrs. Melrose. This was one of Norma's happy times, and +she almost danced in the crisp November air that promised snow even now. +Leslie had asked her to come informally to tea; Annie had sent a message +that she wished to see Norma; and Alice, who, like all invalids, had +dark moods of which only her own household was aware, had been her +nicest self for a week. Then Christopher was coming home to-night, and +Norma had missed him for the three weeks he had been away, duck-shooting +in the South, and liked the thought that he was homeward bound. + +She found Leslie with Annie to-day, in Annie's big front bedroom. Leslie +was in a big chair by the bed where Annie, with some chalky preparation +pasted in strips on those portions of her face that were most inclined +to wrinkle, was lying flat. Her hair, rubbed with oils and packed in +tight bands, was entirely invisible, and over her arms, protruding from +a gorgeous oriental wrap, loose chamois gloves were drawn. Annie had +been to a luncheon, and was to appear at two teas, a dinner, and the +theatre, and she was making the most of an interval at home. She looked +indescribably hideous, as she stretched a friendly hand toward Norma, +and nodded toward a chair. + +"Look at the child's colour--Heavens! what it is to be young," said +Annie. "Sit down, Norma. How's Alice?" + +"Lovely!" Norma said, pulling off her gloves. "She had a wire from +Chris, and he gets back to-night. I had luncheon with your mother, and I +am to go to stay with her for two or three nights, anyway. But Aunt +Alice said that she would like to have me back again next week for her +two teas." + +"How old are you, Norma?" Annie asked, suddenly. Any sign of interest on +her part always thrilled the girl, who answered, flushing: + +"Nineteen; twenty in January, Aunt Annie." + +"I'm thinking, if you'd like it, of giving you a little tea here next +month," Annie said, lazily. "You know quite enough of the youngsters now +to have a thoroughly nice time, and afterward we'll have a dinner here, +and they can dance!" + +"Oh, Aunt Annie--if I'd like it!" Norma exclaimed, rosy with pleasure. + +"You would?" Annie asked, looking at a hand from which she had drawn the +glove, and smiling slightly. "It means that you don't go anywhere in the +meantime. You're not out until then, you know!" + +"Oh, but I won't be going anywhere, anyway," Norma conceded, +contentedly. + +"You'll have a flood of invitations fast enough after the tea," Annie +assured her, pleased at her excitement, "and until then, you can simply +say that you are not going out yet." + +"Chris said he might take me to the opera on the first night; I've never +been," Norma said, timidly. "But I can explain to him!" + +"Oh, that won't count!" Annie assured her, carelessly. "We'll all be +there, of course! Have you worn the corn-coloured gown yet?" + +"Oh, no, Aunt Annie!" + +"Well, keep it for that night. And you and Chris might----No, he'll want +to dine with Alice, and she'll want to see you in your new gown. I was +going to say that you might dine here, but you'd better not." + +"I think Leslie and Acton are going to be asked to dine with us," Norma +said. "Aunt Alice said something about it!" + +"Well," Annie agreed indifferently. "Ring that bell, Norma--I've got to +get up! Where are you girls going now?" + +"Some of the girls are coming to my house for tea," Leslie answered, +listlessly. "I've got the car here. Come on, Norma!" + +"But you're not driving, Kiddie?" her aunt asked, quickly. + +Leslie, who neither looked nor felt well, raised half-resentful eyes. + +"Oh, no, I'm not driving, and I'm lying in bed mornings, and I don't +play squash, or ride horseback, or go in for tennis!" she drawled, half +angrily. "I'm having a perfectly _lovely_ time! I wish Acton had a +little of it; he wouldn't be so pleased! Makes me so mad," grumbled +Leslie, as she wandered toward the door, busily buttoning her coat. +"Grandma crying with joy, and Aunt Alice goo-gooing at me, and +Acton----" + +"Come, now, be a little sport, Leslie!" her aunt urged, affectionately, +with her arm about her. "It's rotten, of course, but after all, it does +mean a lot to the Liggetts----" + +"Oh, now, don't _you_ begin!" Leslie protested, half-mollified, with her +parting nod. "Don't--for pity's sake!--talk about it," she added, +rudely, to Norma, as Norma began some consolatory murmur on the stairs. +But when they were before her own fire, waiting for the expected girls, +she made Norma a rather ungracious confidence. + +"I don't want Aunt Alice or any one to know it, but if Acton Liggett +thinks I am going to let him make an absolute fool of me, he's +mistaken!" Leslie said, in a sort of smouldering resentment. + +"What has Acton done?" Norma asked, flattered by the intimation of trust +and not inclined to be apprehensive. She had seen earlier differences +between the young married pair, and now, when Leslie was physically at a +disadvantage, she and Alice had agreed that it was not unnatural that +the young wife should grow exacting and fanciful. + +"Acton is about the most selfish person I ever knew," Leslie said, +almost with a whimper. "Oh, yes, he is, Norma! You don't see it--but I +do! Chris knows it, too; I've heard Chris call him down a thousand times +for it! I am just boiling at Acton; I have been all day! He leaves +everything to me, everything; and I'm not well, now, and I can't stand +it! And I'll tell him I can't, too." + +"I suppose a man doesn't understand very well," Norma ventured. + +"_He_ doesn't!" Leslie said, warmly. "All Acton Liggett thinks of is his +own comfort--that's all! I do everything for him--I pay half the +expenses here, you know, more than half, really, for I always pay for my +own clothes and Milly, and lots of other things. And then he'll do some +_mean_, ugly thing that just makes me furious at him--and he'll walk out +of the house, perfectly calm and happy!" + +"He's always had his own way a good deal," Norma who knew anything +except sympathy would utterly exasperate Leslie conceded, mildly. + +"Yes," Leslie agreed, flushing, and stiffening her jaw rather ominously, +"and it's just about time that he learned that he isn't always going to +have it, too! It's very easy for him to have me do anything that is hard +and stupid----Do you suppose," she broke off, suddenly, "that _I'm_ so +anxious to go to the Duers' dinner? I wouldn't care if I never saw one +of them again!" + +Norma gathered that a dinner invitation from the Duers had been the main +cause of the young Liggetts' difference, and framed a general question. + +"That's Saturday night?" + +"Friday," Leslie amended. "And what does he do? He meets Roy Duer at the +club, and says oh, no, he can't come to the dinner Friday, but _Leslie_ +can! He has promised to play bridge with the Jeromes and that crowd. But +Leslie would _love_ to go! So there I am--old lady Duer called me up the +next morning, and was so sorry Acton couldn't come! But she would expect +me at eight o'clock. It's for her daughter, and she goes away again on +Tuesday. And then"--Leslie straightened herself on the couch, and fixed +Norma with bright, angry eyes;--"then Spooky Jerome telephoned here, and +said to tell Acton that if he couldn't stir up a bridge party for +Friday, he'd stir up something, and for Acton to meet him at the club!" + +Norma laughed. + +"And did you give Acton that message?" she inquired. + +"No, indeed, I didn't--that was only this morning!" Leslie said, in +angry satisfaction. "I telephoned Mrs. Duer right away, and said that +Acton would be so glad to come Friday, and if Acton Liggett doesn't like +it, he knows what he can do! You laugh," she went on with a sort of +pathetic dignity, "but don't you think it's a rotten way for a man to +treat his wife, Norma? Don't you, honestly? There's nothing--nothing +that I don't give way in--absolutely nothing! And I don't believe most +men----Oh, hello, Doris," Leslie broke off, gaily, as there was a stir +at the door; "come in! Come in, Vera--aren't you girls angels to come in +and see the poor old sick lady!" + +Norma was still lingering when Acton came home, an hour later. She heard +his buoyant voice in the hall, and began to gather her wraps and gloves +as he came to the tea table. + +"Acton," Leslie said, firmly, "the bridge party is off for Friday, and +you're going to Mrs. Duer's with me, and you ought to be ashamed of +yourself!" + +"Whew! I can see that I'm popular in the home circle, Norma!" Acton +said, leaning over the big davenport to kiss his wife. "How's my baby? +All right, dear, anything you say goes! I was going to cancel the game, +anyway. Look what Chris brought you, Cutey-cute! Say, Norma, has she +been getting herself tired?" + +Leslie, instantly mollified, drew his cold, firm cheek against hers, and +looked sidewise toward Norma. + +"Isn't he the nice, big, comfy man to come home to his mad little old +wife?" she mumbled, luxuriously. + +"Yes," Acton grumbled, still half embracing her, "but you didn't talk +that way at breakfast, you little devil!" + +"Am I a devil?" Leslie asked, lazily. And looking in whimsical penitence +at Norma, she added, "I _am_ a devil. But you were just as mean as you +could be," she told him, widening her eyes and shaking her head. + +"I know it. I felt like a dog, walking down town," her husband admitted +promptly. "I tried to telephone but you weren't here!" + +"I was at Aunt Annie's," Leslie said, softly. Her husband had slipped in +beside her on the wide davenport, and she was resting against his +shoulder, and idly kissing the little rebel lock of hair that fell +across one temple. "He's a pretty nice old husband!" she murmured, +contentedly. + +"And she's a pretty nice little wife, if she did call me some mean +names!" Acton returned, kissing the top of her head without altering her +position. Norma looked at them with smiling contempt. + +"You're a great pair!" she conceded, indulgently. + +Leslie now was free to examine, with a flush and a laugh, the +microscopic pair of beaded Indian moccasins that Chris had brought from +Florida. Norma asked about Chris. + +"Oh, he's fine," Acton answered, "looks brown and hard; he had a +gorgeous time! He said he might be round to see Grandma to-morrow +morning!" + +"I'll tell her," Norma said, getting up to go. She left them still +clinging together, like a pair of little love-birds, with peace fully +restored for the time being. + +Mrs. Melrose's car had been waiting for some time, and she was whirled +home through the dark and wintry streets without the loss of a second. +Lights were lighted everywhere now, and tempered radiance filled the old +hall as she entered it. It was just six o'clock, but Norma knew that she +and the old lady were to be alone to-night, and she went through the +long drawing-room to the library beyond it, thinking she might find her +still lingering over the teacups. Dinner under these circumstances was +usually at seven, and frequently Mrs. Melrose did not change her gown +for it. + +There was lamplight in the library, but the old lady's chair was empty, +and the tea table had been cleared away. Norma, supposing the room +unoccupied, gave a little gasp of surprise and pleasure as Chris +suddenly got to his feet among the shadows. + +She was so glad to see him, so much more glad than she would have +imagined herself, that for a few minutes she merely clung tight to the +two hands she had grasped, and stood laughing and staring at him. Chris +back again! It meant so much that was pleasant and friendly to Norma. +Chris advised her, admired her, sympathized with her; above all, she +knew that he liked her. + +"Chris; it's so nice to see you!" she exclaimed. + +The colour came into his face, and with it an odd expression that she +had never seen there before. Without speaking he put his arm about her, +and drew her to him, and kissed her very quietly on the mouth. + +"Hello, you dear little girl!" he said, freeing her, and smiling at her, +somewhat confusedly. "You're not half so glad to see me as I am to be +back! You're looking so well, Norma," he went on, with almost his usual +manner, "and Alice tells me you are making friends everywhere. What's +the news?" + +He threw himself into a large leather chair, and, hardly knowing what +she was doing, in the wild hurrying of her senses, Norma sat down +opposite him. Her one flurried impulse was not to make a scene. Chris +was always so entirely master of a situation, so utterly unemotional and +self-possessed, that if he kissed her, upon his return from a +three-weeks' absence, it must be a perfectly correct thing to do. + +Yet she felt both shaken and protestant, and it was with almost +superhuman control that she began to carry on a casual conversation, +giving her own report upon Alice and Leslie, Acton and the world in +general. + +When Mrs. Melrose, delighted at the little attention from her +son-in-law, came smilingly in, five minutes later, Norma escaped +upstairs. She had Leslie's old room here when she spent the night, but +it was only occasionally that Alice spared her, for her youth and high +spirits, coupled with the simplicity and enthusiasm with which she was +encountering the new world, made her a really stimulating companion for +the sick woman. + +Regina came in to hook her into a simple dinner gown, but Norma did not +once address her, except by a vague smile of greeting. Her thoughts were +in a whirl. Why had he done that? Was it just brotherly--friendliness? +He was much older than she--thirty-seven or eight; perhaps he had felt +only an older man's kindly---- + +But her face blazed, and she flung this explanation aside angrily. He +had no business to do it! He had no right to do it! She was furious at +him! + +She stood still, staring blankly ahead of her, in the centre of the +room. The memory came over her in a wave; the odd, half-hesitating, +half-confident look in his eyes as his arms enveloped her, the faint +aroma of talcum powder and soap, the touch of his smoothly shaven cheek. + +It was almost an hour later that she went cautiously downstairs. He was +gone--had been gone since half-past six o'clock, Joseph reported. Norma +went in to dinner with Mrs. Melrose, and they talked cheerfully of +Chris's return, of Leslie and Annie. + +By eight o'clock, reading in Mrs. Melrose's upstairs sitting-room, that +first room that she had seen in this big house, eight months ago, Norma +began to feel just a trifle flat. Chris Liggett was one of the most +popular men in society, in demand everywhere, spoiled by women +everywhere. He had quite casually, and perhaps even absent-mindedly, +kissed his wife's young protegee upon meeting her after an absence, and +she had hastily leaped to conclusions worthy of a schoolgirl! He would +be about equally amused and disgusted did he suspect them. + +"He likes you, you little fool," Norma said to herself, "and you will +utterly spoil everything with your idiocy!" + +"What did you say, lovey?" the old lady asked, half closing her book. + +"Nothing!" Norma said, laughing. She reopened her novel, and tried to +interest herself in it. But the thought of that quarter hour in the +study came back over and over again. She came finally to the conclusion +that she was glad Chris liked her. + +The room was very still. A coal fire was glowing pink and clear in the +grate, and now and then the radiators hissed softly. Norma had one big +brilliant lamp to herself, and over the old lady's chair another +glowed. Everything was rich, soft, comfortable. Regina was hovering in +the adjoining room, folding the fat satin comforters, turning down the +transparent linen sheets with their great scroll of monogram, and behind +Regina were Joseph and Emma, and all the others, and behind them the +great city and all the world, eager to see that this old woman, who had +given the world very little real service in her life, should be shielded +and warmed and kept from the faintest dream of need. + +Money was a strange thing, Norma mused. What should she do, if--as her +shamed and vague phrase had it--if "something happened" to Aunt +Marianna, and she was not even mentioned in her will? Of course it was a +hateful thing to think of, and a horrible thing, sitting here opposite +Aunt Marianna in the comfortable upstairs sitting-room, but the thought +would come. Norma wished that she knew. She would not have shortened the +old lady's life by a single second, and she would have died herself +rather than betray this thought to any one, even to Wolf--even to Rose! +But it suddenly seemed to her very unjust that she could be picked out +of Biretta's bookstore to-day, by Aunt Marianna's pleasure, and perhaps +put back there to-morrow through no fault of her own. They were all +kind, they were all generous, but this was not just. She wanted the +delicious and self-respecting feeling of being a young woman with +"independent means." + +Such evenings as this one, even in the wonderful Melrose house, were +undeniably dull. She and Rose had often grumbled, years ago, because +there were so many of these quiet times, in between the Saturday and +Sunday excitements. But Norma, in those days, had never supposed that +dulness was ever compatible with wealth and ease. + +"Cards?" said old Mrs. Melrose, hopefully, as the girl made a sudden +move. She loved to play patience, but only when she had an audience. +Norma, who had just decided to give her French verbs a good hour's +attention, smiled amiably, and herself brought out the green table. She +sat watching the fall of kings and aces, reminding her companion of at +least every third play. But her thoughts went back to Chris, and the +faint odour of powder and soap, and the touch of his shaved cheek. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Norma met Chris again no later than the following afternoon. It was +twilight in Alice's room, and she and Norma were talking on into the +gloom, discussing the one or two guests who had chanced to come in for +tea, and planning the two large teas that Alice usually gave some time +late in November. + +Chris came in quietly, kissed his wife, and nodded carelessly to Norma. +The girl's sudden mad heartbeats and creeping colour could subside +together unnoticed, for he apparently paid no attention to her, and +presently drifted to the piano, leaving the women free to resume their +conference. + +Alice was a person of more than a surface sweetness; she loved harmony +and serenity, and there was almost no inclination to irritability or +ugliness in her nature. Her voice was always soothing and soft, and her +patience in the unravelling of other people's problems was +inexhaustible. Alice was, as all the world conceded, an angel. + +But Norma had not been a member of her household for eight months +without realizing that Alice, like other household angels, did not wish +an understudy in the role. She did not quite enjoy the nearness of +another woman who might be all sweet and generous and peace-making, too. +That was her own sacred and peculiar right. She could gently and +persistently urge objections and find inconsistencies in any plan of +her sister or of Norma, no matter how advantageous it sounded, and she +could adhere to a plan of her own with a tenacity that, taken in +consideration with Alice's weak body and tender voice, was nothing less +than astonishing. + +Norma, lessoned in a hard school, and possessing more than her share of +adaptability and common sense, had swiftly come to the conclusion that, +since it was not her part to adjust the affairs of her benefactors, she +might much more wisely constitute herself a sort of Greek chorus to +Alice's manipulations. Alice's motives were always of the highest, and +it was easy to praise them in all honesty, and if sometimes the younger +woman had mentally arrived at a conclusion long before Alice had +patiently and sweetly reached it, the little self-control was not much +to pay toward the comfort of a woman as heavily afflicted as Alice. + +For Norma knew in her own heart that Alice was heavily afflicted, +although the invalid herself always took the attitude that her +helplessness brought the best part of life into her room, and shut away +from her the tediousness and ugliness of the world. + +"'Aida' two weeks from to-night!" Alice said this evening, with her +sympathetic smile. + +"Oh, Aunt Alice--if you could go! Didn't you love it?" + +"Love the opera? Do you hear her, Chris? But I didn't love people +talking all about me--and they will do it, you know! And that makes one +furious!" + +"I see you getting furious," Norma observed, incredulously. + +"You don't know me! But I was a bashful, adoring sort of little person, +on my first night----" + +"Yes, you were," Chris teased her, over a lazy ripple of thirds. "She +was such a bashful little person at the Mardi Gras dance she promised +Artie Peyton her first cotillion the following season." + +"Oh, Aunt Alice--you didn't!" + +Alice's rather colourless face flushed happily, and she half lowered her +lids. + +"Chris thinks that is a great story on me. As a matter of fact, I did do +that; I was just childish enough. But I can't think how the story got +out, for I was desperately ashamed of it." + +"I told Aunt Annie and Leslie to-day that you wanted the Liggetts to +dine here that night," Norma said, suddenly. Instantly she realized that +she had made a mistake. And there was no one in the world whose light +reproof hurt her as Alice's did. + +"You--you gave my invitation to Leslie?" Alice asked, quietly. + +"Well--not quite that. But I told her that you had said that you meant +to ask them," Norma replied, uncomfortably. + +"But, Norma, I did not ask you to mention it." Alice was even smiling, +but she seemed a little puzzled. + +"I'm so sorry--if you didn't want me to!" + +"It isn't that. But one feels that one----" + +"What is Norma sorry about?" Chris asked, coming back to the fire. +"Norma, you're up against a terrible tribunal, here! Alice has been +known--well, even to give new hats to the people who make her angry!" + +This fortunate allusion to an event now some months old entirely +restored Alice's good humour. Norma had accepted a certain almost-new +hat from Leslie just before the wedding, and Alice, burning with her +secret suspicion as to Norma's parentage, and in the first flush of her +affection for the girl, had told Norma that in her opinion Leslie should +not have offered it. It was not for Norma to take any patronage from her +cousin, Alice said to herself. But Norma's distress at having +disappointed Alice was so fresh and honest that the episode had ended +with Alice's presenting her with a stunning new hat, to wipe out the +terrible effect of her mild criticism. + +"You're a virago," said Chris, seating himself near his wife. "Tell me +what you've been doing all day. Am I in for that dinner at Annie's +to-night? I wish I could stay here and gossip with you girls." + +"Dearest, you'd get so stupid, tied here to me, that you wouldn't know +who was President of the United States!" Alice smiled. "Yes, I promised +you to Annie two weeks ago. To-morrow night Norma goes to Leslie, and +you and I have dinner all alone, so console yourself with that." + +"_Tres bien_," Christopher agreed. And as if the phrase suggested it, he +went on to test Norma's French. Norma was never self-conscious with him, +and in a few seconds he and Alice were laughing at her earnest +absurdities. When husband and wife went on into a conversation of their +own, Norma sat back idly, conscious that the atmosphere was always easy +and pleasant when Chris was at home, there were no petty tensions and no +sensitive misconstructions while Chris was talking. Sometimes with Annie +and Alice, and even with Leslie, Norma could be rapidly brought to the +state of feeling prickly all over, afraid to speak, and equally +uncomfortable in silence. But Chris always smoothed her spirit into +utter peace, and reestablished her sense of proportion, her sense of +humour. + +Neither he nor Alice noticed her when she presently went away to change +her gown for dinner, but when she came out of her room, half an hour +later, Chris was just coming up to his. Their rooms were on the same +floor--his the big front room, and hers one of the sunny small ones at +the back of the house. Norma's and that of Miss Slater, Alice's nurse, +were joined by a bathroom; Chris had his own splendid dressing-room and +bath, fitted, like his bedroom, with rugs and chests and highboys worthy +of a museum. + +"Aren't you going to be late, Chris?" Norma asked, when they met at the +top of the stairs. Fresh from a bath, with her rich dark hair pushed +back in two shining wings from her smooth forehead, and her throat +rising white and soft from the frills of a black lacy gown, she was the +incarnation of youth and sweetness as she looked up at him. "Seven +o'clock!" she reminded him. + +For answer he surprised her by catching her hand, and staring gravely +down at her. + +"Were you angry at me, Norma?" he asked, in a quiet, businesslike voice. + +"Angry?" she echoed, surprised. But her colour rose. "No, Chris. Why +should I be?" + +"There is no reason why you should be, of course," he answered, simply, +almost indifferently. And immediately he went by her and into his room. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +On the memorable night of her first grand opera Norma and Chris dined at +Mrs. von Behrens's. It was Alice who urged the arrangement, urged it +quite innocently, as she frequently did the accidental pairing of Norma +and Chris, because her mother was going for a week to Boston, the +following day, and they wanted an evening of comfortable talk together. + +Norma, with Freda and Miss Slater as excited accomplices, laid out the +new corn-coloured gown at about five o'clock in the afternoon, laid +beside it the stockings and slippers that exactly matched it in colour, +and hung over the foot of her bed the embroidered little stays that were +so ridiculously small and so unnecessarily beautiful. On a separate +chair was spread the big furred wrap of gold and brown brocade, the high +carriage shoes, and the long white gloves to which the tissue paper +still was clinging. The orchids that Annie had given Norma that morning +were standing in a slender vase on the bureau, and as a final touch the +girl, regarding these preparations with a sort of enchanted delight, +unfurled to its full glory the great black ostrich-feather fan. Norma +amused Alice and Mrs. Melrose by refusing tea, and disappeared long +before there was need, to begin the great ceremony of robing. + +Miss Slater manicured her hands while Freda brushed and dressed the dark +thick hair. Between Norma and the nurse there had at first been no +special liking. Both were naturally candidates for Alice's favour. But +as the months went by, and Norma began to realize that Miss Slater's +position was not only far from the ideally beautiful one it had seemed +at first, but that the homely, elderly, good-natured woman was actually +putting herself to some pains to make Norma's own life in the Liggett +house more comfortable than it might have been, she had come genuinely +to admire Alice's attendant, and now they were fast friends. It was +often in Norma's power to distract Alice's attention from the fact that +Miss Slater was a little late in returning from her walk, or she would +make it a point to order for the invalid something that Miss Slater had +forgotten. They stood firmly together in many a small domestic +emergency, and although the nurse's presence to-night was not, as Norma +thought with a little pang, like having Rose or Aunt Kate with her, +still it was much, much better than having no one at all. + +She sat wrapped luxuriously in a brilliant kimono, while Freda brushed +and rolled busily, and Miss Slater polished and clipped. Then ensued a +period of intense concentration at the mirror, when the sparkling pins +were put in her hair, and the little pearl earrings screwed into her +ears, and when much rubbing and greasing and powdering went on, and even +some slight retouching of the innocent, red young mouth. + +"Shall I?" Norma asked, dubiously eyeing the effect of a trace of rouge. + +"Don't be an idiot, Miss Sheridan!" Miss Slater said. "You've got a +lovely colour, and it's a shame to touch it!" + +"Oh, but I think I look so pale!" Norma argued. + +"Well, when you've had your dinner----Now, you take my advice, my dear, +and let your face alone." + +"Well, all the girls do it," Norma declared, catching up the little +girdle, and not unwilling to be over-persuaded. She gave an actual +shiver of delight as Freda slipped the gown over her head. + +It fell into shape about her, a miracle of cut and fit. The little +satiny underskirt was heavy with beads, the misty cloud of gauze that +floated above it was hardly heavy enough to hold its own embroideries. +Little beaded straps held it to the flawless shoulders, and Norma made +her two attendants laugh as she jerked and fussed at the gold lace and +tiny satin roses that crossed her breast. + +"Leave it alone!" Miss Slater said. + +"Oh, but it seems so low!" + +"Well, you may be very sure it isn't--Lenz knows what he's doing when he +makes a gown.... Here, now, what are you going to do with your flowers?" + +"Oh, I'm going to wrap the paper round them, and carry them until just +before I get to Aunt Annie's. Wouldn't you?" + +"Wouldn't I? I like that!" said Miss Slater, settling her eyeglasses on +the bridge of her nose with a finger and thumb. Norma had a momentary +pang of sympathy; she could never have been made to understand that a +happy barnyard duck may look contentedly up from her pool at the peacock +trailing his plumes on the wall. + +"Norma--for the love of Allah!" Chris shouted from downstairs. + +Norma gave a panicky laugh, snatched her fan, wrap, and flowers, and +fled joyously down to be criticized and praised. On the whole, they were +pleased with her: Alice, seizing a chance for an aside to tell her not +to worry about the lowness of the gown, that it was absolutely correct +she might be very sure, and Mrs. Melrose quite tremulously delighted +with her ward. Chris did not say much until a few minutes before they +planned to start, when he slipped a thin, flat gold watch from his vest +pocket, and asked speculatively: + +"Norma, has your Aunt Kate ever seen you in that rig?" + +"No!" she answered, quickly. And then, with less sparkle, "No." + +"Well, would you like to run in on her a moment?--she'd probably like it +tremendously!" said Chris. + +"Oh, Chris--I would love it!" Norma exclaimed, soberly, over a disloyal +conviction that she would rather not. "But have we time?" + +"Tons of time. Annie's dinners are a joke!" + +Norma glanced at the women; Mrs. Melrose looked undecided, but Alice +said encouragingly: + +"I think that would be a sweet thing to do!" + +So it was decided: and Norma was bundled up immediately, and called out +excitedly laughing good-byes as Chris hurried her to the car. + +"You know, it means a lot to your own people, really to see you this +way, instead of always reading about it, or hearing about it!" Chris +said, in his entirely prosaic, big-brotherly tone, as the car glided +smoothly toward the West Sixties. + +"I know it!" Norma agreed. "But I don't know how you do!" she added, in +shy gratitude. + +"Well, I'm nearly twice your age, for one thing," he replied, +pleasantly. And as the car stopped unhesitatingly at the familiar door +he added: "Now make this very snappy!" + +She protested against his getting out, but he accompanied her all the +way upstairs, both laughing like conspirators as they passed somewhat +astonished residents of the apartment house on the way. + +Aunt Kate and Wolf, and Rose and Harry, as good fortune would have it, +were all gathered under the dining-room lamp, and there was a burst of +laughter and welcome for Norma and "Mister Chris." Norma's wrap was +tossed aside, and she revolved in all her glory, waving her fan at arm's +length, pleasantly conscious of Wolf's utter stupefaction, and +conscious, too, a little less pleasantly, that Aunt Kate's maternal eye +did not agree with Aunt Annie's in the matter of _decolletage_. + +Then she and Chris were on their way again, and the legitimate delights +of being young and correctly dressed and dining with the great Mrs. von +Behrens, and going to Grand Opera at the Metropolitan, might begin. +Norma had perhaps never in her life been in such wild spirits as she was +to-night. It was not happiness, exactly, not the happiness of a serene +spirit and a quiet mind, for she was too nervous and too much excited to +be really happy. But it was all wonderful. + +She was the youngest person at the long dinner table, at which eighteen +guests sat in such stately and such separated great carved chairs as +almost to dine alone. Everyone was charmingly kind to the little Melrose +protegee, who was to be introduced at a formal tea next week. The men +were all older than Leslie's group and were neither afraid nor too +selfishly wrapped up in their own narrow little circle to be polite. +Norma had known grown young men, college graduates, and the sons of +prominent families, who were too entirely conventional to be addressed +without an introduction, or to turn to a strange girl's rescue if she +spilled a cup of tea. But there was none of that sort of thing here. + +To be sure, Annie's men were either married, divorced, or too old to be +strictly eligible in the eyes of unsophisticated nineteen, but that did +not keep them from serving delightfully as dinner partners. Then Aunt +Annie herself was delightful to-night, and joined in the general, if +unexpressed, flattery that Norma felt in the actual atmosphere. + +"Heavens--do you hear that, Ella?" said Annie, to an intimate and +contemporary, when Norma shyly asked if the dress was all as it should +be--if the--well, the neck, wasn't just a little----? "Heavens!" said +Mrs. von Behrens, roundly, "if I had your shoulders--if I were nineteen +again!--you'd see something a good deal more sensational than that!" + +This was not the sort of thing one repeated to Aunt Kate. It was, like +much of Annie's conversation, so daring as to be a little shocking. But +Annie had so much manner, such a pleasant, assured voice, that somehow +Norma never found it censurable in her. + +To-night, for the first time, Hendrick von Behrens paid her a little +personal attention. Norma had always liked the big, blond, silent man, +with his thinning fair hair, and his affection for his sons. It was of +his sons that he spoke to her, as he came up to her to-night. + +"There are two little boys up in the nursery that don't want to go to +sleep until Cousin Norma comes up to say good-night," said Hendrick, +smiling indulgently. Norma turned willingly from Chris and two or three +other men and women; it was a privilege to be sufficiently at home in +this magnificent place to follow her host up to the nursery upstairs, +and be gingerly hugged by the little silk-pajamed boys. + +Chris watched her go, the big fan and the blue eye and the delightful +low voice all busy as she and Hendrick went away, and an odd thought +came to him. That was her stepfather upon whom she was turning the +battery of those lovely eyes; those little boys who were, he knew, +jumping up and down in their little Dutch colonial beds, and calling +"Norma--Norma--Norma!" were her half-brothers. + +He glanced toward Annie; her beautiful figure wrapped in a sparkling +robe that swept about her like a regal mantle, her fair hair scalloped +like waves of carved gold, her fingers and throat and hair and ears +sparkling with diamonds. Annie had on the famous Murison pearls, too, +to-night; she was twisting them in her fingers as her creditable Italian +delighted the ears of the Italian ambassador. Her own daughter to-night +sat among her guests. Chris liked to think himself above surprise, but +the strangeness of the situation was never absent a second from his +thoughts. He drifted toward his hostess; he was proud of his own +languages, and when Norma came back she came to stand wistfully beside +them, wondering if ever--ever--ever--she would be able to do that! + +It was all thrilling--exhilarating--wonderful! Norma's heart thumped +delightfully as the big motor-cars turned into Broadway and took their +place in the slowly moving line. She pressed her radiant face close to +the window; snow was fluttering softly down in the darkness, and men +were pushing it from the sidewalks, and shouting in the night. There +was the usual fringe of onlookers in front of the opera house, and it +required all Norma's self-control to seem quite naturally absorbed in +getting herself safely out of the motor-car, and quite unconscious that +her pretty ankles, and her pretty head, and the great bunched wrap, were +not being generally appraised. + +Women were stepping about gingerly in high heels; lights flashed on +quivering aigrettes, on the pressed, intense faces of the watchers, and +on the gently turning and falling snow, against the dark street. Norma +was caught in some man's protecting arm, to push through into the +churning crowd in the foyer; she had a glimpse of uniformed ushers and +programme boys, of furred shoulders, of bared shoulders, of silk hats, +of a sign that said: "Footmen Are Not Allowed in This Lobby." + +Then somehow through, criss-crossed currents in the crowd, they reached +the mysterious door of the box, and Norma saw for the first time the +great, dimly lighted circle of the opera house, the enormous rise of +balcony above balcony, the double tiers of boxes, and the rows of seats +downstairs, separated by wide aisles, and rapidly filling now with the +men and women who were coming down to their places almost on a run. + +The orchestra was already seated, and as Norma stood awed and ecstatic +in the front of the Von Behrens box, the conductor came in, and was met +with a wave of applause, which had no sooner died away than the lights +fanned softly and quickly down, there was the click of a baton on wood, +and in the instantly ensuing hush the first quivering notes of the opera +began. + +"Sit down, you web-foot!" Acton Liggett whispered, laughing, and Norma +sank stiffly upon her chair, risking, as the curtain had not yet risen, +a swift, bewildered smile of apology toward the dim forms that were +rustling and settling behind her. + +"Oo--oo--ooo!" was all that she could whisper when presently Chris +murmured a question in her ear. And when the lights were on again, and +the stars taking their calls, he saw that her face was wet, and her +lashes were caught together with tears. + +"It _is_ wonderful music; the best of Verdi!" he said to Annie; and +Annie, agreeing, sent him off with "that baby," to have her dry her +eyes. Norma liked his not speaking to her, on her way to the great +parlour where women were circling about the long mirrors, but when she +rejoined him she was quite herself, laughing, excited, half dancing as +he took her back to the box. + +She sat down again, her beautiful little head, with its innocent sweep +of smooth hair, visible from almost every part of the house, her +questions incessant as the blue eyes and the great fan swept to and fro. +Once, when she turned suddenly toward him, in the second entr'acte, she +saw a look on Chris's face that gave her an odd second of something like +fear, but the house darkened again before she could analyze the emotion, +and Norma glued her eyes to the footlights. + +What she did not see was a man, not quite at ease at his own first grand +opera, not quite comfortable in his own first evening dress, lost--and +willingly lost, among the hundreds who had come in just to stand far at +the back, behind the seats, edging and elbowing each other, changing +feet, and resting against any chair-back or column that offered itself, +and sitting down, between acts, on the floor. + +Wolf was not restless. He was strong enough to stand like an Indian, and +tall enough to look easily over the surrounding heads. More than that, +"Aida" did not interest him in itself, and at some of its most brilliant +passages he was guilty of slipping away to pace the hallways in +solitude, or steal to the foyer for a brief cigarette. But when the +house was lighted again, he went back into the auditorium, and then his +eyes never left the little dark head of the girl who sat forward in one +of the lower tier of boxes, waving her big fan, and talking over her +bare shoulder to one or another of the persons beside or behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +It was long afterward that Norma dated from the night of "Aida" a new +feeling in herself toward Chris, and the recognition of a new feeling in +Chris toward her. She knew that a special sort of friendship existed +between them from that time on. + +He had done nothing definite that night; he had never done or said +anything that could be held as marking the change. But Norma felt it, +and she knew that he did. And somehow, in that atmosphere of fragrant +flowers and women as fragrant, of rustling silks and rich furs, of music +and darkness, and the old passion of the story, it had come to her for +the first time that Chris was not only the Chris of Alice's room, Aunt +Marianna's son-in-law and Leslie's brother-in-law, but her own Chris, +too, a Chris who had his special meaning for her, as well as for the +rest. + +She liked him, it was natural that she should especially and truly like +him. Almost all women did, for he was of the type that comes closest to +understanding them, and he had made their favour an especial study. +Chris could never be indifferent to any woman; if he did not actively +dislike her, he took pains to please her, and, never actively disliking +Norma, he had from the first constituted himself her guide and friend. + +Long before he was conscious that there was a real charm to this little +chance member of their group, Norma had capitulated utterly. His +sureness, his pleasant suggestions, his positive approval or kindly +protests, had done more to make her first months among the Melroses +happy than any other one thing. Norma loved him, and was grateful to +him, even when he hurt her. In the matter of a note of acceptance, of a +little act of thanks, of a gown or hat, his decision was absolute, and +she had never known it mistaken. + +Besides this, she saw him everywhere welcome, everywhere courted and +admired, and everywhere the same Chris--handsome, self-possessed, +irreproachably dressed whether for golf or opera, adequate to the claims +of wife, mother, family, or the world. She had heard Acton turn to him +for help in little difficulties; she knew that Leslie trusted him with +all her affairs, and he was as close as any man could be to an intimacy +with Hendrick von Behrens. Quietly, almost indifferently, he would +settle his round eyeglasses on their black ribbon, narrow his fine, keen +eyes and set his firm jaw, and take up their problems one by one, always +courteous, always interested, always helpful. + +Then Chris had charm, as visible to all the world as to Norma. He had +the charm of race, of intelligence and education, the charm of a man who +prides himself upon his Italian and French, upon his knowledge of books +and pictures, and his capacity for holding his own in any group, on any +subject. He was quite frankly a collector, a connoisseur, a dilettante +in a hundred different directions, and he had had leisure all his life +to develop and perfect his affectations. In all this new world Norma +could not perhaps have discovered a man more rich in just what would +impress her ignorance, her newness, to the finer aspects of +civilization. + +For a few weeks after "Aida," as other operas and Annie's tea, and the +opening social life of the winter softened the first impression, Norma +tried to tell herself that she had imagined a little tendency, on +Chris's part, too--well, to impress her with his friendliness. She had +seen him flirt with other women, and indeed small love affairs of all +sorts were constantly current, not only in Annie's, but in Leslie's +group. A certain laxity was in the air, and every month had its +separation or divorce, to be flung to the gossips for dissection. + +Norma was not especially flattered at first, and rather inclined to +resent the assurance with which Chris carried his well-known tendency +for philandering into his own family, as it were. But as the full days +went by, and she encountered in him, wherever they met, the same grave, +kindly attention, the same pleasant mouth and curiously baffling eyes, +in spite of herself she began to experience a certain breathless and +half-flattered and half-frightened pride in his affection. + +He never kissed her again, never tried to arrange even the most casual +meeting alone with her, and never let escape even a word of more than +brotherly friendliness. But in Leslie's drawing-room at tea time, or at +some studio tea or Sunday luncheon in a country house, he always quietly +joined her, kept, if possible, within the sound of her voice, and never +had any plan that would interfere with possible plans of hers. If she +was ready to go, he would drive her, perhaps to discourse impersonally +upon the quality of the pictures, or the countryside mantled with snow, +upon the way. If she wanted a message telephoned, a telegram sent, even +a borrowed book returned, it was "no trouble at all"; Chris would of +course attend to it. + +At dinner parties he was rarely placed beside her; hers was naturally +the younger set. But he found a hundred ways to remind her that he was +constantly attentive. Norma would feel her heart jump in her side as he +started toward her across a ball-room floor, handsome, perfectly poised, +betraying nothing but generous interest in her youthful good times as he +took his place beside her. + +So Christmas came and went, and the last affairs of the brief season +began to be announced: the last dances, the last dinners, the +"pre-Lenten functions" as the papers had it. Norma, apologizing, in one +of her flying calls on Aunt Kate, for the long intervals between visits, +explained that she honestly did not know where the weeks flew! + +"And are you happy, Baby?" her aunt asked, holding her close, and +looking anxiously into her eyes. + +"Oh--happy!" the girl exclaimed, with a sort of shallow, quick laugh +that was quite new. "Of course I am. I never in my life dreamed that I +could be so happy. I've nothing left to wish for. Except, of course, +that I would like to know where I stand; I would like to have my own +position a little more definite," she added. But the last phrases were +uttered only in her own soul, and Mrs. Sheridan, after a rather +discontented scrutiny of the face she loved so well, was obliged to +change the subject. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +In mid-Lent, when an early rush of almost summery warmth suddenly poured +over the city, Chris and Norma met on the way home from church. Norma +walked every Sunday morning to the big cathedral, but Chris went only +once or twice a year to the fashionable Avenue church a few blocks away. +This morning he had joined her as she was quietly leaving the house, and +instantly it flashed into her mind that he had deliberately planned to +do so, knowing that Miss Slater, who usually accompanied her, was away +for a week's vacation. + +Their conversation was impersonal and casual, as always, as they walked +along the drying sidewalks, in the pleasant early freshness, but as +Chris left her he asked her at about what time she would be returning, +and Norma was not surprised, when she came out of the cathedral, a +little later than the great first tide of the outpouring congregation, +to see him waiting for her. + +The thought of him had been keeping her heart beating fast, and her mind +in confusion, even while she tried to pray. And she had thought that she +might leave the church by one of the big side doors, and so at least run +a fair risk of missing him. But Norma half feared an act that would +define their deepening friendship as dangerous, and half longed for the +fifteen minutes of walking and chatting in the sunshine. So she came +straight to him, and with no more than a word of greeting they turned +north. + +It was an exquisite morning, and the clean, bare stretches of the Avenue +were swimming in an almost summerlike mist of opal and blue. Such +persons as were visible in the streets at all were newsboys, idle +policemen, or black-clad women hurrying to or from church, and when they +reached the Park, it was almost deserted. The trees, gently moving in a +warm breeze, were delicately etched with the first green of the year; +maples and sycamores were dotted with new, golden foliage, and the grass +was deep and sweet. A few riders were ambling along the bridle-path, the +horses kicking up clods of the damp, soft earth. + +Norma and Christopher walked slowly, talking. The girl was hardly +conscious of what they said, realizing suddenly, and almost with terror, +that just to be here, with Chris, was enough to flood her being with a +happiness as new and miraculous as the new and miraculous springtime +itself. There was no future and no past to this ecstasy, no Alice, no +world; it was enough, in its first bloom, that it existed. + +"You've had--what is it?--a whole year of us, Norma," Chris said, "and +on the whole, it's been happy, hasn't it?" + +"Fourteen months," she corrected him. "Fourteen months, at least, since +Aunt Kate and I called on Aunt Marianna. Yes, it's been like a miracle, +Chris. I never will understand it. I never will understand why a +friendless girl--unknown and having absolutely no claim--should have +been treated so wonderfully!" + +"And you wouldn't want to go back?" he mused, smiling. + +"No," she said, quickly. "I am afraid, when I think of ever going back!" + +"I don't see why you should," Chris said. "You will inherit, through +your grandmother's will----" + +He had been following a train of thought, half to himself. Norma's round +eyes, as she stopped short in the path, arrested him. + +"My _grandmother_!" she exclaimed. + +"Your Aunt Marianna," he amended, flushing. But their eyes did not move +as they stared at each other. + +A thousand remembered trifles flashed through Norma's whirling brain; a +thousand little half-stilled suspicions leaped to new life. She had +accepted the suggested kinship in childish acquiescence, but doubt was +aflame now, once and for all. The man knew that there was no further +evading her. + +"Chris, do you know anything about me?" she asked, directly. + +"Yes, I think--I know everything," he answered, after a second's +hesitation. + +Norma looked at him steadily. "Did you know my father and mother?" she +demanded, presently, in an odd, tense voice. + +There was another pause before Chris said, slowly: + +"I have met your father. But I knew--I know--your mother." + +"You _know_ her?" The world was whirling about Norma. "Is Aunt Kate my +mother?" she asked, breathing hard. + +"No. I don't know why you should not know. You call her Aunt Annie," +Chris said. + +Norma's hands dropped to her sides. She breathed as if she were +suffocating. + +"_Aunt Annie!_" she whispered, in stupefaction. + +And she turned and walked a few steps blindly, her eyes wide and vacant, +and one hand pressed to her cheek. "My God!--my God!" he heard her say. + +"Annie eloped when she was a girl," Chris began presently, when she was +dazedly walking on again. "She was married, and the man deserted her. +She was ill, in Germany----But shall I talk now? Would you rather not?" + +"Oh, no--no! Go on," Norma said, briefly. + +"Alice was the first to guess it," Christopher pursued. "Her sister +doesn't know it, or dream it!" + +"Aunt Annie doesn't! She does not know that I'm her own daughter!... But +what _does_ she think?" + +"She supposes that her baby died, dear. I'm sorry to tell you, Norma, +but I couldn't lie to you! You'll understand everything, now--why your +grandmother wants to make it all up to you----" + +"Does Leslie know?" Norma demanded, suddenly, from a dark moment of +brooding. + +"Nobody knows! Your Aunt Kate, your grandmother, Alice, and I, are +absolutely the only people in the world! And Norma, _nobody else must +know_. For the sake of the family, for everyone's sake----" + +"Oh, I see that!" she answered, quickly and impatiently. And for awhile +she walked on in silence, and apparently did not hear his one or two +efforts to recommence the conversation. "Aunt Annie!" she said once, +half aloud. And later she added, absently: "Yes, I should know!" + +They had walked well up into the Park, now they turned back; the sun was +getting hot, first perambulators were making their appearance, and +Norma loosened her light furs. + +"So I am a Melrose!" she mused. And then, abruptly: "Chris, what _is_ my +name?" + +"Melrose," he answered, flushing. + +Her eyes asked a sudden, horrified question, and she took the answer +from his look without a word. He saw the colour ebb from her face, +leaving it very white. + +"You said--they--my parents--were married, Chris?" she asked, painfully. + +"Annie supposed they were. But he was not free!" + +Norma did not speak again. In silence they crossed the Avenue, and went +on down the shady side street. Chris, with chosen words and quietly, +told her the story of Annie's girlhood, who and what her father had +been, the bitter grief of her grandmother, the general hushing up of the +whole affair. He watched her anxiously as he talked, for there was a +drawn, set look to her face that he did not like. + +"Why did Aunt Kate ever decide to bring me to my--my grandmother, after +so many years?" she asked. + +"I'm sure I don't know that. Alice and I have fancied that Kate might +have kept in touch with your father all this time, and that he might be +dead now, and not likely to--make trouble." + +"That is it," Norma agreed, quickly. "Because not long before she came +to see Aunt Marianna she _had_ had some sort of news--from Canada, I +think. An old friend was dead; I remember it as if it were yesterday." + +"Then that fits in," Chris said, glad she could talk. + +"But I can't believe it!" she cried in bewilderment. And suddenly she +burst out angrily: "Oh, Chris, is it fair? Is it fair? That one girl, +like Leslie, should have so--so much! The name, the inheritance, the +husband and position and the friends--and that another, through no fault +of hers, should be just--just--a nobody?" + +She choked, and Christopher made a little protestant sound. + +"Oh, yes, I am!" she insisted, bitterly. "Not recognized by my own +mother--she's _not_ my mother! No mother could----" + +"Listen, dear," Chris begged, really alarmed by the storm he had raised. +"Your grandmother, for reasons of her own, never told Annie there was a +baby. It is obvious why she kept silent; it was only kindness--decency. +Annie was young, younger than you are, and poor old Aunt Marianna only +knew that her child was ill, and had been ill-treated, and most cruelly +used. You were brought up safely and happily, with good and loving +people----" + +"The best in the world!" Norma said, through her teeth, fighting tears. + +"The best in the world. Why, Norma, what a woman they've made you! +You--who stand alone among all the girls I know! And then," Chris +continued quickly, seeing her a little quieter, "when you are growing +up, your aunt brings you to your grandmother, who immediately turns her +whole world topsy-turvy to make you welcome! Is there anything so unfair +in that? Annie made a terrible mistake, dear----" + +"And everyone but Annie pays!" Norma interrupted, bitterly. + +"Norma, she is your mother!" Chris reminded her, in the tone that, +coming from him, always instantly affected her. Her eyes fell, and her +tone, when she spoke, was softer. + +"Just bearing a child isn't all motherhood," she said. + +"No, my dear; I know. And if Annie were ever to guess this, it isn't +like her not to face the music, at any cost. But isn't it better as it +is, Norma?" + +The wonderful tone, the wonderful manner, the kindness and sympathy in +his eyes! Norma, with one foot on the lowest step, now raised her eyes +to his with a sort of childish penitence. + +"Oh, yes, Chris! But"--her lips trembled--"but if Aunt Kate had only +kept me from knowing for ever!" she faltered. + +"She wouldn't take that responsibility, dear, and one can't blame her. A +comfortable inheritance comes from your grandmother; it isn't the +enormous fortune Leslie inherited, of course, but it is all you would +have had, even had Annie brought you home openly as her daughter. It is +enough to make a very pretty wedding-portion for me to give away with +you, my dear, in a few years," Chris added more lightly. The suggestion +made her face flame again. + +"Who would marry me?" she said, under her breath, with a scornful look, +under half-lowered lids, into space. + +For answer he gave her an odd glance--one that lived in her memory for +many and many a day. + +"Ah, Norma--Norma--Norma!" he said--quickly, half laughingly. Then his +expression changed, and his smile died away. "I have something to bear," +he said, with a glance upward toward Alice's windows. "Life isn't roses, +roses, all the way for any one of us, my dear! Now, you've got a bad bit +of the road ahead. But let's be good sports, Norma. And come in now, +I'm famished; let's have breakfast. My honour is in your hands," he +added, more gravely, "perhaps I had no right to tell you all this! You +mustn't betray me!" + +"Chris," she responded, warmly, "as if I could!" + +He watched her eating her breakfast, and chatting with Alice, a little +later, and told himself that some of Annie's splendid courage had +certainly descended to this gallant little daughter. Norma was pale, and +now and then her eyes would meet his with a certain strained look, or +she would lose the thread of the conversation for a few seconds, but +that was all. Alice noticed nothing, and in a day or two Chris could +easily have convinced himself that the conversation in the spring +greenness of the Sunday morning had been a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +However, that hour had borne fruit, and in two separate ways had had its +distinct effect upon Norma's mind and soul. In the first place, she had +a secret now with Chris, and understanding that made her most casual +glance at him significant, and gave a double meaning to almost every +word they exchanged. It was at his suggestion that she decided to keep +the revelation from Alice, even though she knew what Alice knew, for +Alice was not very well, and Chris was sure that it would only agitate +and frighten the invalid to feel that the family's discreditable secret +was just that much nearer betrayal. So she and Chris alone shared the +agitation, strain, and bewilderment of the almost overwhelming +discovery; and Norma, in turning to him for advice and sympathy, +deepened tenfold the tie between them. + +But even this result was not so far-reaching as the less-obvious effect +of the discovery upon her character. Everything that was romantic, +undisciplined, and reckless in Norma was fostered by the thought that so +thrilling and so secret a history united her closely to the Melrose +family. That she was Leslie's actual cousin, that the closest of all +human relationships bound her to the magnificent Mrs. von Behrens, were +thoughts that excited in her every dramatic and extravagant tendency to +which the amazing year had inclined _her_. With her growing ease in her +changed environment, and the growing popularity she enjoyed there, came +also a sense of predestination, the conviction that her extraordinary +history justified her in any act of daring or of unconventionality. +There was nothing to be gained by self-control or sanity, Norma might +tell herself, at least for those of the Melrose blood. + +Her shyness of the season before had vanished, and she could plunge into +the summer gaiety with an assurance that amazed even herself. Her first +meeting with Annie, after the day of Chris's disclosures, was an ordeal +at which he himself chanced to be a secretly thrilled onlooker. Norma +grew white, and her lips trembled; there was a strained look in her +blue, agonized eyes. But Annie's entire unconsciousness that the +situation was at all tense, and the presence of three or four total +outsiders, helped Norma to feel that this amazing and dramatic moment +was only one more in a life newly amazing and dramatic, and she escaped +unnoticed from the trial. The second time was much less trying, and +after that Norma showed no sign that she ever thought of the matter at +all. + +Mrs. von Behrens took Norma to her Maine camp in July, and when the girl +joined the Chris Liggetts in August, it was for a season of hard tennis, +golf, polo, dancing, yachting, and swimming. Norma grew lean and tanned, +and improved so rapidly in manner and appearance that Alice felt, +concerning her, certain fears that she one day confided to her mother. + +It was on an early September day, dry and airless, and they were on the +side porch of the Newport cottage. + +"You see how pretty she's growing, Mama," Alice said. And then, in a +lower tone, with a quick cautious glance about: "Mama, doesn't she +often remind you of Annie?" + +Mrs. Melrose, who had been contentedly rocking and drowsing in the heat, +paled with sudden terror and apprehension, and looked around her with +sick and uneasy eyes. + +"Alice--my darling," she stammered. + +"I know, Mama--I'm not going to talk about it, truly!" Alice assured +her, quickly. "I never even _think_ of it!" she added, earnestly. + +"No--no--no, that's right!" her mother agreed, hurriedly. Her soft old +face, under the thin, crimped gray hair, was full of distress. + +"Mama, there is no reason why it should worry you," Alice said, +distressed, too. "Don't think of it; I'm sorry I spoke! But sometimes, +even though she is so dark, Norma is so like Annie that it makes my +blood run cold. If Annie ever suspected that she is--well, her own +daughter----" + +Mrs. Melrose's face was ashen, and she looked as if touched by the heat. + +"No--no, dear!" she said, with a sort of terrified brevity. "You and +Chris were wrong there. I can't talk to you about it, Alice," she broke +off, pleadingly; "you mustn't ask me, dear. You said you wouldn't," she +pleaded, trembling. + +Alice was stupefied. For a full minute she lay in her pillows, staring +blankly at her mother. + +"_Isn't_----!" she whispered at last, incredulous and bewildered. + +"No, dear. Poor Annie----! No, no, no; Norma's mother is dead. But--but +you must believe that Mama is acting as she believes to be for the +best," she interrupted herself, in painful and hesitating tones, "and +that I can't talk about it now, Alice; I can't, indeed! Some day----" + +"Mama darling," Alice cried, really alarmed by her leaden colour and +wild eyes, "please--I'll never speak of it again! Why, I know that +everything you do is for us all, darling! Please be happy about it. Come +on, we'll talk of something else. When do you leave for +town--to-morrow?" + +"Poole drives us as far as Great Barrington to-morrow, Norma and me," +the old lady began, gaining calm as she reviewed her plans. Chris needed +her for a little matter of business, and Norma was anxious to see her +Cousin Rose's new baby. The conversation drifted to Leslie's baby, the +idolized Patricia who was now some four months old. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Two days later found Norma happily seated beside the big bed she and +Rose had shared less than two years ago, where Rose now lay, with the +snuffling and mouthing baby, rolled deep in flannels, beside her. Rose +had come home to her mother, for the great event, and Mrs. Sheridan was +exulting in the care of them both. Just now she was in the kitchen, and +the two girls were alone together, Norma a little awed and a little +ashamed of the emotion that Rose's pale and rapt and radiant face gave +her; Rose secretly pitying, from her height, the woman who was not yet a +mother. + +"And young Mrs. Liggett was terribly disappointed that her baby was a +girl," Rose marvelled. "I didn't care one bit! Only Harry is glad it's a +boy." + +"Well, Leslie was sure that hers was going to be a boy," Norma said, +"and I wish you could have heard Aunt Annie deciding that the Melroses +usually had sons----" + +"She'll have a boy next," Rose suggested. + +Norma glanced at her polished finger-tip, adjusted the woolly tan bag +she carried. + +"She says never again!" she remarked, airily. Rose's clear forehead +clouded faintly, and Norma hastened to apologize. "Well, my dear, that's +what she _said_," she remarked, laughingly, with quick fingers on Rose's +hand. + +"It's sad that Mrs. Chris Liggett didn't have just one, before her +accident. It would make such a difference in her life," Rose mused, with +her eyes fixed thoughtfully on Norma's face. There was something about +Norma to-day that she did not understand. + +"Oh, it's frightfully sad," Norma agreed, easily. And because she liked +the mere sound of his name, she added: "Chris is fond of children, too!" +Then, with a sudden change of manner that even unsuspicious Rose thought +odd, she said, gaily: "Isn't Aunt Kate perfectly delicious about the +nurse? I knew she would be. Of course, she does everything, and Miss +Miller simply looks on." + +"Well, almost," Rose said, with an affectionate laugh. "She didn't want +a nurse at all, but Harry and Wolf insisted. And then--night before +last--when I was so ill, it almost made me laugh in spite of feeling so +badly, to hear Mother with Miss Miller. 'You'd better get out of here, +my dear,' I heard her say, 'this is no place for a girl like you----'" + +Norma's laugh rang out. But Rose noticed that her face sobered +immediately almost into sadness, and that there was a bitter line about +the lovely mouth, and a shadow of something like cynicism in her blue +eyes. + +"Norma," she ventured, suddenly storming the fortress, "what is it, +darling? Something's worrying you, Nono. Can't you tell me?" + +With the old nursery name Norma's gallant look of amusement and +reassurance faltered. She looked suddenly down at the hand Rose was +holding, and Rose saw the muscles of her throat contract, and that she +was pressing her lips together to keep them from trembling. + +A tear fell on the locked hands. Norma kept her eyes averted, shook her +head. + +"Is it a man, Nono?" + +Norma looked up, dashed away the tears, and managed a rueful smile. + +"Isn't it always a man?" she asked, bravely. + +Rose still looked at her anxiously, waiting for further light. + +"But, dearest, surely he likes you?" + +The other girl was silent, rubbing her thumb slowly to and fro across +Rose's thin hand. + +"I don't know," she answered, after a pause. + +"But of course he does!" Rose said, confidently. "It'll all come right. +There's no reason why it shouldn't!" And with all the interest of their +old days of intimacy she asked eagerly: "Nono, is he handsome?" + +"Oh, yes--tremendously." + +"And the right age?" + +Norma laughed, half protestant. + +"Rose, aren't you a little demon for the third degree!" But she liked +it, in spite of the reluctance in her manner, and presently added: "I +don't think age matters, do you?" + +"Not in the least," Rose agreed. "Norma, does Mrs. Melrose know?" + +"Know what?" Norma parried. + +"Know that--well, that you like him?" + +Norma raised serious eyes, looked unsmilingly into Rose's smiling face. + +"Nobody knows. It--it isn't going right, Rose. I can't tell you about +all of it----" She paused. + +"Well, I wouldn't know the people if you did," Rose said, sensibly. And +suddenly she added, timidly, "Norma, there isn't another girl?" + +"Well, yes, there is, in a way," Norma conceded, after thought. + +"That he likes better?" Rose asked, quickly. + +"No, I don't think he likes her better!" Norma answered. + +"Well, then----?" Rose summarized, triumphantly. + +But there was no answering flash from Norma, who was looking down again, +and who still wore a troubled expression, although, as Rose rejoiced to +see, it was less bitter than it had been. + +"Rose," she said, gravely, "if he was already bound in honour; if he +was--promised, to her?" + +Rose's eyes expressed quick sympathy. + +"Norma! You mean engaged? But then how did he ever come to care for +you?" she followed it up anxiously. + +"I don't know!" Norma said, with a shrug. + +"But, Nono, why do you think he _does_ like you? Has he said so?" + +Norma had freed her hand, and pulled on her rough little cream-coloured +gloves. Now she spread her five fingers, and looked at them with +slightly raised brows and slightly compressed lips. + +"No," she said, briefly and quietly. + +Rose's face was full of distress. Again she reached for Norma's fingers. + +"Dearest--I'm so sorry! But--but it doesn't make you feel very badly, +does it, Norma?" + +Norma did not answer. + +"Ah, it does!" Rose said, pitifully. "Are you so sure you care?" + +At this Norma laughed, glanced for a moment into far space, shook her +head. And for a few minutes there was utter silence in the plain little +bedroom. Then the baby began to fuss and grope, and to make little +sneezing faces in his cocoon of blankets. + +"Just one more word, dear," Rose said, later, when Aunt Kate had come +flying in, and carried off the new treasure, and when Norma was standing +before the mirror adjusting her wide-brimmed summer hat. "If he cares +for you, it's much, much better to make the change now, Norma, than to +wait until it's too late! No matter how hard, or how unpleasant it +is----" + +"I know," Norma agreed, quickly, painfully, stooping to kiss her. "We'll +be down next month, Rose, and then I'll see you oftener!" + +"When do you go?" Rose said, clinging to her hand. + +"Go back to Newport? To-morrow. Or at least we get to Great Barrington +to-morrow, and we may stay there with the Richies a few days. Aunt +Marianna hates to make the trip in one day, so we stayed there last +night. But she had to come down to sign some papers. Chris has been down +all the week and he wired for her, so she and I drove down together." + +"And is the country lovely now?" Rose asked. + +"Well--dry. But it is beautiful, too; so hot and leafy and thunderous." + +"And where are you--at the old house?" + +"No; at a hotel, up near the Park. I wish you and little Peter Pan could +get away somewhere, Rose, for we'll have another three weeks of the +heat!" + +"Oh, my dear, Mother Redding and the baby and I are going to the +Berkshires for at least two whole weeks," Rose announced, happily. "And +I thought that my bad boy was coming in early August," she added, of +the baby, "or I would have gone first. Try to come oftener, Norma," she +pleaded, "for we all love you so!" + +And again, Norma's manner worried her. What was there in the sisterly +little speech to bring the tears again to Norma's eyes? + +"I know you do, Rosy," Norma said, very low. "I wish I could go up to +the Berkshires with you." + +"Well, then, why don't you, dear?" + +"Oh"--Norma flung back her head--"I don't know!" she said, with an +attempt at lightness. And two minutes later she had kissed Aunt Kate, +and greeted Wolf, in the kitchen, and Rose heard their laughter, and +then the closing of the front door. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Wolf walked with her to the omnibus. He had come in tired with the heat +of the long day, but Norma thought him his sweetest self, brotherly, +good, unsuspicious, and unaffected. He complimented her on her +appearance; he had a kind word for Harry Redding, for the baby; he told +Norma that he and his mother had gone to Portland by water a few weeks +before and had a great spree. Norma, tired and excited, loved him for +his very indifference to her affairs and her mood, for the simplicity +with which he showed her the book he was reading, and the amusement he +found all along the dry and dusty and dirty street. Everything was +interesting to Wolf, and he made no apologies for the general wiltedness +and disorder of the neighbourhood. + +Norma looked down at him, from the top of the omnibus, and thought that +he was a friendly and likable big young man, with his rumpled bare head +shining reddish-brown in the streaming, merciless sunlight. She had no +idea that his last look at her was like some precious canvas that a +collector adds to his treasures, that to the thousands of little-girl +Normas, and bookshop Normas, and to the memorable picture of a debutante +Norma at her first opera, Wolf carried away with him to-night one more +Norma: a brown, self-possessed, prettier-than-ever Norma, in a wide +English hat and a plain linen suit, and transparent green silk stockings +that matched her green silk parasol. + +She got down from the omnibus, a few blocks farther away, and walked +slowly along the shady side of the burning cross-streets, thinking, +thinking, thinking. It was the hottest hour of the afternoon; there +would be a storm to-night, but just now the air hung motionless, and the +shadows were almost as dazzling, in their baking dimness, as the +sunshine. Houses were closed and silent, show windows bare; the +omnibuses creaked by loaded with passengers, trying to get cool. There +was an odour of frying potatoes; other odours, stale and lifeless, crept +through the stale and lifeless air. + +Norma was entirely familiar with this phase of city life, for, except +for Sundays at Coney Island, or picnicking on some beach or in some +meadow or wood of Connecticut, she and the Sheridans had weathered two +successive hot seasons very comfortably within two hundred yards of +Broadway. It held no particular horrors for her; she reflected that in +another hour or two the sun would quite have died away, and then every +flight of old brownstone steps would hold its chatting group, and every +street its scores of screaming and running children. + +Wherever her thoughts carried her, they began and ended with +Christopher. He had never kissed her again after the night of his return +from Miami; he had hardly touched even her hand, and he had said no word +of love. But, as the summer progressed, these two had grown steadily to +live more and more for each other, for just the casual friendly looks +and words of ordinary intercourse in the presence of other persons, and +for the chance hours that Fate now and then permitted them alone. + +Norma, in every other relationship grown more whimsical and more +restless, showing new phases of frivolity and shallowness to the world, +had deepened and developed, under Chris's eyes, into her own highest +possibility of womanhood. To him she was earnest, honest, only anxious +to be good and to be true. He knew the viewpoint of that wiser self that +was the real Norma; he knew how wide open those blue eyes were to what +was false and worthless in the world around her. + +And Norma had seen him change, too, or perhaps more truly become +himself. Still apparently the old Chris, handsome, poised, cynical, and +only too ready to be bored, he went his usual course of golf and polo, +gave his men's dinners, kissed Alice good-bye and departed for yachting +or motoring trips. Even Alice, shut away from reality in her own world +of music and sweet airs, flowers and friendship, saw no change. + +But Norma saw it. She knew that Chris was no longer ready to respond to +every pretty woman's idle challenge to a flirtation; she knew that there +was a Chris of high ideals, a Chris capable even of heroism, a Chris who +loved simplicity, who loved even service, and who was not too spoiled +and too proud to give his time as well as his money, to give himself +gladly where he saw the need. + +Their hours alone together were hours of enchanting discovery. Memories +of the little boy that had been Chris, the little girl that had been +Norma, their hopes and ambitions and joys and sorrows, all were +exchanged. And to them both every word seemed of thrilling and absorbing +interest. To Norma life now was a different thing when Chris merely was +in the room, however distant from her, however apparently interested in +someone, or something, else. She knew that he was conscious of her, +thinking of her, and that presently she would have just the passing +word, or smile, or even quiet glance that would buoy her hungry soul +like a fresh and powerful current. + +It was not strange to her that she should have come to feel him the most +vital and most admirable of all the persons about her, for many of the +men and women who loved Chris shared this view. Norma had not been in +the Melrose house a month before she had heard him called "wonderful", +"inimitable", "the only Chris", a hundred times. Even, she told herself +sometimes, even the women that Chris quite openly disliked would not +return coldness for coldness. And how much less could she, so much +younger, resist the generous friendship he offered to her ignorance, and +awkwardness, and strangeness? + +That he saw in her own companionship something to value she had at first +been slow to believe. Sheer pride had driven her to reluctance, to +shyness, to unbelief. But that was long ago, months ago. Norma knew now +that he truly liked her, that the very freshness and unconventionality +of her viewpoint delighted him, and that he gave her a frankness, a +simpleness, and an ardour, in his confidences, that would have +astonished Alice herself. + +Alice! Norma was thinking of Alice, now. Just where did Alice come in? +Alice had always been the most generous of wives. But she could not be +generous here; no human woman could. She liked Norma, in a sense she +needed Norma, but Chris was all her world. + +"But, good heavens!" Norma mused, as she walked slowly along, "isn't +there to be any friendship for a man but his men friends, or any for a +woman except unmarried men? Isn't there friendship at all between the +sexes? Must it always be sneaking and subterfuge, unless it's marriage? +I don't want to marry Chris Liggett----" + +She stopped short, and the blood left her heart suddenly, and rushed +back with a pounding that almost dizzied her. + +"_I don't want to marry Chris Liggett_," she whispered, aloud. And then +she widened her eyes at space, and walked on blindly for a little way. +"Oh, Chris, Chris, Chris!" she said. "Oh, what shall I do?" + +An agony almost physical in its violence seized her, and she began to +move more rapidly, as if to wear it out, or escape it. + +"No, no, no; I can't care for him in that way," said Norma, feeling her +throat dry and her head suddenly aching. "We can't--we cannot--like each +other that way!" + +The rest of the walk was a blank as far as her consciousness was +concerned. She was swept far away, on a rushing sea of memories, +memories confused and troubled by a vague apprehension of the days to +come. That was it; that was it; they loved each other. Not as +kinspeople, not as friends, not as the Chris and Norma of Alice's and +Leslie's and Annie's lives, but as man and woman, caught at last in the +old, old snare that is the strongest in life. + +Bewildered and sick, she reached the cool, great colonnaded doorway of +the hotel. And here she and Christopher came face to face. + +He was coming out, was indeed halfway down the stone steps. They stood +still and looked at each other. + +Norma thought that he looked tired, that perhaps the hot week in +streets and offices had been hard for him. He was pale, and the smile he +gave her was strained and unnatural. They had not seen each other for +ten days, and Norma, drinking in every expression of the firm mouth, the +shrewd, kindly eyes, the finely set head, felt sudden confidence and +happiness flood her being again. It was all nonsense, this imagining of +hers, and she and Chris would always be the best friends in the world! + +"Alice is perfectly splendid," Norma said, in answer to his first +questions, "and Leslie's baby is much less fat and solid looking, and +getting to be so cunning. Where is Aunt Marianna?" + +"Upstairs," he answered with a slight backward inclination of his head. +"We had a most satisfactory day, and you and she can get off to Great +Barrington to-morrow without any trouble." + +"She and I?" Norma said, distressed by something cold and casual in his +manner. "But aren't you coming, too? Alice depends upon your coming!" + +"I can't, I'm sorry to say. I may get up on Friday night," Chris said, +with an almost weary air of politeness. + +"Friday! Why, then--then I'll persuade Aunt Marianna to wait," Norma +decided, eagerly. "You must come with us, Chris; it's quite lovely up +through Connecticut!" + +"I'm very sorry," the man repeated, glancing beyond her as if in a hurry +to terminate the conversation. "But I may not get up at all this week. +And I've arranged with Aunt Marianna that Poole drives you up to-morrow. +You'll find her," he added, lightly, "enthusiastic over the baby's +pictures. They're really excellent, and I think Leslie will be +delighted. And now I have to go, Norma----" + +"But you're coming back to have dinner with us?" the girl interrupted, +thoroughly uneasy at the change in him. + +"Not to-night. I have an engagement! Good-bye. I'll see you very soon. +The hat's charming, Norma, I think you may safely order more of them by +mail if you have to. Good-bye." + +And with another odd smile, and his usually courteous bow, he was gone, +and Norma was left staring after him in a state almost of stupefaction. + +What was the matter with him? The question framed itself indignantly in +Norma's mind as she automatically crossed the foyer of the hotel and +went upstairs. Mechanically, blindly, she took off the big hat, flung +aside the parasol, and went through the uniting bathroom into Mrs. +Melrose's room. What on earth had been the matter with Chris? What right +had he--how dared he--treat her so rudely? + +Mrs. Melrose was in a flowered chair near a wide-opened window. She had +put on a lacy robe of thin silk, after the heat and burden of the day, +and her feet were in slippers. Beside her was a tall glass, holding an +iced drink, and before her, on a small table, Regina had ranged the +beautiful photographs of Leslie's baby that were to be the young +mother's birthday surprise next week. + +"Hello, dear!" she said, in the pleasant, almost cooing voice with which +she almost always addressed the girls of the family, "isn't this just a +dreadful, dreadful day? Oh, my, so hot! Look here, Norma, just see my +little Patricia's pictures. Aren't they perfectly lovely? I'm _so_ +pleased with them. I was just----Regina, will you order Miss Norma +something cool to drink, please. Tea, dear? Or lemonade, like your old +aunty?--I was just showing them to Chris. Yes. And he thought they were +just perfectly lovely; see the little fat hand, and how beautifully the +lace took! There--that one's the best. You'll see, Leslie will like that +one." + +The topic, fortunately for Norma's agitation, was apparently +inexhaustible and all-absorbing. The girl could sink almost unnoticed +into an opposite chair, and while her voice dutifully uttered +sympathetic monosyllables, and her eyes went from the portraits of +little Patricia idly about the big room, noting the handsome old maple +furniture, and the costly old scrolled velvet carpet, and the aspect of +flaming roofs beyond the window in the sunset, her thoughts could turn +and twist agonizingly over this new mystery and this new pain. What had +been the matter with Chris? + +Anger gave way to chill, and chill to utter heartsickness. The cause of +the change was unimportant, after all; it was the change itself that was +significant. Norma's head ached, her heart was like lead. She had been +thinking, all the way down in the car--all to-day--that she would meet +him to-night; that they would talk. Now what? Was this endless evening +to drag away on his terms, and were they to return to Newport to-morrow, +with only the memory of that cool farewell to feed Norma's starving, +starving soul? + +"Chris couldn't stay and have dinner," Mrs. Melrose presently was +regretting, "but, after all, perhaps it's cooler up here than anywhere, +and I am so tired that I'm not going to change! You'll just have to +stand me as I am." + +And the tired, heat-flushed, wrinkled old face, under its fringe of gray +hair, smiled confidently at Norma. The girl smiled affectionately back. + +Five o'clock. Six o'clock. It was almost seven when Norma came forth +from a cold bath, and supervised the serving of the little meal. She +merely played with her own food, and the old lady was hardly more +hungry. + +"Oh, no, Aunt Marianna! I think that Leslie was just terribly nervous, +after Patricia was born. But I think now, especially when they're back +in their own house, they'll be perfectly happy. No reason in the world +why they shouldn't be," Norma heard herself saying. So they had been +talking of Acton and Leslie, she thought. Leslie was spoiled, and Acton +was extravagant, and the united families had been just a little worried +about their attitudes toward each other. Mrs. Melrose was sure that +Norma was right, and rambled along the same topic for some time. Then +Norma realized that they had somehow gotten around to Theodore, Leslie's +father. This subject was always good for half hours together, she could +safely ramble a little herself. The deadly weight fell upon her spirit +again. What had been the matter with Chris? + +At nine o'clock her tired old companion began preparations for bed, and +Norma, catching up some magazines, went into her own room. She could +hear Regina and Mrs. Melrose murmuring together, the running of water, +the opening and shutting of bureau drawers. + +Norma went to her open window, leaned out into the warm and brilliant +night. There was a hot moon, moving between clouds that promised, at +last, a break in the binding heat. Down the Avenue below her omnibuses +wheeled and rumbled, omnibuses whose upper seats were packed with thinly +clad passengers, but otherwise there was little life and movement +abroad. A searchlight fanned the sky, fell and wavered upward again. A +hurdy-gurdy, in the side street, poured forth the notes of the +"Marseillaise." + +Suddenly, and almost without volition, the girl snatched the telephone, +and murmured a number. Thought and senses seemed suspended while she +waited. + +"Is this the Metropolitan Club? Is Mr. Christopher Liggett there?... If +you will, please. Thank you. Say that it is a lady," said Norma, in a +hurried and feverish voice. The operator would announce presently, of +course, that Mr. Liggett was not there. The chance that he was there was +so remote---- + +"Chris!" she breathed, all the tension and doubt dropping from her like +a garment at the sound of his quiet tones. "Chris--this is Norma!" + +A pause. Her soul died within her. + +"What is it?" Chris asked presently, in a repressed voice. + +"Well--but were you playing cards?" + +"No." + +"You've had your dinner, Chris?" + +"No. Yes, I had dinner, of course. I dined with Aunt Marianna--no, that +was lunch! I dined here." + +"Chris," Norma faltered, speaking quickly as her courage ebbed, "I +didn't want to interrupt you, but you seemed so--so different, this +afternoon. And I didn't want to have you cross at me; and I +wondered--I've been wondering ever since--if I have done something that +made you angry--that was stupid and--and----" + +She stopped. The forbidding silence on his part was like a wall that +crossed her path, was like a veil that blinded and choked her. + +"Not at all," he said, quickly. "Where did you get that idea?... +Hello--hello--are you there, Norma?" he added, when on her part in turn +there was a blank silence. + +For Norma, strangled by an uprising of tears as sudden as it was +unexpected and overwhelming, could make no audible answer. Why she +should be crying she could not clearly think, but she was bathed in +tears, and her heart was heavy with unspeakable desolation. + +"Norma!" she heard him say, urgently. "What is it? Norma----?" + +"Nothing!" she managed to utter, in a voice that stemmed the flood for +only a second. + +"Norma," Chris said, simply, "I am coming out. Meet me downstairs in ten +minutes. I want to see you!" + +Both telephones clicked, and Norma found herself sitting blankly in the +sudden silence of the room, her brain filled with a confusion of shamed +and doubting and fearful thoughts, and her heart flooded with joy. + +Five minutes later she stepped from the elevator into the lobby, and +selected a big chair that faced obliquely on the entrance doors. The +little stir in the wide, brightly lighted place always interested her +and amused her; women drifting from the dining-room with their light +wraps over their arms, messengers coming and going, the far strains of +the orchestra mingling pleasantly with the nearer sounds of feet and +voices. + +To-night her spirit was soaring. Nothing mattered, nothing of her +doubts, nothing of his coldness, except that Chris was even now coming +toward her! Her mind followed the progress of his motor-car, up through +the hot, deserted streets. + +Suddenly it seemed to her that she could not bear the emotion of +meeting. With every man's figure that came through the wide-open doors +her heart thumped and pounded. + +His voice; she would hear it again. She would see the gray eyes, and +watch the firm, quick movement of his jaw. + +Other men, meeting other women, or parting from other women, came and +went. Norma liked the big, homely boy in olive drab, who kissed the +little homely mother so affectionately. + +She glanced at her wrist watch, twisted about to confirm its unwelcome +news by the big clock. Quarter to ten, and no Chris. Norma settled down +again to waiting and watching. + +Ten o'clock. Quarter past ten. He was not coming! No, although her sick +and weary spirit rose whenever there was the rush of a motor-car to the +curb or the footstep of a man on the steps outside, she knew now that he +was not coming. Hope deferred had exhausted her, but hope dead was far, +far worse. He was not coming. + +It was almost half-past ten when a bell-boy approached. Was it Miss +Sheridan? Mr. Christopher Liggett had been called out of town, and +would try to see Mrs. Melrose in a day or two. + +Norma turned upon him a white face of fatigue. + +"Is Mr. Liggett on the telephone?" + +"No, Miss. He just telephoned a message." + +The boy retired, and Norma went slowly upstairs, and slowly made her +preparations for sleep. But the blazing summer dawn, smiting the city at +four o'clock, found her still sitting at the window, twirling a tassel +of the old-fashioned shade in her cold fingers, and staring with haggard +eyes into space. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +More than a week later Annie gave a luncheon to a dozen women, and +telephoned Norma beforehand, with a request that the girl come early +enough to help her with name cards. + +"These damnable engagement luncheons," said Aunt Annie, limping about +the long table, and grumbling at everything as she went. Annie had +wrenched her ankle in alighting from her car, and was cross with nagging +pain. "Here, put Natalie next to Leslie, Norma; no, that puts the +Gunnings together. I'll give you Miss Blanchard--but you don't speak +French! Here, give me your pencil--and confound these things +anyway----Fowler," she said to the butler, "I don't like to see a thing +like that on the table--carry that away, please; and here, get somebody +to help you change this, that won't do! That's all right--only I want +this as you had it day before yesterday--and don't use those, get the +glass ones----" + +And so fussing and changing and criticizing, Annie went away, and Norma +followed her up to her bedroom. + +"I'm wondering when we're going to give _you_ an engagement luncheon, +Norma," said the hostess, in a whirl of rapid dressing. "Who's ahead +now?" + +"Oh--nobody!" Norma answered, with a mirthless laugh. She had been +listless and pale for several days, and did not seem herself at all. + +"Forrest Duer, is it?" + +"Oh, good heavens--Aunt Annie! He's twenty-one!" + +"Is that all--he's such a big whale!----Don't touch my hair, Phoebe, +it'll do very well!" said Annie to the maid. "Well, don't be in too much +of a hurry, Norma," she went on kindly. "Nothing like being sure! +That"--Annie glanced at the retiring maid--"that's what makes me nervous +about Leslie," she confessed. "I'm afraid we hurried the child into it +just a little bit. It was an understood thing since they were nothing +but kiddies." + +"Leslie is outrageously spoiled," Norma said, not unkindly. + +"Leslie? Oh, horribly. Mama always spoils everyone and poor Theodore +spoiled her, too," Annie conceded. + +"She told me herself yesterday," Norma went on, with a trace of her old +animation, "that they've overdrawn again. Now, Aunt Annie, I do think +that's outrageous! Chris straightened them all out last--when was +it?--June, after the baby came, and they have an enormous +income--thousands every month, and yet they are deep in again!" + +"The wretched thing is that they quarrel about that!" Annie agreed. + +"Well, exactly! That was what it was about day before yesterday, and +Leslie told me she cried all night. And you know the other day she took +Patricia and came home to Aunt Marianna, and it was terrible!" + +"How much do you suppose the servants know of that?" Annie asked, +frowning. + +"Oh, they _must_ know!" Norma replied. + +"Foolish, foolish child! You know, Norma," Annie resumed, "Leslie comes +by her temper naturally. She is half French; her mother was a +Frenchwoman--Louison Courtot." + +"It's a pretty name," Norma commented. "Did you know her?" + +"Know her? She was my maid when I was about seventeen, a very superior +girl. I used to practise my French with her. She was extremely pretty. +After my father died my mother and I went to Florida, and when we came +back the whole thing broke. I thought it would kill Mama! At first we +thought Theodore had simply gotten her into 'trouble,' to use the dear +old phrase. But _pas du tout_; she had 'ze _mar-ri-age_ certificate' all +safe and sound. But he was no more in love with her than I was--a boy +nineteen! Mama made her leave the house, and cut off Theodore's +allowance entirely, and for a while they were together--but it couldn't +last. Teddy got his divorce when he went with Mama to California, but he +was ill then, though we didn't know it, poor boy! He lived five years +after that." + +"But he saw Leslie?" + +"Oh, dear, yes!" Annie said, buffing her twinkling finger-nails, idly. +"Didn't Mama ever tell you about that?" + +"No, she never mentions it." + +"Well, that was awful, too--for poor Mama. About four years after the +divorce, one night when we were all at home--it was just after Mama and +I came back from Europe, and the year before Hendrick and I were +married--suddenly there was a rush in the hall, and in came Theodore's +wife--Louison Courtot! It seems Mama had been in touch with her ever +since we returned, but none of us knew that. And she had Leslie with +her, a little thing about four years old--Leslie just faintly remembers +it. She had fought Mama off, at first, about giving her baby up, but now +she was going to be married, and she had finally consented to do as Mama +wanted. Leslie came over to me, and got into my lap, and went to sleep, +I remember. Theodore was terribly ill, and I remember that Louison was +quite gentle with him--surprised us all, in fact, she was so mild. She +had been a wild thing, but always most self-respecting; a prude, in +fact. She even stooped over Theodore, and kissed him good-bye, and then +she knelt down and kissed Leslie, and went away. Mama had intended that +she should always see the child, if she wanted to, but she never came +again. She was married, I know, a few weeks later, and long afterward +Mama told me that she was dead. Ted came to adore the baby, and of +course she's been the greatest comfort to Mama, so it all turns out +right, after all. But we're a sweet family!" finished Annie, rising to +go downstairs. "And now," she added, on the stairs, "if there were to be +serious trouble between Acton and Leslie----Well, it isn't thinkable!" + +Leslie herself, charming in a flowered silky dress, with a wide flowery +hat on her yellow hair, was waiting for them in the big, shaded hallway. +The little matron was extremely attractive in her new dignities, and her +babyish face looked more ridiculously youthful than ever as she talked +of "my husband," "my little girl," "my house," and "my attorney." + +Leslie, like Annie and Alice, was habitually wrapped in her own affairs, +more absorbed in the question of her own minute troubles than in the +most widespread abuses of the world. When Leslie saw a coat, the +identity of the wearer interested her far less than the primary +considerations of the coat's cut and material, and the secondary +decision whether or not she herself would like such a garment. +Consequently, she glanced but apathetically at Norma; she had seen the +dotted blue swiss before, and the cornflower hat; she had seen Aunt +Annie's French organdie; there was nothing there either to envy or +admire. + +"How's the baby, dear; and how's Acton?" Annie asked, perfunctorily. +Leslie sighed. + +"Oh, they're both fine," she answered, indifferently. "I've been all +upset because my cook got married--just walked out. I told Acton not to +pay her, but of course he did; it's nothing to him if my whole house is +upset by the selfishness of somebody else. He and Chris are going off +this afternoon with Joe and Denny Page, for the Thousand Islands----" + +"I didn't know Chris was here!" Annie said, in surprise. + +"I didn't, myself. He came up with Acton, late last night. They'd +motored all the way; I was asleep when they got in. I didn't know it +until I found him at breakfast this morning----" + +Norma's heart stood still. The name alone was enough to shake her to the +very soul, but the thought that he was here--in Newport--this minute, +and that she might not see him, probably indeed would not see him, made +her feel almost faint. + +She had not seen him since the meeting on the hotel steps nearly two +weeks ago. It had been the longest and the saddest two weeks in Norma's +life. It was in vain that she reminded herself that her love for him +was weakness and madness, and that by no possible shift of +circumstances could it come to happy consummation. It was in vain that +she pondered Alice's claims, and all the family claims, and the general +claim of society as an institution. Deep and strong and unconquerable +above them all rose the tide of love and passion, the gnawing and +burning hunger for the sight of him, the sound of his voice, the touch +of his hand. + +Life had become for her a vague and changing dream, with his name for +its only reality. Somewhere in the fog of days was Chris, and she would +not live again until she saw him. He must forgive her; he must explain +his coldness, explain the change in him, and then she would be content +just with the old friendliness, just the old nearness and the occasional +word together. + +Every letter that Joseph brought her, every call to the telephone, meant +to her only the poignant possibility of a message from him. She sickened +daily with fresh despair, and fed herself daily with new hopes. + +To-day she was scarcely conscious of the hilarious progress of the +luncheon; she looked at the prospective bride, in whose honour Aunt +Annie entertained, only with a pang of wonder. What was it like, the +knowledge that one was openly beloved, the miraculous right to plan an +unclouded future together? The mere thought of being free to love Chris, +of having him free to claim her, almost dizzied Norma with its vista of +utter felicity. She had to drive it resolutely from her mind. Not +that--never that! But there must at least be peace and friendship +between them. + +At three o'clock the luncheon was over; it was half-past three when +Leslie and she drove to the Melrose "cottage"--as the fourteen-room, +three-story frame house was called. Norma had searched the drive with +her eyes as they approached. The gray roadster was not there. There was +no sign of Christopher's hat or coat in the hallway. Alice was alone, in +her downstairs sitting-room. Norma's heart sank like a lump of ice. + +"Did you see Chris?" the invalid began, happily. "We had the nicest +lunch together--just we two. And look at the books the angel brought +me--just a feast. You saw him, Leslie, didn't you, dear? He said he +caught you and Acton at breakfast. I was perfectly amazed. Miss Slater +moved me out here about eleven o'clock, and I heard someone walking +in----! He's off now, with the Pages; he told you that, of course!" + +"He looks rotten, I think," Leslie offered. "I told him he was working +too hard." + +"Well, Judge Lee is sick, and he hasn't been in to the office since +June," Alice said, "and that makes it very hard for Chris. But he says +his room at the club is cool, and now he'll have two or three lovely +days with the Page boys----" + +Norma, who had subsided quietly into a chair, was looking at the yellow +covers of the new French and Italian novels. + +"And then does he come back here Monday, for the tennis?" she asked, +clearing her throat. + +"He says not!" Alice answered, regretfully. "He's going straight on down +to the city. Then next week-end is the cruise with the Dwights; and +after that, I suppose we'll all be home!" + +She went on into a conversation with Leslie, relative to the move. After +a few moments Norma went out through the opened French window onto the +wide porch. It was rather a dark, old-fashioned side porch, with an +elaborate wooden railing, and potted hydrangeas under a striped awning. +The house had neither the magnificence of Annie's gray-stone mansion or +the beauty of Leslie's colonial white and green at Glen Cove; it had +been built in the late eighties, and was inflexibly ornate. + +Norma went down slowly through the garden, and walked vaguely toward the +hot glitter and roll of the blue sea. Her misery was almost unbearable. +Weeks--it would be weeks before she would see him! He had been here +to-day--here in the garden--in Alice's room, and she had not had a word +or a sign. + +Children and nurses were on the beach, grouped in the warm shade. The +season was over, there were yellow leaves in the hedges, Norma's feet +rustled among the dropped glory of the old trees. The world seemed hot, +dry, lifeless before her. + +"I wish I were dead!" she cried, passionately, for the first time in her +life. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Suddenly and smoothly they were all transported to town again, and the +vigour and sparkle of the autumn was exhilarating to Norma in spite of +herself. The Park was a glory of red and gold leaves; morning came late, +and the dew shone until ten o'clock; bright mists rose smoking into the +sunlight, and when Norma walked home from a luncheon, or from an hour of +furious squash or tennis at the club, the early winter dusk would be +closing softly in, the mists returning, and the lights of the long Mall +in the park blooming round and blue in the twilight. + +She was with Mrs. Melrose this winter, an arrangement extremely welcome +to the old lady, who was lonely and liked the stir of young life in the +house. Alice had quite charmingly and naturally suggested the change, +and Norma's belongings had been moved away from the little white room +next to Miss Slater's. + +One reason for it was that Alice had had two nurses all summer long, and +found the increased service a great advantage. Then Mama was all alone +and not so well as she had been; getting old, and reluctant to take even +the necessary exercise. + +"And then you're too young to be shut up with stupid home-loving folk +like Chris and me," Alice had told Norma, lightly. + +"Your stupidity is proverbial, Aunt Alice," Norma had laughed. She did +not care where she went any more. Chris had greeted her casually, upon +their meeting in October, and had studiously, if inconspicuously, +ignored her. But even to see him at all was so great a relief to her +over-charged heart that for weeks this was enough. She must meet him +occasionally, she heard his name every day, and she knew where he was +and what he was doing almost at every moment. She treasured every look, +every phrase of his, and she glowed and grew beautiful in the conviction +that, even though he was still mysteriously angry with her, he had that +old consciousness of her presence, too; he might hate her, but he could +not ignore her. + +And then, in December, the whole matter reached a sudden crisis, and +Norma came to feel that she would have been glad to have the matter go +back to this state of doubt and indecision again. + +Mrs. von Behrens was on the directorate of a working girls' club that +needed special funds every winter, and this year the money was to be +raised by an immense entertainment, at which generous professional +singers were to be alternated on a brilliant programme with society +girls and men, in tableaux and choruses. Norma, who had a charming if +not particularly strong voice, was early impressed into service, because +she was so good-natured, so dependable, and pretty and young enough to +carry off a delectable costume. The song she sang had been specially +written for the affair, and in the quaint dance that accompanied it she +was drilled by the dance authority of the hour. A chorus of eight girls +and eight men was added to complete the number, and the gaiety of the +rehearsals, and the general excitement and interest, carried the matter +along to the last and dress rehearsal with a most encouraging rush. + +Annie had originally selected Chris for Norma's companion in the song, +for Chris had a pleasant, presentable voice, and Chris in costume was +always adequate to any role. Theatricals had been his delight, all his +life long, and among the flattering things that were commonly said of +Chris was that he had robbed the stage of a great character actor. + +But Chris had begged off, to take a minor part in another _ensemble_, +and Norma had a youth named Roy Gillespie for her partner. Roy was a +big, fat, blond boy, good-natured and stupid and rather in love with +Norma, and as the girl was entirely unconscious of Annie's original +plan, she was quite satisfied with him. + +The dress rehearsal was on a dark Thursday afternoon before the Saturday +of the performance. It took place in the big empty auditorium, where it +was to drag along from twelve o'clock noon, until the preparations for +the regular evening performance drove the amateurs, protesting, away. +Snow was fluttering down over the city when Annie, with Norma, and a +limousine full of properties, reached the place at noon; motor-cars were +wheeling and crowding in the side street, and it seemed to Norma +thrilling to enter so confidently at the big, dirty, sheet-iron door +lettered: + + "STAGE DOOR. NO ADMITTANCE." + +As always to the outsider, the wings, the shabby dressing-rooms, the +novel feeling of sauntering across the big, dim stage, the gloom of the +great rising arch of the house, were full of charm. Voices and hammers +were sounding in the gloom; somebody was talking hard while he fitfully +played the piano; girls were giggling and fluttering about; footlights +flashed up and down, in the front rows of seats a few mothers and maids +had gathered. There was the sweet, strong smell of some spicy +disinfectant, and obscure figures, up the aisles, were constantly +sweeping and stooping. + +Annie had a chair in a wing. Her small fur hat and trim suit had been +selected for comfort; her knees were crossed, and she had a sheaf of +songs, a pencil, and various note-books in her hands. She was alert, +serious, authoritative; her manner expressed an anxious certainty that +everything that could possibly go wrong was about to do so. Men +protested jovially to Annie, girls whimpered and complained, maids +delivered staggering messages into her ear. Annie frowningly yet +sympathetically sent them all away, one by one; persisted that the +rehearsal proceed. Never mind the hat, we could get along without the +hat; never mind Dixie Jadwin, someone could read her part; never mind +this, never mind that; go on, go on--we must get on! + +At five o'clock she was very tired, and Norma, fully arrayed, was tired, +too. The girl had been sitting on a barrel for almost an hour, patiently +waiting for the tardy Mr. Roy Gillespie to arrive, and permit their +particular song to be rehearsed. Everything that could be done in the +way of telephoning had been done: Mr. Gillespie had left his office, he +was expected momentarily at his home, he should be given the message +immediately. Nothing to do but wait. + +Suddenly Norma's heart jumped to her throat, began to hammer wildly. A +man had come quietly in between her and Annie, and she heard the voice +that echoed in her heart all day and all night. It was Chris. + +He did not see her, perhaps did not recognize her in a casual glance, +and began to talk to his sister-in-law in low, quick tones. Almost +immediately Annie exclaimed in consternation, and called Norma. + +"Norma! Chris tells me that poor old Mr. Gillespie died this afternoon. +_That's_ what's been the matter. What on earth are we to do now? I +declare it's _too_ much!" + +Norma got off her barrel. The great lighted stage seemed to be moving +about her as she went to join them. + +What Chris saw strained his tried soul to its utmost of endurance. He +had not permitted himself to look at her squarely for weeks. Now there +was a new look, a look a little sad, a little wistfully expectant, in +the lovely face. Her eyes burned deeply blue above the touch of rouge +and the crimson lips. Her dark, soft hair fell in loose ringlets on her +shoulders from under the absurd little tipped and veiled hat of the late +seventies. Her gown, a flowered muslin, moved and tilted with a gentle, +shaking majesty over hoop skirts, and was crossed on the low shoulders +by a thin silk shawl whose long fringes were tangled in her mitted +fingers. The white lace stockings began where the loose lace pantalettes +stopped, and disappeared into flat-heeled kid slippers. Norma carried a +bright nosegay in lace paper, and on her breast a thin gold locket hung +on a velvet ribbon. + +She herself had been completely captivated by the costume when Madame +Modiste had first suggested it, and when the first fittings began. But +that was weeks ago, and she was accustomed to it now, and conscious in +this instant of nothing but Chris, conscious of nothing but the +possibility that he would have a word or a smile, at last, for her. + +"Stay right here, both of you--don't move a step--while I telephone +Lucia Street!" said the harassed Annie, her eyes glittering with some +desperate hope. She hurried away; they were alone. + +"Poor old Roy--he adored his father!" Chris said, with dry lips, and in +a rather unnatural voice. Norma, for one second, simulated mere +sympathy. Then with a rush the pride and hurt that had sustained her +ever since that weary September evening in the hotel lobby vanished, and +she came close to Chris, so that the fragrance and sweetness of her +enveloped him, and caught his coat with both her mitted hands, and +raised her face imploringly, commandingly to his. + +"Chris--for God's sake--what have I done? Don't you know--don't you know +that you're killing me?" + +He looked down at her, wretchedly. And suddenly Norma knew. Not that he +liked her, not that she fascinated and interested him, not that they +were friends. But that he loved her with every fibre of his being, even +as she loved him. + +The revelation carried her senses away with it upon a raging sea of +emotion and ecstasy. He drew her into a dim corner of the wings, and put +his arms about her, and her whole slender body, in its tilting hoops, +strained backward under the passion and fury of his first embrace. Again +and again his lips met hers, and she heard the incoherent outpouring of +murmured words, and felt the storm that shook him as it was shaking her. +Norma, after the first kiss, grew limp, let herself rest almost without +movement in his arms, shut her eyes. + +Reason came back to them slowly; the girl almost rocking upon her feet +as the vertigo and bewilderment passed, and the man sustaining her with +an arm about her shoulders, neither looking at the other. So several +seconds, perhaps a full minute, went by, while the world settled into +place about them; the dingy, unpainted wood of the wings, the near-by +stage where absorbed groups of people were still coming and going, the +distant gloom of the house. + +"So now you know!" Chris said, breathlessly, panting, and looking away +from her, with his hands hanging at his sides. "Now you know! I've tried +to keep it from you! But now--now you know!" + +Norma, also breathing hard, did not answer for a little space. + +"I've known since that time we were in town, in September!" she said, +almost defiantly. Chris looked toward her, surprised, and their eyes +met. "I've known what was the matter with _me_," she added, +thoughtfully, even frowning a little in her anxiety to make it all +clear, "but I couldn't imagine what it was with _you_!" + +But this brought him to face her, so close that she felt the same sense +of drowning, of losing her footing, again. + +"Chris--please!" she whispered, in terror. + +"But, Norma--say it! Say that you love me--that's all that matters now! +I've been losing my mind, I think. I've been losing my mind. Just +that--that you do care!" + +"I have----" Tears came to her lifted blue eyes, and she brushed them +away without moving her gaze from him. "I think I have always loved you, +Chris--from the very first," she whispered. + +Instantly she saw his expression change. It was as if, with that +revelation, a new responsibility began for him. + +"Here, dear, you mustn't cry!" he said, composedly. He gave her his +handkerchief, helped her set the tipped hat and lace veil straight, +smiled reassurance and courage into her eyes. "I'll see you, +Norma--we'll talk," he said. "Oh, my God, to talk to you again! Come, +now, we'll have to be here when Annie comes back--that's right. I--I +love the little gown--terribly sweet. I haven't seen it before, you +know; my crowd has done all its rehearsing at Mrs. Hitchcock's. Here's +Annie now----" + +"Christopher," said Annie, in deadly, almost angry earnest, as she came +up desperate and weary, "you'll have to sing this thing with Norma. +Burgess Street absolutely refuses. He's in the chorus, and he sings, but +he simply won't do a solo! His mother says he has a cold, and so on, and +I swear I'll throw the whole thing up; I will, indeed!--rather than have +this number ruined. There's no earthly reason why you can't do both--of +course the poor old man couldn't help dying--but if you knew----" + +"My dear girl, of course I'll do it!" All the youth and buoyancy that +had been missing from his voice for weeks had come back. Christopher +laughed his old delightful laugh. "I'll have to have Roy's costume cut +down, but Smithers will do it for me. I'll do my very best----" + +"Oh, Chris, God bless you," Annie said. "You'll do it better than he +ever did. Take my car and stop for his suit, and express whatever's +decent--the funeral will be Saturday morning and we'll all have to go, +but there's no help for it. And come to my house for dinner, and you and +Norma can go over it afterward; you poor girl, you're tired out, but +it's such a Godsend to have Chris fill in. And it will be the prettiest +number of all." + +Tired out? The radiant girl who was tripping away to change to street +attire was hardly conscious that her feet touched the ground. The stage, +the theatre, the fur coat into which she buttoned herself, the fragrance +of the violets she wore, were all touched with beauty and enchantment. + +Snow was still falling softly, when she and Annie went out to the car. +Annie was so exhausted that she could hardly move, but Norma floated +above things mortal. The dark sidewalk was powdered with what scrunched +under their shoes like dry sugar, and up against the lighted sky the +flakes were twirling and falling. The air was sweet and cold and pure +after the hot theatre. Chris put them in the motor-car. He would see his +tailor, have a bite of dinner at home, and be at Annie's at eight +o'clock for the rehearsal. + +"I'll do something for you, for this, Norma!" her aunt assured the girl, +gratefully. Norma protested in a voice that was almost singing. It was +nothing at all! + +She felt suddenly happy and light. It was all right; there was to be no +more agony and doubt. Alice should lose nothing, the world should know +nothing, but Chris loved her! She could take his friendship fearlessly, +there would be nothing but what was good and beautiful and true between +them. But what a changed world! + +What a changed room it was into which she danced, to brush her hair for +dinner, and laugh into her mirror, where the happy girl with starry eyes +and blazing cheeks laughed back. What a changed dinner table, at which +the old lady drowsed and cooed! Norma's blood was dancing, her head was +in a whirl, she was hardly conscious that this soaring and singing soul +of hers had a body. + +At eight she and Mrs. Melrose went to Mrs. von Behrens's, and Norma and +Chris went through the song again and again and again, for the benefit +of a small circle of onlookers. Hendrick, who had sworn that wild horses +would not drag him to the entertainment, sat with a small son in his +lap, and applauded tirelessly. Annie criticized and praised alternately. +Mrs. Melrose went to sleep, and Annie's new secretary, a small, lean, +dark girl of perhaps twenty-two, passionately played the music. Norma +knew exactly how this girl felt, how proud she was of her position, how +anxious to hold it, and how infinitely removed from her humble struggle +the beautiful Miss Sheridan seemed! Yet she herself had been much the +same less than two years ago! + +Norma could have laughed aloud. She envied no one to-night. The mystery +and miracle of Chris's love for her was like an ermine mantle about her +shoulders, and like a diadem upon her brows. Annie was delighted with +her, and presently told her she had never before sung so well. + +"I suppose practice makes perfect!" the girl answered, innocently. She +was conscious of no hypocrisy. No actress enjoying a long-coveted part +could have rejoiced in every word and gesture more than she. Just to +move, under his eyes, to laugh or to be serious, to listen dutifully to +Annie and the old lady, to flirt with Baby Piet, was ecstasy enough. + +They had small opportunity for asides. But that was of no consequence. +All the future was their own. They would see each other to-morrow--or +next day; it did not matter. Norma's hungry heart had something to +remember, now--a very flood-tide of memories. She could have lived for +weeks upon this one day's memories. + +Norma and Chris were placed toward the centre of the first half of the +programme on the triumphant Saturday night, and could escape from the +theatre before eleven o'clock to go home to tell Alice all about it. +Chris played the song, on his own piano, and Norma modestly and +charmingly went through it again, to the invalid's great satisfaction. +Alice, when Norma and her mother were gone, tried to strike a spark of +enthusiasm from her husband as to the girl's beauty and talent, but +Chris was pleasantly unresponsive. + +"She got through it very nicely; they all did!" Chris admitted, +indifferently. + +"When you think of the upbringing she had, Chris, a little nameless +nobody," Alice pursued. "When you think that until last year she had +actually never seen a finger-bowl, or spoken to a servant!" + +"Exactly!" Chris said, briefly. Alice, who was facing the fire, did not +see him wince. She was far from suspecting that he had at that moment a +luncheon engagement for the next day with Norma, and that during the +weeks that followed they met by appointment almost every day, and +frequently by chance more often than that. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +In the beginning, these were times brimful of happiness for Norma. She +would meet Chris far down town, among the big, cold, snowbound +office-buildings, and they would loiter for two hours at some +inconspicuous table in a restaurant, and come wandering out into the +cold streets still talking, absorbed and content. Or she would rise +before him from a chair in one of the foyers of the big hotels, at tea +time, and they would find an unobserved corner for the murmur that rose +and fell, rose and fell inexhaustibly. Tea and toast unobserved before +them, music drifting unheard about them, furred and fragrant women +coming and going; all this was but the vague setting for their own +thrilling drama of love and confidence. They would come out into the +darkness, Norma tucking herself beside him in the roadster, last +promises and last arrangements made, until to-morrow. + +Sometimes the girl even accompanied him to Alice's room, to sit at the +invalid's knee, and chatter with a tact and responsiveness that Alice +found an improvement upon her old amusing manner. So free was Norma in +these days from any sense of guilt that she felt herself nothing but +generous toward Alice, in sparing the older woman some of the excess of +joy and companionship in which she was so rich. + +But very swiftly the first complete satisfaction in the discovery of +their mutual love began to wane, or rather to be overset with the +difficulties by which Norma, and many another more brilliant and older +woman, must inevitably be worsted. Her meetings with Chris, innocent and +open as they seemed, were immediately threatened by the sordid danger of +scandal. To meet him once, twice, half-a-dozen times, even, was safe +enough. But when each day of separation became for them both only an +agony of waiting until the next day that should unite them, and when all +Norma's self-control was not enough to keep her from the telephone +summons that at least gave her the sound of his voice, then the world +began to be cognizant that something was in the air. + +The very maids at Mrs. Melrose's house knew that Miss Sheridan was never +available any more, never to be traced to the club, to young Mrs. +Liggett's, or to Mrs. von Behrens's house, with a telephone message or +an urgent letter. Leslie knew that Norma hated girls' luncheons; Annie +asked Hendrick idly why he supposed the child was always taking long +walks--or saying that she took long walks--and Hendrick, later +speculating himself as to the inaccessibility of Chris, was perhaps the +first in the group to suspect the truth. + +A quite accidental and innocent hint from Annie overwhelmed Norma with +shame and terror, and she and Chris, in earnest consultation, decided +that they must be more discreet. But this was slow and difficult work, +after the radiant first plunge into danger. Despite their utmost +resolution, Chris would find her out, Norma would meet him halfway, and +even under Leslie's very eyes, or in old Mrs. Melrose's actual presence, +the telephone message, or the quicker signals of eyes and smile, would +forge the bond afresh. + +Even when Norma really did start off heroically upon a bracing winter +walk, determined to shake off, in solitude and exercise, the constant +hunger for his presence, torturing possibilities would swarm into her +mind, and weaken her almost while she thought them banished. She could +catch him at his club; she might have just five minutes of him did she +choose to telephone. + +Perhaps she would resist the temptation, and go home nervous, +high-strung, excitable--the evening stretching endlessly before +her--without him. Aunt Annie and Hendrick coming, Leslie and Acton +coming, the prospect of the decorous family dinner would drive her +almost to madness. She would dress in a feverish dream, answer old Mrs. +Melrose absently or impatiently, speculating all the time about him. +Where was he? When would they meet again? + +And then perhaps Leslie would casually remark that Chris had said he +would join them for coffee, or Joseph would summon her gravely to the +telephone. Then Norma began to live again, the effect of the lonely walk +and the heroic resolutions swept away, nothing--nothing was in the world +but the sound of that reassuring voice, or the prospect of that ring at +the bell, and that step in the hall. + +So matters went on for several weeks, but they were weeks of increasing +uneasiness and pain for Norma, and she knew that Chris found them even +less endurable than she. The happy hours of confidence and happiness +grew fewer and fewer, and as their passion strengthened, and the +insuperable obstacles to its natural development impressed them more and +more forcibly, miserable and anxious times took their place. Their love +was no sooner acknowledged than both came to realize how mad and +hopeless it was, and that no reiteration of its intensity and no +argument could ever give them a gleam of hope. + +If Norma had drifted cheerfully and recklessly into this situation, she +paid for it now, when petty restrictions and conventions stung her like +so many bees, and when she could turn nowhere for relief from constant +heartache and the sickening monotony of her thoughts. She could not have +Chris; she could not give him up. Hours with him were only a degree more +bearable than hours without him. + +When he spoke hopefully of a possible change, of "something" making +their happiness possible, she would turn on him like a little virago. +Yet if he despaired, tears would come to Norma's eyes, and she would beg +him almost angrily to change his tone, or she would disgrace them both +by beginning to cry. + +Norma grew thin and fidgety, able to concentrate her mind on +nothing, and openly indifferent to the society she had courted so +enthusiastically a year ago. It was a part of her suffering that she +grew actually to dislike Alice, always so suave and cheerful, always so +serenely sure of Chris's devotion. What right had this woman, who had +been rich and spoiled and guarded all her life, to hold him away from +the woman he loved? Chris had been chained to this couch for years, +reading, playing his piano, infinitely solicitous and sympathetic. But +was he to spend all his life thus? Was there to be no glorious +companionship, no adventure, no deep and satisfying love for Chris, ever +in this world? Norma wished no ill to Alice, but she hated a world that +could hold Alice's claim legitimate. + +"Why should it be so?" she said to Chris one day, bitterly. "Why, when +all my life was going so happily, did I have to fall in love with you, I +wonder? It could so easily have been somebody else!" + +"I don't know!" Chris answered, soberly, flinging away his half-finished +cigarette, and folding his arms over his chest, as he stared through a +screen of bare trees at the river. It was a March day of warm airs and +bursting buds; the roads were running water, and every bank and meadow +oozed the thawing streams, but there was no green yet. Chris had come +for the girl at three o'clock, just as she was starting out for one of +her aimless, unhappy tramps, and had carried her off for a +twenty-five-mile run to the quiet corner of the tavern's porch in +Tarrytown where they were having tea. "I suppose that's just life. +Things go so rottenly, sometimes!" + +Norma's eyes watered as she pushed the untasted toast away from her, +cupped her chin in her hands, and stared at the river in her turn. + +"Chris, if I could go back, I think I'd never speak to you!" she said, +wretchedly. + +"You mustn't say that," he reproached her. "My darling; surely it's +brought you some happiness?" + +"I suppose so," Norma conceded, lifelessly, after a silence. "But I +can't go on!" she protested, suddenly. "I can't keep this up! I suppose +I've done something very wicked, to be punished this way. But, Chris, I +loved you from the very first day I ever saw you, in Biretta's +Bookstore, I think. I can't sleep," she stammered, piteously, "and I am +so afraid all the time!" + +"Afraid of what?" the man asked, very low. + +She faced him, honestly. + +"You know what! Of you--of me. It can't go on. You know that. And +yet----" And Norma looked far away, her beautiful weary eyes burning in +her white face. "And yet, I can't stop it!" she whispered. + +"Oh, Chris, don't let's fool ourselves!" she interrupted his protest +impatiently. "Weeks ago, _weeks_ ago!--we said that we would see each +other less, that it would taper off. We tried. It's no use! If we were +in different cities--in different families, even! I tell myself that it +will grow less and less," she added presently, as the man watched her in +silence, "but oh, my God!--how long the years ahead look!" + +And Norma put her head down on the table, pressed her white fingers +suddenly against her eyes with a gesture infinitely desolate and +despairing, and he knew that she was in tears. Then there was a long +silence. + +"Look here, Norma," said Chris, suddenly, in a quiet, reasonable tone. +"I am thirty-eight. I've had affairs several times in my life, two or +three before I married Alice, two or three since. They've never been +very serious, never gone very deep. When we were married I was +twenty-four. I know women like to pretend that I'm an awful killer when +I get going," he interrupted himself to say boyishly, "but there was +really never anything of that sort in my life. I liked Alice, I remember +my mother talking to me a long time, and telling me how pleased everyone +would be if we came to care for each other, and--upon my honour!--I was +more surprised than anything else, to think that any one so pretty and +sweet would marry me! I don't think there's a woman in the world that I +admire more. But, Norma, I've lived her life for ten years. I want my +own now! I want my companion--my chum--my wife. I've played with women +since I was seventeen. But I never loved any woman before. Norma, +there's no life ahead for me, without you. And there's no place so +far--so lonely--so strange--but what it would be heaven for me if you +were there, looking at me as you are now, and with this little hand +where it belongs! My dear, the city is a blank--the men I meet might +just as well be wooden Indians; I can't breathe and I can't eat or +sleep. Get better? It gets worse! It can't go on!" + +She was crying again. They were almost alone now. A red spring sun was +sinking, far down the river, and all the world--the opposite shores, the +running waters of the Hudson--was bathed in the exquisite glow. Norma +fumbled with her left hand for her little handkerchief, her right hand +clinging tight to Chris's hand. + +"Now, Norma, I've been thinking," the man said, in a matter-of-fact +tone, after a pause. "The first consideration is, that this sort of +thing can't go on!" + +"No; this can't go on!" she agreed, quickly. "Every day makes it more +dangerous, and less satisfying! I never"--her eyes watered again--"I +never have a happy second!" she said. + +Chris looked at her, looked thoughtfully away. + +"The great trouble with the way I feel to you, Norma," he said, quietly, +"is that it seems to blot every other earthly consideration from view. I +see nothing, I think nothing, I hear nothing--but you!" + +"And is that so terrible?" Norma asked, touched, and smiling through +tears. + +"No, it is so wonderful," he answered, gravely, "that it blinds me. It +blinds me to your youth, my dear, your inexperience--your faith in me! +It makes me only remember that I need you--and want you--and that I +believe I could make you the happiest woman in the world!" + +The faint shadow of a frown crossed her forehead, and she slowly shook +her head. + +"Not divorce!" she said, lightly, but inflexibly. They had been over +this ground before. "No, there's no use in thinking of that! Even if it +were not for Aunt Alice, and Aunt Marianna, other things make it +impossible. You see that, Chris? Yes, I know!"--she interrupted herself +quickly, as Chris protested, "I know what plenty of good people, and the +law, and society generally think. But of course it would mean that we +could not live here for awhile, anyway! No--that's not thinkable!" + +"No, that's not thinkable," he agreed, slowly; "I am bound hand and +foot. It isn't only what Alice--as a wife--claims from me. But there are +Acton and Leslie; there is hardly a month that my brother doesn't +propose some plan that would utterly wreck their affairs if I didn't put +my foot down. They're both absolute children in money matters; Judge Lee +is getting old--there's no one to take my place. Your Aunt Marianna, +too; I've always managed everything for her. No; I'm tied." + +His voice fell. For awhile they sat silent, in the lingering, cool +spring twilight, while the red glow faded slowly from the river, and +from the opposite banks where houses and roofs showed between the bare +trees. + +"But what can we do, Norma? I've tried--I've tried a thousand times, to +see the future, without you. But I simply can't go on living on those +terms. There's nothing--nothing--nothing! I go to the piano, and before +I touch a note, the utter blank futility of it comes over me and sickens +me! It's the same in the office, and at the club; I seem to be only half +alive. If it could be even five years ahead--or ten years ahead--I would +wait. But it's never--never. No hope--nothing to live for! Life is +simply over--only one doesn't die." + +The girl had never heard quite this note of despair from him before, and +her heart sank. + +"You are young," he said, after a minute, and in a lighter tone, "and +perhaps--some day----" + +"No, don't believe that, Chris," Norma said, quietly. And with a gesture +full of pain she leaned her elbow on the table, and pressed her hand +across her eyes. "There will never be anybody else!" she said. "How +could there be? You are the only person--like yourself!--that I have +ever known!" + +The simplicity of her words, almost their childishness, made Chris's +eyes smart. He bit his lips, trying to smile. + +"It's too bad, isn't it?" he said, whimsically. + +Norma flung back her head, swallowing tears. She gathered gloves and +hand-bag, got to her feet. He followed her as she walked across the +darkening porch. They went down to the curving sweep of driveway where +the car waited, the big lighted eyes of other cars picking it out in the +gloom. The saturated ground gave under Norma's feet, the air was soft +and full of the odorous promise of blossom and leaf. A great star was +trembling in the opal sky, which still palpitated, toward the horizon, +with the pale pink and blue of the sunset. Dry branches clicked above +their heads, in a sudden soft puff of breeze. + +Norma, as she tucked herself in beside Chris, felt emotionally +exhausted, felt a sudden desperate need for solitude and silence. The +world seemed a lonely and cruel place. + +Almost without a word he drove her home, to the old Melrose house, and +came in with her to the long, dim drawing-room for a brief good-night. +He had not kissed her more than two or three times since the memorable +night of the dress rehearsal, but he kissed her to-night, and Norma felt +something solemn, something renunciatory, in the kiss. + +They had but an unsatisfactory two or three minutes together; Mrs. +Melrose might descend upon them at any second, was indeed audible in the +hall when Chris said suddenly: + +"You are not as brave--as your mother, Norma!" + +She met his eyes with something like terror in her own; standing still, +a few feet away from him, with her breath coming and going stormily. + +"No," she said in a sharp whisper. "Not _that_!" + +A moment later she was flying upstairs, her blue eyes still dilated with +fright, her face pale, and her senses rocking. Unseeing, unhearing, she +reached her own room, paced it distractedly, moving between desk and +dressing-table, window and bed, like some bewildered animal. Sometimes +she put her two hands over her face, the spread fingers pressed against +her forehead. Sometimes she stood perfectly still, arms hanging at her +sides, eyes blankly staring ahead. Once she dropped on her knees beside +the bed, and buried her burning cheeks against the delicate linen and +embroideries. + +Regina came in; Norma made a desperate attempt to control herself. She +saw a gown laid on the bed, heard bath water running, faced her own +haggard self in the mirror, as she began dressing. But when the maid was +gone, and Norma, somewhat pale, but quite self-possessed again, was +dressed for dinner, she lifted from its place on her book-shelf a little +picture of Chris and herself, taken the summer before, and studied it +with sorrowful eyes. + +He had been teaching her to ride, and Norma was radiant and sun-browned +in her riding-trousers and skirted coat, her cloud of hair loosened, and +her smart little hat in one hand. Chris, like all well-built men, was +always at his best in sports clothes; the head of his favourite mare +looked mildly over his shoulder. Behind the group stretched the +exquisite reaches of bridle-path, the great trees heavy with summer +foliage and heat. + +Norma touched her lips to the glass. + +"Chris--Chris--Chris!" she said, half aloud. "I love you so--and I have +brought you, of all men, to this! To the point when you would throw it +all aside--everything your wonderful and generous life has stood +for--for me! God," said Norma, softly, putting the picture down, and +covering her face with her hands, "don't let me do anything that will +hurt him and shame him; help me! Help us both!" + +A few minutes later she went down to dinner, which commenced +auspiciously, with the old lady in a gracious and expansive mood, and +her guests, old Judge Lee and his wife, and old Doctor and Mrs. Turner, +sufficiently intimate, and sufficiently reminiscent, to absolve Norma +from any conversational duty. The girl could follow her own line of +heroic and resolute thought uninterruptedly. + +But with the salad came utter rout again, and Norma's colour, and heart, +and breath, began to fluctuate in a renewed agony of hope and fear. It +was only Joseph, leaning deferentially over Judge Lee's shoulder, who +said softly: + +"Mr. Christopher Liggett, Judge. He has telephoned that he would like to +see you for a moment after dinner, and will be here at about nine +o'clock." + +The dinner went on, for Norma, in a daze. At a quarter to nine she went +upstairs; she was standing in the dark upper hallway at the window when +Chris came, saw him leave his car, and come quickly across the sidewalk +under the bare, moving boughs of the old maples. She was trembling with +the longing just to speak to him again, just to hear his voice. + +She went to her room, rang for Regina, meditating a message of +good-night that should include a headache as excuse. But before the maid +came she went quickly downstairs, and into his presence, as +instinctively as a drowning man might cling to anything that meant +air--just the essential air. They could not exchange a word alone, but +that was not important. The one necessity was to be together. + +Before ten o'clock Norma went back to her room. She undressed, and put +on a loose warm robe, and seated herself before the old-fashioned +fireplace. When Regina came, she asked the girl to put out all the +lights. + +Voices floated up from the front hall: the great entrance door closed, +the motors wheeled away. The guests were gone--Chris was gone. Norma +heard old Mrs. Melrose come upstairs, heard her door shut, then there +was silence. + +Silence. Eleven struck from Madison Tower; midnight struck. Even the +streets were quieter now. The squares of moonlight shifted on Norma's +floor, went away. The fire died down, the big room was warm, and dim, +and very still. + +Hugged in her warm wrap, curled into her big chair, the girl sat like +some tranced creature, thinking--thinking--thinking. + +At first her thoughts were of terror and shame. In what fool's paradise +had she been drifting, she asked herself contemptuously, that she and +Chris, reasonable, right-thinking man and woman, could be reduced to +this fearful and wretched position, could even consider--even name--what +their sane senses must shrink from in utter horror! Norma was but +twenty-two, but she knew that there was only one end to that road. + +So that way was closed, even to the brimming tide that rose up in her +when she thought of it, and flooded her whole being with the ecstatic +realization of her love for Chris, and of what surrender to him would +mean. + +That way was closed. She must tell herself over and over. For her own +sake, for the sake of Aunt Kate and Aunt Marianna, for Rose even, she +must not think of that. Above all, for his sake--for Chris, the fine, +good, self-sacrificing Chris of her first friendship, she must be +strong. + +And Norma, at this point in her circling and confused thoughts, would +drop her face in the crook of her bent arm, and the tears would brim +over again and again. She was not strong. She could not be strong. And +she was afraid. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Regina, coming through the hallway at seven o'clock, was amazed to +encounter Miss Sheridan, evidently fresh from a bath, a black hat tipped +over her smiling eyes, and her big fur coat belted about her. Norma's +vigil had lasted until after two o'clock, but then she had had four +hours of restful sleep, for she knew that she had found the way. + +She left a message with Regina for Mrs. Melrose; she was going to Mrs. +Sheridan's, and would telephone in a day or two. Smiling, she slipped +out into the quiet street, where the autumn sunlight was just beginning +to strike across the damp pavements, and smilingly she disappeared into +the great currents of men and women who were already pouring to and fro +along the main thoroughfares. + +But she did not go quite as far as her aunt's, after all. For perhaps +fifteen minutes she waited on the corner of the block, walking slowly to +and fro, watching the house closely. + +Then Wolf Sheridan came out, and set off at his usual brisk walk toward +the subway. Norma stepped before him, trembling and smiling. + +"Nono--for the Lord's sake! Where did you come from?" + +He took her suit-case from her as she caught his arm, drew him aside, +and looked up at him with her old childish air of coaxing. + +"Wolf----! I've been waiting for you. Wolf, I'm in trouble!" She laughed +at his concern. "Not real trouble!" she reassured him, quickly. +"But--but----" + +And suddenly tears came, and she found she could not go on. + +"Is it a man?" Wolf asked, looking down at her with everything that was +brotherly and kind in his young face. + +"Yes," Norma answered, not raising her eyes from the overcoat button +that she was pushing in and out of its hold. "Wolf," she added, quickly, +"I'm afraid of him, and afraid of myself! You--you told me months +ago----" She looked up, suffocating. + +"I know what I told you!" Wolf said, clearing his throat. + +"And--do you still feel--that way?" + +"You know I do, Norma," Wolf said, more concerned for her emotion than +his own. "Do you--do you want me to send this--this fellow about his +business?" + +"Oh, no!" she said, laughing nervously. "I don't want any one to know +it; nobody must dream it! I can't marry him, I shall never marry him. +But--he won't let me alone. Wolf----" She seemed to herself to be +getting no nearer her point, and now she seized her courage in both +hands, and looked up at him bravely. "Will you--take care of me?" she +faltered. "I mean--I mean as your wife?" + +"Do you mean----" Wolf began. Then his expression changed, and his +colour rose. "Norma--you don't mean that!" + +"Yes, but I do!" she said, exquisite and flushed and laughing, in the +sweet early sunlight. + +"You mean that you will marry me?" Wolf asked, dazedly. + +"To-day!" she answered, fired by his look of awe and amazement and +rapture all combined. "I want to be safe," she added, quickly. "I trust +you more than any other man I know--I've loved you like a little sister +all my life." + +"Ah--Norma, you darling--you darling!" he said. "But are you sure?" + +"Oh, quite sure!" Norma turned him toward Broadway, her little arm +linked wife-fashion in his. "Don't we go along together nicely?" she +asked, gaily. + +"Norma--my God! If you knew how I love you--how I've longed for you! But +I can't believe it; I never will believe it! What made you do it?" + +Her face sobered for a second. + +"Just needing you, I suppose! Wolf"--her colour rose--"I want you to +know who it is; it's Chris." + +"Who--the man who annoys you?" Wolf asked in healthy distaste. + +"The man I'm afraid of," she answered, honestly. + +"But--Lord!" Wolf exclaimed, simply, "he has a wife!" + +"I know it!" the girl said, quickly. "But I wanted you to know. I want +you to know why I'm running away from them all." Relief rang in her +voice as his delighted eyes showed no cloud. "That's all!" she said. + +"Norma, I can't--my God!--I can't tell whether I'm awake or dreaming!" +Wolf was all joy again. "We'll--wait a minute!--we'll get a taxi; I'll +telephone the factory later----" He paused suddenly. "Mother's in East +Orange with Rose. Shall we go there first?" + +"No; you're to do as I say from now on, Wolf!" + +"Ah, you darling!" + +"And I say let's be married first, and then go and see Rose." + +"Norma----" He stopped in the street, and put his two hands on her +shoulders. "I'll be a good husband to you. You'll never be sorry you +trusted me. Dearest, it's--well, it's the most wonderful thing that ever +happened in my whole life! Here's our taxi--wait a minute; what day is +this?" + +"Whatever else it is," she said, half-laughing and half-crying, "I know +it is my wedding day!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +To Rose and her mother, Wolf's and Norma's marriage remained one of the +beautiful surprises of life; one of the things that, as sane mortals, +they had dared neither to dream nor hope. Life had been full enough for +mother and daughter, and sweet enough, that March morning, even without +the miracle. The baby had been bathed, in a flood of dancing sunshine, +and had had his breakfast out under the budding bare network of the +grape arbour. The little house had been put into spotless order while he +slept, and Rose had pinned on her winter hat, and gone gaily to market, +with exactly one dollar and seventy-five cents in her purse. And she had +come back to find her mother standing beside the shabby baby-coach, in +the tiny backyard, looking down thoughtfully at the sleeping child, and +evidently under the impression that she was peeling the apples, in the +yellow bowl that rested on her broad hip. Rose had also studied her son +for a few awed seconds, and then, reminding her mother that it was past +twelve o'clock, had led the way toward tea-making, and the general +heating and toasting and mincing of odds and ends for luncheon. And they +had been in the kitchen, talking over the last scraps of this meal, +when---- + +When there had been laughter and voices at the open front doorway, and +when Mrs. Sheridan's startled "Wolf!" had been followed by Rose's +surprised "Norma!" Then they had come in, Wolf and Norma, laughing and +excited and bubbling with their great news. And in joy and tears, +confused interruptions and exclamations, explanations that got nowhere, +and a plentiful distribution of kisses, somehow it got itself told. They +had been married an hour ago--Norma was Wolf's wife! + +The girl was radiant. Never in her life had these three who loved her +seen her so beautiful, so enchantingly confident and gay. Rose and her +mother had some little trouble, later on, in patching the sequence of +events together for the delighted but bewildered Harry, Rose's husband. +But there could be no doubt, even to the shrewd eyes of her Aunt Kate, +that Norma was ecstatically happy. Her mad kisses for Rose, the laughter +with which she described the expedition to bank and jeweller, the +license bureau and the church in Jersey City--for in order to have the +ceremony performed immediately it had been necessary to be married in +New Jersey--her delicious boldness toward the awed and rapturous and +almost stupefied Wolf, were all proof that she entertained not even the +usual girlish misgivings of the wedding day. + +"You see, I've not been all tired out with trousseau and engagement +affairs and photographers and milliners and all that," she explained, +gaily. "I've only got what's in my bag there, but I've wired Aunt +Marianna, and told her to tell them all. And we'll be back on +Monday--wait until I ask my husband; Wolftone, dear, shall we be back on +Monday?" + +She had the baby in her lap; they were all in the dining-room. Rose had +been assured that the bride and groom were not hungry; they had had +sandwiches somewhere--some time--oh, down near the City Hall in Jersey +City. But Rose had made more tea, and more toast, and she had opened her +own best plum jam, and they were all eating with the heartiness of +children. Presently Norma went to get in Aunt Kate's lap, and asked her +if she was glad, and made herself so generally engaging and endearing, +with her slender little body clasped in the big motherly arms and her +soft face resting against the older, weather-beaten face, that Wolf did +not dare to look at her. + +They were going to Atlantic City; neither had ever been there, and if +this warm weather lasted it would be lovely, even in early spring. It +was almost four o'clock when the younger women went upstairs for the +freshening touches that Norma declared she needed, and then Wolf and his +mother were left alone. + +He knelt down beside the big rocker in which she was ensconced with the +baby, and she put one arm about him, and kissed the big thick crest of +his brown hair. + +"You're glad, aren't you, Mother?" + +"Glad! I've prayed for it ever since she came to me, years ago," Mrs. +Sheridan answered. But after a moment she added, gravely: "She's pure +gold, our Norma. They've sickened her, just as I knew they would! But, +Wolf, she may swing back for a little while. She's like that; she always +has been. She was no more than a baby when she'd be as naughty as she +could be, and then so good that I was afraid I was going to lose her. Go +gently with her, Wolf; be patient with her, dear. She's going to make a +magnificent woman, some day." + +"She's a magnificent woman, now," the man said, simply. "She's too good +for me, I know that. She's--you can't think how cunning she is--how +wonderful she's been, all day!" + +"Go slowly," his mother said again. "She's only a baby, Wolf; she's +excited and romantic and generous because she's such a baby! Don't make +her sorry that she's given herself to you so--so trusting----" + +She hesitated. + +"I'll take care of her!" Wolf asserted, a little gruffly. + +There was time for no more; they heard her step on the stairs, and she +came dancing back with Rose. Her cheeks were burning with excitement; +she gave her aunt and cousin quick good-bye kisses, and caught the +baby's soft little cheek to her own velvety one. She and Wolf would be +back on Sunday night, they promised; as they ran down the path the sun +slipped behind a leaden cloud, and all the world darkened suddenly. A +brisk whirl of springtime wind shook the rose bushes in Rose's little +garden, and there was a cool rushing in the air that promised rain. + +But Norma was still carried along on the high tide of supreme emotion, +and to Wolf the day was radiant with unearthly sunshine, and perfumed +with all the flowers of spring. The girl had flung herself so +wholeheartedly into her role that it was not enough to bewilder and +please Wolf, she must make him utterly happy. Dear old Wolf--always +ready to protect her, always good and big and affectionate, and ready to +laugh at her silliest jokes, and ready to meet any of her problems +sympathetically and generously. Her beauty, her irresistible charm as +she hung on his arm and chattered of what they would do when they +started housekeeping, almost dizzied him. + +She liked everything: their wheeling deep upholstered seats in the +train; the seaside hotel, with the sea rolling so near in the soft +twilight; the dinner for which they found themselves so hungry. +Afterward they climbed laughing into a big chair, and were pushed along +between the moving lines of other chairs, far up the long boardwalk. And +Norma, with her soft loose glove in Wolf's big hand, leaned back against +the curved wicker seat, and looked at the little lighted shops, and +listened to the scrape of feet and chatter of tongues and the solemn +roll and crash of the waves, and stared up childishly at the arch of +stars that looked so far and calm above this petty noise and glare. She +was very tired, every muscle in her body ached, but she was content. +Wolf was taking care of her and there would be no more lonely vigils and +agonies of indecision and pain. She thought of Christopher with a sort +of childish quiet triumph; she had solved the whole matter for them +both, superbly. + +Wolf was a silent man with persons he did not know. But he never was +silent with Norma; he always had a thousand things to discuss with her. +The lights and the stir on the boardwalk inspired him to all sorts of +good-natured criticism and speculation, and they estimated just the +expense and waste that went on there day by day. + +"Really to have the ocean, Wolf, it would be so much nicer to be even in +the wildest place--just rocks and coves. This is like having a lion in +your front parlour!" + +"Lord, Norma--when I got up this morning, if somebody had told me that I +would be married, and down at Atlantic City to-night----!" + +"I know; it's like a dream!" + +"But you're not sorry, Norma; you're sure that I'm going to make you +happy?" the man asked, in sudden anxiety. + +"You always _have_, Wolf!" she answered, very simply. + +He never really doubted it; it was a part of Wolf's healthy normal +nature to believe what was good and loving. He was not exacting, not +envious; he had no real understanding of her giddy old desires for +wealth and social power. Wolf at twenty-five was working so hard and so +interestedly, sleeping so deeply, eating his meals with such appetite, +and enjoying his rare idle time so heartily, that he had neither time +nor inclination for vagaries. He had always been older than his years, +schooled to feel that just good meals and a sure roof above him marked +him as one of the fortunate ones of the earth, and of late his work in +the big factory had been responsible enough, absorbing enough, and more +than gratifying enough to satisfy him with his prospects. He was liked +for himself, and he knew it, and he was already known for that strange +one-sightedness, that odd little twist of mechanical vision, that sure +knowledge of himself and his medium, that is genius. The joy of finding +himself, and that the world needed him, had been strong upon Wolf during +the last few months, and that Norma had come back to him seemed only a +reason for fresh dedication to his work, an augury that life was going +to be kind to him. + +She was gone when he wakened the next morning, but he knew that the sea +had an irresistible fascination for her, and followed her quite as +surely as if she had left footprints on the clear and empty sands. He +found her with her back propped against a low wooden bulkhead, her +slender ankles crossed before her, her blue eyes fixed far out at sea. + +She turned, and looked up at him from under the brim of her hat, and the +man's heart turned almost sick with the depth of sudden adoration that +shook him; so young, so friendly and simple and trusting was the ready +smile, so infinitely endearing the touch of the warm fingers she slipped +into his! He sat down beside her, and they dug their heels into the +sand, and talked in low tones. The sun shone down on them kindly, and +the waves curved and broke, and came rushing and slithering to their +feet, and slid churning and foaming noisily under the pier near by. +Norma buried her husband's big hand in sand, and sifted sand through her +slender fingers; sometimes she looked with her far-away look far out +across the gently rocking ocean, and sometimes she brought her blue eyes +gravely to his. And the new seriousness in them, the grave and noble +sweetness that he read there, made Wolf suddenly feel himself no longer +a boy, no longer free, but bound for ever to this exquisite and +bewildering child who was a woman, or woman who was a child, sacredly +bound to give her the best that there was in him of love and service and +protection. + +She showed him a new Norma, here on the sunshiny sands, one that he was +to know better as the days went by. She had always deferred to his +wisdom and his understanding, but she seemed to him mysteriously wise +this morning--no longer the old little sister Norma, but a new, sage, +keen-eyed woman, toward whom his whole being was flooded with humility +and awe and utter, speechless adoration. + +At nine o'clock, when nurses and children began to come down to the +shore, they got to their feet, and wandered in to breakfast. And here, +to his delight, she was suddenly the old mad-cap Norma again, healthily +eager for ham and eggs and hot coffee, interested in everything, and +bewitchingly pretty in whatever position she took. + +"I wish we had the old 'bus, Nono," Wolf said. He usually spoke of his +motor-car by this name. "They've been overhauling her in that Newark +place. She was to be ready--by George, she was ready yesterday!" + +"We'll go over--I'll come over and meet you next Saturday," his young +wife promised, busy with rolls and marmalade, "and you'll take me to +lunch, and then we'll get the car, and go and take Rose and the baby for +a ride!" + +"Norma," the man exclaimed, suddenly struck with a sense of utter +felicity, and leaning across the table to stop, for the minute, her +moving fingers with the pressure of his own, "you haven't any idea how +much I love you--I didn't know myself what it was going to mean! To have +you come over to the factory, and to have somebody say that Mrs. +Sheridan is there, and to go to lunch--Dearest, do you realize how +wonderful and how--well, how _wonderful_ it's going to be? Norma, I +can't believe it. I can't believe that this is what love means to +everybody. I can't believe that every man who marries his--his----" + +"Girl," she supplied, laughing. + +"Girl--but I didn't mean girl. I meant his ideal--the loveliest person +he ever knew," Wolf said, with a new quickness of tongue that she knew +was born of happiness. "I can't believe that just going to Childs' +restaurants, or taking the car out on Sunday, or any other fool thing +we do, means to any man what it's going to mean to me! I just--well, I +told you that. I just can't believe it!" + +Two days later they came home for Sunday supper, and there was much +simple joy and laughter in the little city apartment. Aunt Kate of +course had fried chicken and coffee ice-cream for her four big children. +Harry Junior, awakening, was brought dewy and blinking to the table, +where his Aunt Norma kissed the tears from his warm, round little +cheeks, and gave him crumbs of sponge cake. Rose and Harry left at ten +o'clock for their country home, leaving the precious baby for his +grandmother and aunt to bring back the next day, but the other three sat +talking and planning until almost midnight, and Kate could feast her +eyes to her heart's content upon the picture of Wolf in his father's old +leather chair, with Norma perched on the wide arm, one of her own arms +about her husband's neck and their fingers locked together. + +It was settled that they were to find a little house in East Orange, +near Rose, and furnish it from top to bottom, and go to housekeeping +immediately. Meanwhile, Norma must see the Melroses, and get her wedding +announcements engraved, and order some new calling cards, and do a +thousand things. She and Wolf must spend their evenings writing +notes--and presents would be arriving----! + +She made infinitesimal lists, and put them into her shopping bag, or +stuck them in her mirror, but Wolf laughed at them all. And instead of +disposing of them, they developed a demoralizing habit of wandering out +into Broadway, in their old fashion, after dinner, looking into shop +windows, drifting into little theatres, talking to beggars and taxi-cab +men and policemen and strangers generally, mingling with the bubbling +young life of the city that overflowed the sidewalks, and surged in and +out of candy and drug stores, and sat talking on park benches deep into +the soft young summer nights. + +Sometimes they went down to the shrill and crowded streets of the lower +east side, and philosophized youthfully over what they saw there; and, +as the nights grew heavier and warmer, they often took the car, and +skimmed out into the heavenly green open spaces of the park, or, on +Saturday afternoon, packed their supper, and carried it fifty miles away +to the woods or the shore. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Before she had been married ten days Norma dutifully went to call upon +old Mrs. Melrose, being fortunate enough to find Leslie there. The old +lady came toward Norma with her soft old wavering footsteps, and gave +the girl a warm kiss even with her initial rebuke: + +"Well, I don't know whether I am speaking to this bad runaway or not!" +she quavered, releasing Norma from her bejewelled and lace-draped +embrace, and shaking her fluffed and scanty gray hair. + +"Oh, yes, you are, Aunt Marianna," the girl said, confidently, with her +happy laugh. Leslie, coming more slowly forward, laughed and kissed her, +too. + +"But why didn't you tell us, Norma, and have a regular wedding, like +mine?" she protested. "I didn't know that you and your cousin were even +engaged!" + +"We've worked it out that we were engaged for exactly three hours and +ten minutes," Norma said, as they all settled down in the magnificent, +ugly, comfortable old sitting-room for tea. She could see that both +Leslie and her grandmother were far from displeased. As a matter of +fact, the old lady was secretly delighted. The girl was most suitably +and happily and satisfactorily married; justice had been done her, and +she had solved her own problem splendidly. + +"But you knew he liked you," Leslie ventured, diverted and curious. + +"Oh, well----" Norma's lips puckered mischievously and she looked down. + +"Oh, you _were_ engaged!" Leslie said, incredulously. "He's handsome, +isn't he, Norma?" + +"Yes," the wife admitted, as if casually. "He really is--at least I +think so. And I think everyone else thinks so. At least, when I compare +him to the other men--for instance----" + +"Oh, Norma, I'll bet you're crazy about him," Leslie said, derisively. + +Norma looked appealingly at the old lady, her eyes dancing with fun. + +"Well, of _course_ she loves her husband," Mrs. Melrose protested, with +a little cushiony pat of her hand for the visitor. + +"I don't see that it's 'of course'," Leslie argued, airily, with a +little bitterness in her tone. Her grandmother looked at her in quick +reproof and anxiety. "The latest," she said, drily, to Norma, "is that +my delightful husband is living at his club." + +"Now, Leslie, that is very naughty," the old lady said, warmly. "You +shouldn't talk so of Acton." + +"Well," Leslie countered, with elaborate innocence, turning to Norma, +"all I can say is that he walked out one night, and didn't come back +until the next! Of course," she added, with a suppressed yawn that +poorly concealed her sudden inclination to tears, "of course _I_ don't +care. Patsy and I are going up to Glen Cove next week--and he can live +at his club, for all me!" + +"Money?" Norma asked. For Leslie's extravagance was usually the cause of +the young Liggetts' domestic strife. + +Leslie, who had lighted a cigarette, made an affirmative grimace. + +"Now, it's all been settled, and Grandma has straightened it all out," +old Mrs. Melrose said, soothingly. "Acton was making out their income +tax," she explained, "and some money was mentioned--how was that, +dear?--Leslie had sold something--and he hadn't known of it, that was +all! Of course he was a little cross, poor boy; he had worked it all out +one way, and he had no idea that this extra--sixteen thousand, was +it?--had come in at all, and been spent----" + +"Most of it for bills!" Leslie interpolated, bitterly. Norma laughed. + +"Sixteen thou----! Oh, heavens, my husband's salary is sixty dollars a +week!" she confessed, gaily. + +"But you have your own money," the old lady reminded her, kindly, "and a +very nice thing for a wife, too! I've talked to Judge Lee about it, +dear, and it's all arranged. You must let me do this, Norma----" + +"I think you're awfully good to me, Aunt Marianna," Norma said, +thoughtfully. "I told Wolf about it, and he thinks so, too. But +honestly----" + +Even with her secret knowledge of her own parentage, Norma was surprised +at the fluttered anxiety of the old lady, and Leslie was frankly +puzzled. + +"No, Norma--no, Norma," Mrs. Melrose said, nervously and imploringly. "I +don't want you to discuss that at all--it's _settled_. The check is to +be deposited every month, or quarter, or whatever it was----" + +"Don't be a fool, Norma, you'll need it, one way or another," Leslie +assured her. But in her own heart Leslie wondered at her grandmother's +generosity. + +"Everybody needs more money. I'll bet you the King of England----" + +"Oh, kings!" Norma laughed. "They're the worst of all. I don't know +about this one, but they're always appealing for special funds--all of +them. And that's one thing that makes Wolf so mad--the fact that all +they have to do, for ridiculous extravagances, is clap on a tax." + +But Leslie and her grandmother were not interested in the young +engineer's economic theories. The old lady followed Norma's spirited +summary merely with an uneasy: "You mustn't let your husband get any +socialistic ideas, Norma; there's too much of that now!" and Leslie, +after a close study of Norma's glowing face, remarked suddenly: + +"Norma, I'll bet you a _dollar_ you're rouged!" + +Before she left, the visitor managed a casual inquiry about Aunt Alice. + +Aunt Alice was fine, Leslie answered carelessly, adding immediately that +no, Aunt Alice really wasn't extremely well. Doctor Garrett didn't want +her to go away this summer, thought that move was an unnecessary waste +of energy, since Aunt Alice's house was so cool, and she felt the heat +so little. And Chris said that Alice had always really wanted to stay in +town, in her own comfortable suite. She liked her second nurse +immensely, and Miss Slater was really running the house now, the third +nurse coming only at night. + +"But Aunt Alice never had a nurse at night," Norma was going to say. But +she caught the stricken and apprehensive look on the old lady's face, +and substituted generously: "Well, I remember Aunt Alice told me she had +one of these wretched times several years ago." + +"Yes, indeed she did--frightened us almost to death," Mrs. Melrose +agreed, thankfully. + +"And how is--how is Chris?" Norma felt proud of the natural tone in +which she could ask the question. + +"Chris is fine," Leslie answered. She rarely varied the phrase in this +relation. "He's hunting in Canada. He had a wire from some man there, +and he went off about a week ago. They're going after moose, I believe; +Chris didn't expect to get back for a month. Aunt Alice was delighted, +because she hates to keep him in town all summer, but Acton told me that +he thought Chris was sick--that he and Judge Lee just made him go." + +Well, her heart would flutter, she could not stop it or ignore it. Norma +found no answer ready, and though she lifted her cup to her lips, to +hide her confusion, she could not taste it. The strangeness of Chris's +sudden departure was no mystery to her; he had been shocked and stunned +by her marriage, and he had run away from the eyes that might have +pierced his discomfiture. + +Still, her hands were trembling, and she felt oddly shaken and confused. +Leslie carried the conversation away to safer fields, and shortly +afterward Norma could say her good-byes. Everybody, Leslie said, walking +with her to the corner, wanted to know what the bride wanted for a +wedding-present. Norma told Wolf, over their candle-lighted supper +table, an hour or two later, that he and she would be bankrupted for +life returning them. + +Yet she loved the excitement of receiving the gifts; naturally enough, +loved Rose's ecstasies over the rugs and silver and mahogany that made +the little New Jersey house a jewel among its kind. It was what Norma +had unhesitatingly pronounced an "adorable" house, a copy of the true +colonial green-and-white, quaint and prim enough to please even Leslie, +when Leslie duly came to call. It stood at the end of a tree-shaded +street, with the rising woods behind it, and Norma recklessly invested +in brick walks and a latticed green fence, hydrangeas in wooden tubs and +sunflowers and hollyhocks, until her stretch of side garden looked like +a picture by Kate Greenaway. + +When it was all done, midsummer was upon them, but she and Wolf thought +that there had never been anything so complete and so charming in all +the world. The striped awnings that threw clean shadows upon the clipped +grass; the tea table under the blue-green leaves of an old apple tree; +the glass doors that opened upon orderly, white-wainscoted rooms full of +shining dark surfaces and flowered chintzes and gleaming glass bowls of +real flowers; the smallness and completeness and prettiness of +everything filled them both with utter satisfaction. + +Norma played at housekeeping like a little girl in a doll's house. She +had a rosy little Finnish maid who enjoyed it all almost as much as she +did, and their adventures in hospitality were a constant amusement and +delight. On Saturdays, when Rose and Harry and Aunt Kate usually +arrived, Wolf could hardly believe that all this ideal beauty and +pleasure was his to share. + +The girls would pose and photograph the baby tirelessly, laughing as he +toppled and protested, and kissing the fat legs that showed between his +pink romper and his pink socks. They would pack picnic lunches, rushing +to and fro breathlessly with thermos bottles and extra wraps for Miggs, +as Harry Junior was usually called. Once or twice they cleaned the car, +with tremendous splashing and spattering, assuming Wolf's old overalls +for the operation, and retreating with shrieks into the kitchen whenever +the sound of an approaching motor-car penetrated into their quiet road. +Mrs. Sheridan characterized them variously as "Wild Indians", "Ay-rabs", +and "poor innocents" but her heart was so filled with joy and gratitude +for the turn of events that had brought all these miracles about, that +no nonsense and no noise seemed to her really extravagant. + +It was an exceptionally pleasant community into which the young +Sheridans had chanced to move, and they might have had much more +neighbourly life than they chose to take. There were about them +beginners of all sorts: writers and artists and newspaper men, whose +little cars, and little maids, and great ambitions would have formed a +strong bond of sympathy in time. But Wolf and Norma saw them only +occasionally, when a Sunday supper at the country club or a +Saturday-night dance supplied them with a pleasant stimulating sense of +being liked and welcomed, or when general greetings on the eight-o'clock +train in the morning were mingled with comments on the thunderstorm or +the epidemic of nursery chicken-pox. + +When Rose and Harry were gone, on Sunday evenings, Wolf and Norma might +sit on the side steps of the side porch, looking off across the gradual +drop descent of tree-tops and shingled roofs, into a distant world +silvering under the summer moon. These were their happiest times, when +solitude and quiet spread about them, after the hospitable excitements +of the day, and they could talk and dream and plan for the years ahead. + +She was an older Norma now, even though marriage had not touched her +with any real responsibility, and even though she was more full of +delicious childish absurdities than ever. The first months of their +marriage had curiously reversed their relationship, and it was Norma now +who gave, and Wolf who humbly and gratefully accepted. It was Norma who +poured comfort and beauty and companionship into his life, who smiled at +him over his morning fruit, and who waited for him under the old maple +at the turn of the road, every night. And as her wonderful and touching +generosity enveloped him, and her strange wisdom and new sweetness +impressed him more and more, Wolf marvelled and adored her more utterly. +He had always loved her as a big brother, had even experienced a +definite heartache when she grew up and went away, a lovely and +unattainable girl in the place where their old giddy dear little Norma +had been. + +But now his passion for his young wife was becoming a devouring fire in +Wolf's heart; she absorbed him and possessed him like a madness. A dozen +times a day he would take from his pocket-book the thin leather case she +had given him, holding on one side a photograph of the three heads of +Rose, his mother, and the baby, and on the other an enchanting shadow of +the loosened soft hair and the serious profile that was Norma. + +And as he stood looking at it, with the machinery roaring about him, and +the sunlight beating in through steel-barred windows sixty feet high, in +all the confusion of shavings and oil-soaked wood, polished sliding +shafts streaked with thick blue grease, stifling odours of creosote and +oily "wipes", Wolf's eyes would fill with tears and he would shake his +head at his own emotion, and try to laugh it away. + +After awhile he took another little picture of her, this one taken under +a taut parasol in bright sunlight, and fitted it over the opposite +faces; and then when he had studied one picture he could turn to the +other, and perhaps go back to the first before his eyes were satisfied. + +And if during the day some thought brought her suddenly to mind, he +would stop short in whatever he was doing, and remember her little timid +upglancing look as she hazarded, at breakfast, some question about his +work, or remember her enthusiasm, on a country tramp, for the chance +meal at some wayside restaurant, and sheer love of her would overwhelm +him, and he would find his eyes brimming again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +So the summer fled, and before she fairly realized it Norma saw the +leaves colouring behind the little house like a wall of fire, and +rustled them with her feet when she tramped with Wolf's big collie into +the woods. The air grew clearer and thinner, sunset came too soon, and a +delicate beading of dew loitered on the shady side of the house until +almost noon. + +One October day, when she had been six months a wife, Norma made her +first call upon Annie von Behrens. Alice she had seen several times, +when she had stopped in, late in the summer mornings, to entertain the +invalid with her first adventures in housekeeping, and chat with Miss +Slater. But Chris she had quite deliberately avoided. He had written her +from Canada a brief and charming note, which she had shown Wolf, and he +and Alice had had their share in the general family gift of silver, the +crates and bags and boxes of spoons and bowls and teapots that had +anticipated every possible table need of the Sheridans for generations +to come. But that was all; she had not seen Chris, and did not want to +see him. + +"The whole thing is rather like a sickness, in my mind," she told Wolf, +"and I don't want to see him any more than you would a doctor or a nurse +that was associated with illness. I don't know what we--what I was +thinking about!" + +"But you think he really--loved you--Nono?" + +"Well--or he thought he did!" + +"And did you like him terribly?" + +"I think I thought I did, too. It was--of course it was something we +couldn't very well discuss----." + +"Well, I'm sorry for him." Wolf had dismissed him easily. On her part, +Norma was conscious of no particular emotion when she thought of Chris. +The suddenness and violence with which she had broken that association +and made its resumption for ever impossible, had carried her safely into +a totally different life. Her marriage, her new husband and new home, +her new title indeed, made her seem another woman, and if she thought of +Chris at all it was to imagine what he would think of these changes, and +to fancy what he would say of them, when they met. No purely visionary +meeting can hold the element of passion, and so it was a remote and +spiritualized Chris of whom Norma came to think, far removed from the +actual man of flesh and blood. + +Her call upon Annie she made with a mental reserve of cheerful +explanation and apology ready for Annie's first reproach. Norma never +could quite forget the extraordinary relationship in which she stood to +Annie; and, perhaps half consciously, was influenced by the belief that +some day the brilliant and wonderful Mrs. von Behrens would come to know +of it, too. + +But Annie, who happened to be at home, and had other callers, rapidly +dashed Norma's vague and romantic anticipations by showing her only the +brisk and aloof cordiality with which she held at bay nine tenths of her +acquaintance. Annie's old butler showed Norma impassively to the little +drawing-room that was tucked in beyond the big one; two or three +strangers eyed the newcomer cautiously, and Annie merely accorded her a +perfunctory welcome. They were having tea. + +"Well, how do you do? How very nice of you, Norma. Do you know Mrs. +Theodore Thayer, and Mrs. Thayer, and Miss Bishop? Katrina, this is--the +name is still Sheridan, isn't it, Norma?--this is Mrs. Sheridan, who was +with Mama and Leslie last summer. You have lots of sugar and cream, +Norma, of course--all youngsters do. And you're near the toast----" And +Annie, dismissing her, leaned back in her chair, and dropped her voice +to the undertone that Norma had evidently interrupted. "Do go on, +Leila," she said, to the older of the three women, "that's quite +delicious! I heard something of it, but I knew of course that there was +more----" + +A highly flavoured little scandal was in process of construction. Norma +knew the principals slightly; the divorced woman, and the second husband +from whom she had borrowed money to loan the first. She could join in +the laughter that broke out presently, while she tried to identify her +companions. The younger Mrs. Thayer had been the Miss Katrina Davenport +of last month's brilliant wedding. Pictures of her had filled the +illustrated weeklies, and all the world knew that she and her husband +were preparing to leave for a wonderful home in Hawaii, where the family +sugar interests were based. They were to cross the continent, Norma +knew, in the Davenport private car, to be elaborately entertained in San +Francisco, and to be prominent, naturally, in the island set. Little +Miss Bishop had just announced her engagement to Lord Donnyfare, a +splendid, big, clumsy, and impecunious young Briton who had made himself +very popular with the younger group this winter. They were to be +married in January and her ladyship would shortly afterward be +transferred to London society, presented at court, and placed as +mistress over the old family acres in Devonshire. + +They were both nice girls, pretty, beautifully groomed and dressed, and +far from unintelligent as they discussed their plans; how their +favourite horses and dogs would be moved, and what instructions had been +given the maids who had preceded them to their respective homes. Katrina +Thayer was just twenty, Mary Bishop a year younger; Norma knew that the +former was perhaps the richest girl in America, and the latter was also +an heiress, the society papers having already hinted that among the +wedding gifts shortly to be displayed would be an uncle's casual check +for one million dollars. + +"And of course it'll be charming for Chris, Mary," Annie presently said, +"if he's really sent to Saint James's." + +Norma felt her throat thicken. + +"Chris--to England--as Ambassador?" she said. + +"Well, there's just a possibility--no, there's more than that!" Annie +told her. "I believe he'll take it, if it is offered. Of course, he's +supremely well fitted for it. There's even"--Annie threw out to the +company at large, with that air of being specially informed in which she +delighted--"there's even very good reason to suppose that influence has +been brought to bear by----But I don't dare go into that. However, we +feel that it will be offered. And the one serious drawback is naturally +my sister. Alice--poor child! And yet, of us all, Alice is most +desperately eager for Chris to take it." + +"I should think," Norma said, "that Aunt Alice could almost be +moved----?" + +"Oh, she would be!" Annie agreed, with her quick, superior definiteness. +"That's the very question. Whether the north Atlantic passage, say in +May, when it oughtn't to be so hard, would be too much for her. Of +course it would tire her and shake her cruelly, no doubt of that. But +Hendrick even talks of some sort of balanced bed--on the hammock +idea--and Miss Slater would see that everything that was humanly +possible was done. I believe it could be managed. Then she would be met +by one of those big, comfortable English ambulances, at Southampton, and +taken right to her apartment, or hotel, or whatever Chris arranges." + +"Not so much harder," Norma ventured, "than the trip to Newport, after +all." + +"Well, she didn't go to Newport last summer," Annie said, "but she is +certainly better now than she was then, and I believe it could be done; +I really do. We're not talking a great deal about it, because nothing is +settled, but if it becomes definite, I shall certainly advise it." + +Norma drank her tea, and listened, and threw in an occasional word. When +the other women rose to go, she rose, too, perhaps half-hoping that +Annie would hold her for a more intimate word. But Annie quite suavely +and indifferently included her in her general farewells, and Norma had +cordial good-byes from the two young women, and even a vague invitation +from the older Mrs. Thayer to come and see her, when Katrina was gone. + +Then she was walking down the Avenue, with her head and heart in a +confused whirl of bitterness and disappointment. The three quarters of +an hour in Aunt Annie's big, dim, luxurious palace had been like a dose +of some insidious poison. + +The very atmosphere of richness and service and idleness, the beauty of +wide spaces and rich tones, the massed blossoms and dimmed lights, +struck sharply upon senses attuned to Aunt Kate's quick voice, Rose's +little house with its poverty and utility, and Wolf's frank enjoyment of +his late and simple dinner. The conversation, with its pleasant +assumption of untold wealth of power and travel and regal luxuriousness, +burned its memory across Norma's mind like a corroding acid. They were +not contemptible, they were not robbers or brutes or hideous old +plutocrats who had grown wealthy upon the wrongs of the poor. No, they +were normal pleasant girls whose code it was to be generous to maids and +underlings, to speak well of their neighbours, to pay their bills and +keep their promises. + +"They make me _tired_!" she tried to tell herself, walking briskly, and +filling her lungs with the sweet fresh air. It was twilight, and the +north-bound tide of traffic was halting and rushing, halting and +rushing, up the Avenue; now held motionless at a crossing, now flowing +on in mad haste, the lumbering omnibuses passing each other, little +hansoms threading the mass, and foot passengers scampering and +withdrawing, and risking all sorts of passages between. The distance was +luminous and blue, and lights pricked against it as against a scarf of +gauze. + +Oh, it was sickening--it was sickening--to think that life was so grim +and hard for the thousands, and so unnecessarily, so superlatively +beautiful for the few! What had Mary Bishop and Katrina ever done, that +they should travel in private cars, fling aside furs that had cost as +much as many a man's yearly salary, chatter of the plantation near the +beach at Hawaii, or of reaching Saint James's for the January +Drawing-Room! + +Norma stopped to give twenty-five cents to an old Italian organ grinder, +and worked him into her theme as she went on. Why _should_ he look so +grateful for her casual charity, he, seventy years old, Katrina and Mary +averaging less than twenty! + +She reached Aunt Kate's flat in a thorough temper, angry, headachy, +almost feverish after the rich scones and the rich tea, and the even +less wholesome talk. The apartment house seemed, as indeed it was, grimy +and odorous almost to squalor, and Aunt Kate almost hateful in her +cheerfulness and energy. This was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evenings +she was always happy, for then Wolf and Norma came to dinner with her. +To-night, busily manipulating pans and pots, she told Norma that she had +rented the two extra bedrooms of the apartment to three young trained +nurses, ideal tenants in every way. + +"They'll get their breakfasts here, and--if I'm away--there's no reason +why they shouldn't cook themselves a little dinner now and then," said +Aunt Kate, in her rich, motherly voice. "They were tickled to death to +get the two rooms for twenty dollars, and that makes my own rent only +seventeen more. I asked them if that was too much, and they said, no, +they'd expected to pay at least ten apiece." + +Norma listened, unsympathetic and gloomy. It was all so petty and so +poor--trained nurses, and apple pie, and Aunt Kate renting rooms, and +Wolf eager to be promoted to factory manager. + +She wanted to go back--back to the life in which Annie really noticed +her, gave her luncheons, included her. She wanted to count for something +with Mary and Katrina and Leslie; she wanted to talk to Chris about his +possible ambassadorship; she wanted them all to agree that Norma's wit +and charm more than made up for Norma's lack of fortune. While she +brushed her hair, in the room that would shortly accommodate two of the +three little nurses, she indulged in an unsatisfying dream in which she +went to London with Alice--and that autocratic little Lady Donnyfare. + +Lady Donnyfare! She would be "your ladyship!" Nineteen years old, and +welcomed to the ancestral mansion as her little ladyship! + +Norma set the dinner table for three, with jerks and slams that slightly +relieved her boiling heart. She got the napkins from the sideboard +drawer, and reached for the hand-painted china sugar bowl that was part +of a set that Aunt Kate had won at a fair. She set the blue tile that +she had given Aunt Kate on a long-ago Christmas where the brown Rebecca +teapot would stand, and cut a square slice of butter from the end of the +new pound for the blue glass dish. And all the time her heart was +bursting with grief and discontent, and she was beginning to realize for +the first time the irrevocable quality of the step she had taken, and +just how completely it had shut her off from the life for which she +thirsted. + +Wolf came in, hungry, dirty, radiantly happy, with a quick kiss for his +mother and an embrace for his wife into which her slender figure and +cloudy brown head almost disappeared. Lord, he was starving; and Lord, +he was dead; and Lord, it was good to get home, said Wolf, his +satisfaction with life too great to leave room for any suspicion of his +wife's entire sympathy. + +She told them, over the meal, of Mary and Katrina, in whom their +interest was of a simple and amazed quality that Norma resented, and of +Chris's prospect, which did awaken some comment from Mrs. Sheridan. +They were a clever family, she said. + +But now Wolf, bursting with long suppression, suddenly took the floor +with his own great news. Voorhies, the fifty-year-old manager of the +California plant, had been drifting about the Newark factory for several +days, and Wolf had talked with him respectfully, as a man of +twenty-five, whose income is three thousand a year, may talk to a +six-thousand-dollar manager, and to-day Voorhies, and Jim Palmer, the +Newark manager, and Paul Stromberg, the vice-president, had taken Wolf +to lunch with them, apparently casually, apparently from mere +friendliness. But Voorhies had asked him if he had ever seen the West; +and Stromberg had said that he understood Sheridan's family consisted +merely of a young wife, and Palmer had chanced to drop carelessly the +fact that Mr. Voorhies was not going back to California----! + +That was all. But it was enough to send Wolf back to his work with his +head spinning. California--and a managership of a mine--and six +thousand! It must be--it must be--that he had been mentioned for it, +that they had him in mind! He wasn't going even to think of it--and +Norma mustn't--but Lord, it meant being picked out of the ranks; it +meant being handed a commission on a silver platter! + +Norma tried not to be cold, tried to rise to the little he asked of her, +as audience. And she had the satisfaction of knowing that he noticed +nothing amiss in her manner, and of seeing him go off to sleep, when +they had made the long trip home, with his head in a whirl of glorious +hopes. But Norma, for the first time since her marriage, cried herself +to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +The bitterness stayed with her, and gradually robbed her life of +everything that was happy and content. Her little household round, that +had been so absorbing and so important, became tedious and stupid. Rose, +who was expecting her second confinement, had her husband's mother with +her, and in care of the old baby, and making preparations for the new, +was busy, and had small time for the old companionship; the evenings +were too cold for motoring now, even if Wolf had not been completely +buried in engineering journals and papers of all sorts. + +Norma did not call on Annie again, but a fretted and outraged sense of +Annie's coolness and aloofness, and a somewhat similar impression from +Leslie's manner, when they met in Fifth Avenue one day, was always in +her mind. They could drop her as easily as they had picked her up, these +high-and-mighty Melroses! She consoled herself, for a few days, with +spectacular fancies of Annie's consternation should Norma's real +identity be suddenly revealed to her, but even that poor solace was +taken away from her at last. + +It was Aunt Kate's unconscious hand that struck the blow, on a wild +afternoon, All Hallow E'en, as it happened, when the older woman made +the long trip to see Rose, and came on to Norma with a report that +everything was going well, and Miggs more fascinating than ever. + +Mrs. Sheridan found Norma at the close of the short afternoon, moping in +her unlighted house. She had been to the theatre with Wolf and a young +couple from the house next door, last night, and had fallen asleep after +an afternoon walk, and felt headachy, prickly with heat and cold, and +stupid. Yawning and chilly, she kissed her aunt, and suggested that they +move to the kitchen. It was Inga's free night and Norma was cook. + +"You'll stay and surprise Wolf, he'd love it," Norma said, as the +visitor's approving eyes noted the general order and warmth, the +blue-checked towels and blue bowls, the white table and white walls. The +little harum-scarum baby of the family was proceeding to get her husband +a most satisfactory and delicious little dinner, and Aunt Kate was proud +of her. + +"Did you make that cake, darling?" + +"Indeed I did; she can't make cake!" + +"And the ham?" + +"Well"--Norma eyed the cut ham fondly--"we did that together, out of the +book! And I wish you'd taste it, Aunt Kate, it is perfectly delicious. I +give it to Wolf every other night, but I think he'd eat it three times a +day and be delighted. And last week we made bread--awfully good, +too--not hard like that bread we made last summer. Rolls, we +made--cinnamon rolls and plain. Harry and Rose were here. And +Thanksgiving I'm going to try mincemeat." + +"You're a born cook," Aunt Kate said, paying one of her highest +compliments with due gravity. But Norma did not respond with her usual +buoyancy. She sighed impatiently, and her face fell into lines of +discontent and sadness that did not escape the watching eyes. Mrs. +Sheridan changed the subject to the one of a cousin of Harry Redding, +one Mrs. Barry with whose problems Norma was already dismally familiar. +Mrs. Barry's husband was sick in a hospital, and she herself had to have +an expensive operation, and the smallest of the four children had some +trouble hideously like infantile paralysis. + +Norma knew that Aunt Kate would have liked to have her offer to take at +least one of the small and troublesome children for two or three days, +if not to stay with the unfortunate Kitty Barry outright. She knew that +there was almost no money, that all the household details of washing and +cooking were piling up like a mountain about the ailing woman, but her +heart was filled with sudden rebellion and impatience with the whole +miserable scheme. + +"My goodness, Aunt Kate, if it isn't one thing with those people it's +another!" she said, impatiently. "I suppose you were there, and up with +that baby all night!" + +"Indeed I got some fine sleep," Mrs. Sheridan answered, innocently. +"Poor things, they're very brave!" + +Norma said nothing, but her expression was not sympathetic. She had been +thinking of herself as to be pitied, and this ruthless introduction of +the Barry question entirely upset the argument. If Mary Bishop and +Katrina Thayer were the standard, then Norma Sheridan's life was too +utterly obscure and insignificant to be worth living. But of course if +incompetent strugglers like the Barrys were to be brought into the +question, then Norma might begin to feel the solid ground melting from +beneath her feet. + +She did not offer the cake or the ham to Aunt Kate, as contributions +toward the small Barrys' lunch next day, nor did she invite any one of +them to visit her. Her aunt, if she noted these omissions, made no +comment upon them. + +"I declare you are getting to be a real woman, Norma," she said. + +"I suppose everyone grows up," Norma assented, cheerlessly. + +"Yes, there's a time when a child stops being a baby and you see that +it's beginning to be a little girl," Mrs. Sheridan mused; "but it's some +time later before you know _what sort_ of a little girl it is. And then +at--say fifteen or sixteen--you see the change again, the little girl +growing into a grown girl--a young lady. And for awhile you sort of lose +track of her again, until all of a sudden you say: 'Well, Norma's going +to be sociable--and like people!' or: 'Rose is going to be a gentle, shy +girl----'" + +Norma knew the mildly moralizing tone, and that she was getting a +sermon. + +"You never knew that I was going to be a good housekeeper!" she +asserted, inclined toward contrariety. + +"I think you're going through another change now, Baby," her aunt said. +"You've become a woman too fast. You don't quite know where you are!" + +This was so unexpectedly acute that Norma was inwardly surprised, and a +little impressed. She sat down at one end of the clean little kitchen +table, and rested her face in her hands, and looked resentfully at the +older woman. + +"Then you _don't_ think I'm a good housekeeper," she said, looking hurt. + +"I think you will be whatever you want to be, Norma, it'll all be in +your hands now," Mrs. Sheridan answered, seriously. "You're a woman, +now; you're Wolf's wife; you've reached an age when you can choose and +decide for yourself. You can be--you always could be--the best child the +Lord ever made, or you can fret and brood over what you haven't got." + +The shrewd kindly eye seemed looking into Norma's very soul. The girl +dropped her hard bright stare, and looked sulky. + +"I don't see what _I'm_ doing!" she muttered. "I can't help +wanting--what other people that are no better than I, have!" + +"Yes, but haven't you enough, Norma? Think of women like poor Kitty +Barry----" + +"Oh, Kitty Barry--Kitty Barry!" Norma burst out, angrily. "It isn't my +fault that Kitty Barry has trouble; _I_ had nothing to do with it! Look +at people like Leslie--what she wastes on one new fur coat would keep +the Barrys for a year! Eighty-two hundred dollars she paid for her +birthday coat! And that's _nothing_! Katrina Thayer----" + +"Norma--Norma--Norma!" her aunt interrupted, reproachfully. "What have +you to do with girls like the Thayer girl? Why, there aren't twenty +girls in the country as rich as that. That doesn't affect _you_, if +there's something you can do for the poor and unfortunate----" + +"It _does_ affect me! I can't"--Norma dropped her tone, and glanced at +her aunt. She knew that she was misbehaving--"I can't help inheriting a +love for money," she said, breathing hard. "I know perfectly well who I +am--who my mother is," she ended, with a half-defiant and half-fearful +sob in her voice. + +"How do you mean that you know about your mother, Norma?" Mrs. Sheridan +demanded, sharply. + +"Well"--Norma had calmed a little, and she was a trifle nervous--"Chris +told me; and Aunt Alice knows, too--that Aunt Annie is my mother," she +said. + +"Chris Liggett told you that?" Mrs. Sheridan asked, with a note of +incredulity in her voice. + +"Yes. Aunt Alice guessed it almost as soon as I went to live there! And +I've known it for over a year," Norma said. + +"And who told Chris?" + +"Well--Aunt Marianna, I suppose!" + +There was silence for a moment. + +"Norma," said Mrs. Sheridan, in a quiet, convincing tone that cooled the +girl's hot blood instantly, "Chris is entirely wrong; your mother is +dead. I've never lied to you, and I give you my word! I don't know where +Miss Alice got that idea, but it's like her romantic way of fancying +things! No, dear," she went on, sympathetically, as Norma sat silent, +half-stunned by painful surprise, "you have no claim on Miss Annie. Both +your father and mother are dead, Norma; I knew them both. There was a +reason," Mrs. Sheridan added, thoughtfully, "why I felt that Mrs. +Melrose might want to be kind to you--want to undo an injustice she did +years ago. But I've told myself a thousand times that I did you a cruel +wrong when I first let you go among them--you who were always so +sensible, and so cheerful, and who would always take things as they +came, and make no fuss!" + +"Oh, Aunt Kate," Norma stammered, bitterly, her lip trembling, and her +voice fighting tears, "you don't have to tell me that in your opinion +I've changed for the worse--I see it in the way you look at me! You've +always thought Rose was an angel--too good to live!--and that I was +spoiled and lazy and good-for-nothing; you were glad enough to get rid +of me, and now I hope you're satisfied! They've told me one thing, and +you've told me another--and I guess the truth is that I don't belong to +anybody; and I wish I was dead, where my f-f-father and m-m-mother +are----!" + +And stumbling into incoherence and tears, Norma dropped her head on her +arm, and sobbed bitterly. Mrs. Sheridan's face was full of pain, but she +did not soften. + +"You belong to your husband, Norma!" she said, mildly. + +Norma sat up, and wiped her eyes on a little handkerchief that she took +from the pocket of her housewifely blue apron. She did not meet her +aunt's eye, and still looked angry and hurt. + +"Well--who _am_ I then? Haven't I got some right to know who my mother +and father were?" she demanded. + +"That you will never hear from me," Mrs. Sheridan replied, firmly. + +"But, Aunt Kate----" + +"I gave my solemn promise, Norma, and I've kept my word all these years; +I'm not likely to break it now." + +"But--won't I _ever_ know?" + +Mrs. Sheridan shrugged her broad shoulders and frowned slightly. + +"That I can't say, my dear," she said, gently. "Some day I may be +released from my bond, and then I'll be glad to tell you everything." + +"Perhaps Wolf will tell me he's nothing to me, now!" the girl continued, +with childish temper. + +"Wolf--and all of us--think that there's nobody like you," the older +woman said, tenderly. But Norma did not brighten. She went in a +businesslike way to the stove, and glanced at the various bowls and +saucepans in which dinner was baking and boiling, then sliced some stale +bread neatly, put the shaved crusts in a special jar, and began to toast +the slices with a charming precision. + +"Change your mind and stay with us, Aunt Kate?" she said, lifelessly. + +"No, dear, I'm going!" And Aunt Kate really did bundle herself into coat +and rubber overshoes and woolly scarf again. "November's coming in with +a storm," she predicted, glancing out at the darkness, where the wind +was rushing and howling drearily. + +Norma did not answer. No mere rushing of clouds and whirl of dry and +colourless leaves could match the storm of disappointment that was +beginning to rage in her own heart. + +Yet she felt a pang of repentance, when cheerful Aunt Kate had tramped +off in the dark, to Rose's house, which was five blocks away, and +perhaps afterward to the desolate Barrys', and wished that she had put +her arms about the big square shoulders, and her cheek against her +aunt's cheek, and said that she was sorry to be unreasonable. + +Rushing to another extreme of unreason, she decided that she and Wolf +must go see Rose to-night--and perhaps the Barrys, too--and cheer and +solace them all. And Norma indulged in a little dream of herself nursing +and cooking in the Barrys' six little cluttered rooms, and earning +golden opinions from all the group. There was money, too; she had not +used all of October's allowance, and to-morrow would find another big +check at the bank. + +Wolf interrupted by coming in so tired he could hardly move. He ate his +dinner, yawned amiably in the kitchen while she cleared it away, and was +so sound asleep at nine o'clock that Norma's bedside light and the +rustling of the pages of her book, three feet away from his face, had no +more effect upon him than if the three feet had been three hundred. + +And then the bitter mood came back to her again; the bored, restless, +impatient feeling that her life was a stupid affair. And deep in her +heart the sense of hurt and humiliation grew and spread; the thought +that she was not of the charmed circle of the Melroses, not secretly and +romantically akin to them, she was merely the casual object of the old +lady's fantastic sense of obligation. Aunt Kate, who had never said what +was untrue--who, Norma and her children firmly believed, could not say +what was untrue--had taken away, once and for all, the veil of mystery +and romance that had wrapped Norma for three exciting years. + +For Leslie, and Katrina, and Mary Bishop, perhaps, travel and the thrill +of foreign shores or European courts. But for Wolf Sheridan's wife, this +small, orderly, charming house on the edge of the New Jersey woods, and +the laundry to think of every Monday, and the two-days' ordering to +remember every Saturday, as long as the world went round! + +For a few days Norma really suffered in spirit, then the natural healthy +current of her life reestablished itself, and she philosophically +determined to make the best of the matter. If she was not Aunt Annie's +daughter and Leslie's cousin, she was at least their friend. They--even +unsuspecting of any strange relationship--had always been kind to her. +And Aunt Marianna and Aunt Alice had been definitely affectionate, to +say nothing of Chris! + +So one day, when she happened to be shopping in the winter briskness of +the packed and brilliant Avenue, she telephoned Leslie at about the +luncheon hour. Leslie when last they met had said that she would +confidently expect Norma to run out and lunch with her some day--any +day. + +"Who is it?" Leslie's voice asked, irritably, when at last the telephone +connection was established. "Oh, _Norma_! Oh----? What is it?" + +"Just wondering how you all were, and what the family news is," Norma +said, with an uncomfortable inclination to falter. + +"I don't _hear_ you!" Leslie protested, impatiently. The insignificant +inquiry did not seem to gain much by repetition, and Norma's cheeks +burned in shame when Leslie followed it by a blank little pause. +"Oh--everyone's fine. The baby wasn't well, but she's all right now." + +Another slight pause, then Norma said: + +"She must be adorable--I'd like to see her." + +"She's not here now," Leslie answered, quickly. + +"I've been shopping," Norma said. "Any chance that you could come down +town and lunch with me?" + +"No, I really couldn't, to-day!" Leslie answered, lightly and promptly. + +A moment later Norma said good-bye. She walked away from the telephone +booth with her face burning, and her heart beating quickly with anger +and resentment. + +"Snob--snob--snob!" she said to herself, furiously, of Leslie. And of +herself she presently added honestly, "And I wasn't much better, for I +don't really like her any more than she does me!" And she stopped for +flowers, and a little box of pastry, and went out to delight her Aunt +Kate's heart with an unexpected visit. + +But a sting remained, and Norma brooded over the injustice of life, as +she went about her little house in the wintry sunlight, and listened to +Wolf, and made much of Rose and the new baby girl. By Thanksgiving it +seemed to her that she had only dreamed of "Aida" and of Newport, and +that the Norma of the wonderful frocks and the wonderful dreams had been +only a dream herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +And then suddenly she was delighted to have a friendly little note from +Alice, asking her to come to luncheon on a certain December Friday, as +there was "a tiny bit of business" that she would like to discuss; Chris +was away, she would be alone. Norma accepted with no more than ordinary +politeness, and showed neither Wolf nor his mother any elation, but she +felt a deep satisfaction in the renewed relationship. + +On the appointed Friday, at one o'clock, she mounted the familiar steps +of the Christopher Liggetts' house, and greeted the butler with a +delighted sense of returning to her own. Alice was in the front room, +before a wood fire; she greeted Norma with her old smile, and with an +outstretched hand, but Norma was shocked to see how drawn and strangely +aged the smile was, and how thin the hand! + +The room had its old scent of violets, and its old ordered beauty and +richness, but Norma was vaguely conscious, for the first time, of some +new invalid quality of fussiness, of a pretty and superfluous cluttering +that had not been characteristic of Alice's belongings a year ago. +Alice, too, wore newly a certain stamp of frailty, her always pure high +forehead had a faint transparency and shine that Norma did not remember, +and the increasing accumulation of pillows and little bookcases and +handsome stands about her suggested that her horizon was closing in, +that her world was diminishing to this room, and this room alone. + +The strange nurse who smilingly and noiselessly slipped away as Norma +came in, was another vaguely disquieting hint of helplessness, but Norma +knew better than to make any comment upon her impressions, and merely +asked the usual casual questions, as she sat down near the couch. + +"How are you, Aunt Alice? But you look splendidly!" + +"I'm so _well_," said Alice, emphatically, with a sort of solemn +thankfulness, "that I don't know myself! Whether it was saving myself +the strain of moving to Newport last summer, or what, I don't know. But +I haven't been so well for _years_!" + +Norma's heart contracted with sudden pity. Alice had never employed +these gallant falsehoods before. She had always been quite obviously +happy and busy and even enviable, in her limited sphere. The girl +chatted away with her naturally enough while the luncheon table was +arranged between them and the fire, but she noticed that two nurses +shifted the invalid into an upright position before the meal, and that +Alice's face was white with exhaustion as she began to sip her bouillon. + +They were alone, an hour later, playing with little boxed ices, when +Alice suddenly revealed the object of the meeting. Norma had asked for +Chris, who was, it appeared, absent on some matter of business for a few +days, and it was in connection with the introduction of his name that +Alice spoke. + +"Chris--that reminds me! I wanted to speak to you about something, +Norma; I've wanted to for months, really. It's not really important, +because of course you never would mention it any more than I would, and +yet it's just as well to have this sort of thing straightened out! +Chris told me"--said Alice, looking straight at Norma, who had grown a +trifle pale, and was watching her fixedly--"Chris told me that some +months before you were married, he told you of some--some ridiculous +suspicions we had--it seems absurd now!--about Annie." + +So that was it! Norma could breathe again. + +"Yes--we talked about it one morning walking home from church," she +admitted. + +"I don't know whether you know now," Alice said, quickly, flushing +nervously, "that there wasn't one shred of foundation for that--that +crazy suspicion of mine! But I give you my word--and my mother told +me!--that it wasn't so. I don't know how I ever came to think of it, or +why I thought Mama admitted it. But I've realized," said Alice, +nervously, "that it was a terrible injustice to Annie, and as soon as +Chris told me that you knew it--and of course he had _no business_ to +let it get any further!--I wanted to set it straight. Poor Annie; she +would be perfectly frantic if she knew how calmly I was saddling her +with a--a terrible past!" said Alice, laughing. "But I have always been +too sensitive where the people I love are concerned, and I blundered +into this--this outrageous----" + +"My aunt had told me that it was not so," Norma said, coolly and +superbly interrupting the somewhat incoherent story. "If I ever really +believed it----!" she added, scornfully. + +For her heart was hot with rage, and the first impulse was to vent it +upon this nearest of the supercilious Melroses. This was all Alice had +wanted then, in sending that little overture of friendship: to tell the +little nobody that she was nothing to the great family, after all, to +prevent her from ever boasting even an illicit relationship! It was for +a formal snub, a definite casting-off, that Norma had been brought all +the way from the little green-and-white house in New Jersey! Her eyes +grew very bright, and her lips very firm, as she and Alice finished the +topic, and she told herself that she would never, never enter the house +of Liggett again! + +Alice, this load off her mind, and the family honour secure, became much +more friendly, and she and Norma were talking animatedly when Leslie and +Annie came unexpectedly in. They had been to a debutante luncheon, and +were going to a debutante tea, and meanwhile wanted a few minutes with +dear Alice, and the latest news of Mrs. Melrose, who was in Florida. + +Aunt and niece were magnificently furred and jewelled, magnificently +unaware of the existence of little Mrs. Sheridan of East Orange. Norma +knew in a second that the social ripples had closed over her head; she +was of no further possible significance in the life of either. Leslie +was pretty, bored, ill-tempered; Annie her usual stunning and radiantly +satisfied self. The conversation speedily left Norma stranded, the +chatter of engagements, of scandals, of new names, was all strange to +her, and she sat through some ten minutes of it uncomfortably, longing +to go, and not quite knowing how to start. She said to herself that she +was done with the Melroses; never--never--never again would even their +most fervently extended favour win from her so much as a civil +acknowledgment! + +There was a step in the hall, and a voice that drove the blood from +Norma's face, and made her heart begin the old frantic fluttering and +thumping. Before she could attempt to collect her thoughts, the door +opened, and Chris came in. He came straight to Alice, and kissed her, +holding her hand as he greeted Annie and Leslie. Then he came across the +hearthrug, and Norma got to her feet, and felt that his hand was as cold +as hers, and that the room was rocking about her. + +"Hello, Norma!" he said, quietly. "I didn't expect to find you here!" + +"You haven't seen her since she was married, Chris," Alice said, and +Chris agreed with a pleasant "That's so!" + +He sat down, and Norma, incapable of any effort, at least until she +could control the emotion that was shaking her like a vertigo, sank back +into her own chair, unseeing and unhearing. The gold clock on the mantel +ticked and tocked, the other three women chatted and laughed, and Chris +contributed his share to the general conversation. But Norma's one +desperate need was for escape. + +He made no protest when she said hasty farewells, but when she had gone +rapidly and almost blindly down the stairway, and was at the front door, +she found him beside her. He got into his fur-collared coat, picked up +his hat, and they descended to the sidewalk together, in the colourless, +airless, sunless light of the winter afternoon. + +"Get in my car!" Chris said, indicating the roadster at the curb. + +The girl without a word obeyed. His voice, the motion of his clean-cut +mouth, the searching glance of his quick, keen eyes, acted upon her like +a charm. Alice--Wolf--every thing else in the world vanished from her +thoughts, or rather had never been there. She was drinking again the +forbidden waters for which she had thirsted, perhaps without quite +knowing it, so long. The strangeness, the strain, the artifice of the +last eight months fell from her like a spell; she was herself again, +comfortable again, poised again, thrilling from head to heels with +delicious and bubbling life--ready for anything! + +Now that they were alone she felt no more nervousness; he would speak to +her when he was ready, he could not leave her without speaking. Norma +settled back comfortably in the deep, low seat, and glanced sidewise at +the stern profile that showed between his high fur collar and the fur +cap he had pulled well down over his ears. The world seemed changed to +her; she had wakened from a long dream. + +"No--not the old house!" she presently broke the silence to tell him. "I +go to New Jersey." + +He had been driving slowly out Fifth Avenue, now he obediently turned, +and threaded his way through the cross-street traffic until they were +within perhaps a hundred feet of the entrance to the New Jersey subways. +Then he ran the car close to the curb, and stopped, and for the first +time looked fully at Norma, and she saw his old, pleasant smile. + +"Well, and how goes it?" he asked. "How is Wolf? Tell me where you are +living, and all about it!" + +Norma in answer gave him a report upon her own affairs, and spoke of +Aunt Kate and Rose and Rose's children. She did not realize that a tone +almost pleading, almost apologetic, crept into her eager voice while she +spoke, and told its own story. Chris watched her closely, his eyes never +leaving her face. All around them moved the confusion and congestion of +Sixth Avenue; overhead the elevated road roared and crashed, but +neither man nor woman was more than vaguely conscious of surroundings. + +"And are you happy, Norma?" Chris asked. + +"Oh, yes!" she answered, quickly. + +"You are a very game little liar," he said, dispassionately. "No--no, +I'm not blaming you!" he added, hastily, as she would have spoken. "You +took the very best way out, and I respect and honour you for it! I was +not surprised--although the possibility had never occurred to me." + +Something in his cool, almost lifeless tone, chilled her, and she did +not speak. + +"When I heard of it," Chris said, "I went to Canada. I don't remember +the details exactly, but I remember one day sitting up there--in the +woods somewhere, and looking at my hunting knife, and looking at my +wrist----" + +He looked at his wrist now, and her eyes followed his. + +"--and if I had thought," Chris presently continued, "that a slash there +might have carried me to some region of peace--where there was no hunger +for Norma--I would not have hesitated! But one isn't sure--more's the +pity!" he finished, smiling with eyes full of pain. + +Norma could not speak. The work of long months had been undone in a +short hour, and she was conscious of a world that crashed and tumbled in +utter ruin about her. + +"Well, no use now," Chris said. He folded his arms on his chest, and +looked sternly away into space for a minute, and Norma felt his +self-control, his repression, as she would have felt no passionate +outburst of reproach. "But there is one thing that I've wanted for a +long time to tell you, Norma. If you hadn't been such a little girl, if +you had known what life is, you could not have done what you did!" + +"I suppose not," she half-whispered, with a dry throat, as he waited for +some sign from her. + +"No, you couldn't have given yourself to any one else--if you had +known," Chris went on, as if musing aloud. "And that brings me to what I +want to say. Marriage lasts a long, long time, Norma, and even you--with +all your courage!--may find that you've promised more than you can +perform! The time may come---- + +"Norma, I hope it won't!" he interrupted himself to say, bitterly. "I +try to hope it won't! I try to hope that you will come to love him, my +dear, and forget me! But if that time does come, what I want you to +remember is this afternoon, and sitting here with me in the car, and +Chris telling you that whenever--or wherever--or however he can serve +you, you are to remember that he is living just for that hour! There +will never be any change in me, Norma, never anything but longing and +longing just for the sight of you, just for one word from you! I love +you, my dear--I can't help it. God knows I've _tried_ to help it. I love +you as I don't believe any other woman in the world was ever loved! So +much that I want life to be good to you, even if I never see you, and I +want you to be happy, even without me!" + +He had squared about to face her, and as the passionate rush of words +swept about her, Norma laid her little gloved hand gently upon his big +one, and her blue eyes, drowned in sudden tears, fixed themselves in +exquisite desolation and despair upon his face. + +Once or twice she had whispered "I know--I know!" as if to herself, but +she did not interrupt him, and when he paused he saw that she was choked +with tears, and could not speak. + +"The mad and wonderful sacrifice you made I can't talk about, Norma," he +said. "Only an ignorant, noble-hearted little girl like you could have +done that! But that's all over, now. You must try to make your life what +they think it is--those good people that love you! And I'll try, too!--I +do try. And you mustn't cry, my little sweetheart," Chris added, with a +tenderness so new, and so poignantly sweet, that Norma was almost faint +with the sheer joy of it, "you mustn't blame me for just saying this, +this once, because it's for the last time! We mustn't meet----" His +voice dropped. "I think we mustn't meet," he repeated, painfully and +slowly. + +"No!" she agreed, quickly. + +"But you are to remember that," Chris reiterated, "that I am living, and +moving about, and going to the office, and back to my home, only because +you are alive in the world, and the day may come when I can serve you! +Life has been only that to me, for a long, long time!" + +For a long minute Norma sat silent, her dark lashes fallen on her cheek, +her eyes on the hand that she had grasped in her own. + +"I'll remember, Chris! Thank you, Chris!" she said, simply. Then she +raised her eyes and looked straight at him, with a childish little +frown, puzzled and bewildered, on her forehead, and they exchanged a +long look of good-bye. Chris raised her hand to his lips, and Norma very +quietly slipped from her seat, and turned once to smile bravely at him +before she was lost in the swiftly moving whirlpool of the subway +entrance. She was trembling as she seated herself in the train, and +moved upon her way scarcely conscious of what she was doing. + +But Chris did not move from his seat for more than an hour. + +Norma went home, and quickly and deftly began her preparations for +dinner. Inga had been married a few weeks before, and so Norma had no +maid. She put her new hat into its tissue paper, and tied a fresh +checked apron over her filmy best waist, and stepped to and fro between +stove and dining table, as efficient a little housekeeper as all New +Jersey could show. + +Wolf came home hungry and good-natured, and kissed her, and sat at the +end of her little kitchen table while she put the last touches to the +meal, appreciative and amusing, a new magazine for her in the pocket of +his overcoat, an invitation from his mother for dinner to-morrow night, +and a pleasant suggestion that he and she wander up Broadway again and +look in windows, after his mother's dinner. + +They talked, while they dined, of the possibility of the California +move, and Wolf afterward went down to the furnace. When the fire was +banked for the night, he watched the last of the dinner clearance, and +they went across the cold dark strip of land between their house and a +neighbour's, to play three exciting rubbers of bridge. + +And at eleven Wolf was asleep, and Norma reading again, or trying to +read. But her blood was racing, and her head was spinning, and before +she slept she brought out all her memories of the afternoon. Chris's +words rang in her heart again, and the glances that had accompanied +them unrolled before her eyes like some long pageant that was infinitely +wonderful and thrilling. Leslie and Annie and Alice might snub her, but +Chris--their idol, the cleverest and most charming man in all their +circle!--Chris loved her. Chris loved her. And--from those old dreamy +days in Biretta's Bookstore, had she not loved Chris? + +Another morning came, another night, and life went its usual way. But +Norma was wrapped in a dream that was truly a pillar of cloud by day, +and of flame by night. She was hardly aware of the people about her, +except that her inner consciousness of happiness and of elation gave her +an even added sweetness and charm, made her readier to please them, and +more anxious for their love. + +Wolf almost immediately saw the change, but she did not see the shadow +that came to be habitual in his young face, nor read aright his grave +eyes. She supposed him perhaps unusually busy, if indeed she thought of +him at all. Like her aunt, and Rose, and the rest of her world, he was +no more now than a kindly and dependable shadow, something to be quickly +put aside for the reality of her absorbing friendship for Chris. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Despite their resolve not to see each other in the two weeks that +followed Alice's luncheon, Norma had seen Chris three times. He had +written her on the third day, and she had met the postman at the corner, +sure that the big square envelope would be there. They had had luncheon, +far down town, and walked up through the snowy streets together, parting +with an engagement for the fourth day ahead, a matinee and tea +engagement. The third meeting had been for luncheon again, and after +lunch they had wandered through an Avenue gallery, looking at the +pictures, and talking about themselves. + +Chris had loaned her books, little slim books of dramas or essays, and +Chris had talked to her of plays and music. One night, when Wolf was in +Philadelphia, Chris took her to the opera again, duly returning her to +Aunt Kate at half-past eleven, and politely disclaiming Aunt Kate's +gratitude for his goodness to little Norma. + +He never attempted to touch her, to kiss her; he never permitted himself +an affectionate term, or a hint of the passion that enveloped him; they +were friends, that was all, and surely, surely, they told themselves, a +self-respecting man and woman may be friends--may talk and walk and +lunch together, and harm no one? Norma knew that it was the one vital +element in Chris's life, as in her own, and that the hours that he did +not spend with her were filled with plans and anticipations for their +times together. + +One evening, just before Christmas, when the young Sheridans were +staying through a heavy storm with their mother, Wolf came home with the +news that he must spend some weeks in Philadelphia, studying a new +method of refining iron ore. It was tacitly understood that this +transfer was but a preliminary to the long-anticipated promotion to the +California managership, but Wolf took it very quietly, with none of the +exultation that the compliment once would have caused him. + +"I'll go with you to Philadelphia," Norma said, not quite naturally. She +had been made vaguely uneasy by his repressed manner, and by the fact +that her kiss of greeting had been almost put aside by him, at the door, +a few minutes earlier. Dear old Wolf; she had always loved him--she +would not have him unhappy for all the world! + +In answer he looked at her unsmilingly, wearily narrowing his eyes as if +to concentrate his thoughts. + +"You can't, very well, but thank you just the same, Norma," he said, +formally. "I shall be with Voorhies and Palmer and Bender all the time; +they put me up at a club, and there'll be plenty of evening work--nearly +every evening----" + +"Norma'll stay here with me!" Aunt Kate said, hospitably. + +"Well"--Wolf agreed, indifferently--"I can run up from Philadelphia and +be home every Saturday, Mother," he added. Norma felt vaguely alarmed by +his manner, and devoted her best efforts to amusing and interesting him +for the rest of the meal. After dinner she came in from the kitchen to +find him in a big chair in the little front parlour, and she seated +herself upon an arm of it, and put her own arm loosely about his neck. + +"What are you reading, Wolf? Shall we go out and burn up Broadway? +There's a wonderful picture at The Favourite." + +He tossed his paper aside, and moved from under her, so that Norma found +herself ensconced in the chair, and her husband facing her from the rug +that was before the little gas log. + +"Where's Mother?" + +"Gone downstairs to see how the Noon baby is." + +"Norma," said Wolf, without preamble, "did you see Chris Liggett +to-day?" + +Her colour flamed high, but her eyes did not waver. + +"Yes. We met at Sherry's. We had lunch together." + +"You didn't meet by accident?" There was desperate hope in Wolf's voice. +But Norma would not lie. With her simple negative her head drooped, and +she looked at her locked fingers in silence. + +Wolf was silent, too, for a long minute. Then he cleared his throat, and +spoke quietly and sensibly. + +"I've been a long time waking up, Nono," he said. "I'm sorry! Of course +I knew that there was a difference; I knew that you--felt differently. +And I guessed that it was Chris. Norma, do you--do you still like him?" + +She looked up wretchedly, nodding her head. + +"More"--he began, and stopped--"more than you do me?" he asked. And in +the silence he added suddenly: "Norma, I thought we were so happy!" + +Then the tears came. + +"Wolf, I'll never love any one more than I do you!" the girl said, +passionately. "You've always been an angel to me--always the best friend +I ever had. I know you--I know what you are to Rose, Aunt Kate, and what +the men at the factory think of you. I'm not fit to tie your shoes! I'm +wicked, and selfish, and--and everything I oughtn't to be! But I can't +help it. I've wanted you to know--all there was to know. I've met him, +and we've talked and walked together; that's all. And that's all we +want--just to be friends. I'm sorry----" Her voice trailed off on a sob. +"I'm awfully sorry!" she said. + +"Yes," Wolf said, slowly, after a pause, "I'm sorry, too!" + +He sat down, rumpling his hair, frowning. Norma, watching him fearfully, +noticed that he was very pale. + +"I thought we were so happy," he said again, simply. + +"Ah, Wolf, don't think I've been fooling all this summer!" his wife +pleaded, her eyes filling afresh. "I've loved it all--the peach +ice-cream, and the picnics, and everything. But--but people can't help +this sort of thing, can they? It does happen, and--and they just simply +have to make the best of it, don't they? If--if we go to California next +month--you know that I'll do everything I can----!" + +He was not listening to her. + +"Norma," he interrupted, sharply, "if Liggett's wife was out of the +way--would you want to marry him?" + +"Wolf!--what's the use of asking that? You only--you only excite us +both. Aunt Alice _isn't_ out of the way, and even if she were, I am your +wife. I'm sorry. I'll never meet him again--I haven't been a bit happy +about it. I'll promise you that I will not see him again." + +"I don't ask you for that promise," Wolf said. "I don't know what we can +do! I never should have let you--I shouldn't have been such a fool as +to--but somehow, I'd always dreamed that you and I would marry. +Well!"--he interrupted his musing with resolute cheerfulness--"I've got +to get over to the library to-night," he said, "for I may have to start +for Phily to-morrow afternoon. Will you tell Mother----" + +Norma immediately protested that she was going with him, but he +patiently declined, kissing her in a matter-of-fact sort of way as he +pulled on the old overcoat and the new gloves, and slamming the hall +door behind him when he went. + +For a minute she stood looking after him, with a great heartache almost +blinding her. Then she flashed to her room, and before Wolf had reached +the corner his wife had slipped her hand into his arm, and her little +double step was keeping pace with his long stride in the way they both +loved. + +She talked to him in her usual manner, and presently he could answer +normally, and they bought peppermints to soften their literary labours. +In the big library Wolf was instantly absorbed, but for awhile Norma sat +watching the shabby, interested, intelligent men and women who came and +went, the shabby books that crossed the counters, the pretty, efficient +desk-clerks under their green droplights. The radiators clanked and +hissed softly in the intervals of silence, sometimes there was +whispering at the shelves, or one of the attendants spoke in a low tone. + +Norma loved the atmosphere, so typical a phase of the great city's +life. After awhile she idly dragged toward her three books, from a +table, and idly dipped into them: "The Life of the Grimkes"; "The Life +of Elizabeth Prentiss"; "The Letters of Charles Dickens." + +Nine struck; ten; eleven. Wolf had some six or seven large books about +him, and alternated his plunges into them with animated whispered +conversations with a silver-headed old man, two hours ago an utter +stranger, but always henceforth to be affectionately quoted by Wolf as a +friend. + +They indulged in the extravagance of a taxi-cab for the home trip. Norma +left Wolf still reading, after winning from him a kiss and a promise not +to "worry", and went to bed and to sleep. When she wakened, after some +nine delicious hours, he was gone; gone to Philadelphia, as it proved. + +Breakfasting at ten o'clock, in a flood of sweet winter sunshine, she +put a brave face on the matter. She told herself that it was better that +Wolf should know, and only the part of true kindness not to deny what, +for good or ill, was true. The memory of his grave and troubled face +distressed her, but she reminded herself that he would be back on +Saturday, and then he would have forgiven her. She would see Chris +to-day, to-morrow, and the day after, and by that time they would have +said everything that there was to say, and they would never see each +other again. + +For it was a favourite hallucination of theirs that every meeting was to +be the last. Not, said Chris, that there was any harm in it, but it was +wiser not to see each other. And when Norma, glowing under his eyes, +would echo this feeling, he praised her for her courage as if they had +resisted the temptation already. + +"I've thought it all over, Chris," she would say, "and I know that the +wisest way is to stop. And you must help me." And when Chris answered, +"Norma, I don't see where you get that marvellous courage of yours," it +did not occur to Norma to question in what way she was showing courage +at all. She lived upon his praise, and could not have enough of it. He +never tired of telling her that she was beautiful, good, brave, a +constant inspiration, and far above the ordinary type of woman; and +Norma believed him. + +On the day before Wolf's first week-end return from Philadelphia, Chris +was very grave. When he and Norma were halfway through their luncheon, +in the quiet angle of an old-fashioned restaurant, he told her why. +Alice was failing. Specialists had told him that England was out of the +question. She might live a year, but the probability was against it. +They--he and Norma--Chris said, must consider this, now. + +Norma considered it with a paling face. It--it couldn't make any +difference, she said, quickly and nervously. + +And then, for the first time, he talked to her of her responsibility in +the matter, of what their love meant to them both. Wolf had his claim, +true; but what was truly the generous thing for a woman to do toward a +man she did not love? Wasn't a year or two of hurt feelings, even anger +and resentment, better than a loveless marriage that might last fifty +years? + +This was a terrible problem, and Norma did not know what to think. On +the one hand was the certainty of that higher life from which she had +been exiled since her marriage: the music, the art, the letters, the +cultivated voices and fragrant rooms, the wealth and luxury, the +devotion of this remarkable and charming man, whose simple friendship +had been beyond her dreams a few years ago. On the other side was the +painful and indeed shameful desertion of Wolf, the rupture with Aunt +Kate and Rose, and the undying sense in her own soul of an unworthy +action. + +But Rose was absorbed in Harry and the children, and Aunt Kate would +surely go with Wolf to California, three thousand miles away---- + +"I am not brave enough!" she whispered. + +"You _are_ brave enough," Chris answered, quickly. "Tell him the +truth--as you did on your wedding day. Tell him you acted on a mad +impulse, and that you are sorry. A few days' discomfort, and you are +free, and one week of happiness will blot out the whole wretched memory +for ever." + +"It is not wretchedness, Chris," she corrected, with a rueful smile. But +she did not contradict him, and before they parted she promised him that +she would not go to California without at least telling Wolf how she +felt about it. + +Rose and Harry joined them for the Saturday night reunion. Norma thought +that Wolf seemed moody, and was unresponsive to her generous welcome, +and she was conscious of watching him somewhat apprehensively as the +evening wore on. But it was Sunday afternoon before the storm broke. + +Wolf was at church when Norma wakened, and as she dressed she meditated +a trifle uneasily over this departure from their usual comfortable +Sunday morning habit. She breakfasted alone, Wolf and his mother coming +in for their belated coffee just as Norma, prettily coated and hatted +and furred, was leaving the house for the ten-o'clock Mass. They did +not meet again until luncheon, and as Wolf had explained that he must +leave at four o'clock for Philadelphia, Norma began to think that this +particular visit would end without any definite unpleasantness. + +However, at about three o'clock, he invited her to walk with him to the +station, and join his mother later, at Rose's house, in New Jersey, and +Norma dared not refuse. They locked the apartment, and walked slowly +down Broadway, as they had walked so many thousand times before, in the +streaming Sunday crowds. Before they had gone a block Wolf opened +hostilities by asking abruptly: + +"Where did you go to church this morning?" + +Norma flushed, and laughed a little. + +"I went down to the Cathedral; I'm fond of it, you know. Why?" + +"Did you meet Chris Liggett?" Wolf asked. + +"Yes--I did, Wolf. He goes to the church near there, now and then." + +"When you telephone him to," Wolf said, grimly. + +Norma began to feel frightened. She had never heard this tone from Wolf +before. + +"I did telephone him, as a matter of fact--or rather he happened to +telephone me, and I said I was going there. Is there anything so +horrifying in that?" she asked. + +"Just after you went out, the telephone operator asked me if the Murray +Hill number had gotten us," Wolf answered; "that's how I happen to +know." + +Norma was angry, ashamed, and afraid, all at once. For twenty feet they +walked in silence. She stole more than one anxious look at her +companion; Wolf's face was set like flint. He was buttoned into the +familiar old overcoat, a tall, brown, clean-shaven, and just now +scowling young man of the accepted American type, firm of jaw, keen of +eye, and with a somewhat homely bluntness of feature preventing him from +being describable as handsome, or with at best a rough, hard, open-eyed +sort of handsomeness that was as unconscious of itself as the beauty of +a young animal. + +"Wolf, don't be cross," his wife pleaded, in illogical coaxing. + +"I'm not cross," he said, with an annoyed glance that humiliated and +angered her. "But I don't like this sort of thing, Norma, and I should +think you'd know why." + +"What sort of thing?" Norma countered, quickly. + +"The sort of thing that evidently Mr. Christopher Liggett thinks is fair +play!" Wolf said, with youthful bitterness. "Harry saw you both walking +up Fifth Avenue yesterday, and Joe Anderson happened to mention that you +and a man were lunching together on Thursday, down at the Lafayette. +There may be no harm in it----" + +"There _may_ be!" Norma echoed, firing. "You know very well there +_isn't_!" + +"You see him every day," Wolf said. + +"I _don't_ see him every day! But if I did, it wouldn't be Harry +Redding's and Joe Anderson's business!" + +"No," Wolf said, more mildly, "but it might be mine!" + +Norma realized that he was softening under her distress, and she changed +her tone. + +"Wolf, you know that you can trust me!" she said. + +"But I don't know anything about him!" Wolf reminded her. "I know that +he's twice your age----" + +"He's thirty-eight!" + +"Thirty-eight, then--and I know that he's a loafer--a rich man who has +nothing else to do but run around with women----" + +"I want to ask you to stop talking about something of which you are +entirely ignorant!" Norma interrupted, hotly. + +"You're the one that's ignorant, Norma," Wolf said, stubbornly, not +looking at her. "You are only a little girl; you think it's great fun to +be married to one man, and flirting with another! What makes me sick is +that a man like Liggett thinks he can get away with it, and you +women----" + +"If you say that again, I'll not walk with you!" Norma burst in +furiously. + +"Does it ever occur to you," Wolf asked, equally roused, "that you are +my wife?" + +"Yes!" Norma answered, breathlessly. "Yes--it does! And why? Because I +was afraid I was beginning to care too much for Chris Liggett--because I +knew he loved me, he had told me so!--and I went to you because I wanted +to be safe--and I told you so, too, Wolf Sheridan, the very day that we +were married! I never lied to you! I told you I loved Chris, that I +always had! And if you'd been _civil_ to me," rushed on Norma, beginning +to feel tears mastering her, "if you'd been _decent_ to me, I would have +gotten over it. I would never have seen him again anyway, after this +week, for I told him this morning that I didn't want to go on meeting +him--that it wasn't fair to you! But no, you don't trust me and you +don't believe me, and consequently--consequently, I don't care what I +do, and I'll make you sorry----" + +"Don't talk so wildly, Norma," Wolf warned her, in a tone suddenly quiet +and sad. "Please don't--people will notice you!" + +"I don't care if they do!" Norma said. But she glanced about deserted +Eighth Avenue uneasily none the less, and furtively dried her eyes upon +a flimsy little transparent handkerchief that somehow tore at her +husband's heart. "If you had been a little patient, Wolf----" she +pleaded, reproachfully. + +"There are times when a man hasn't much use for patience, Norma," Wolf +said, still with strange gentleness. "You _did_ tell me of liking +Liggett--but I thought--I hoped, I guess----!" He paused, and then went +on with sudden fierceness: "He's married, Norma, and you're married--I +wish there was some way of letting you out of it, as far as I am +concerned! Of course you don't have to go to California with me--if that +helps. You can get your freedom, easily enough, after awhile. But as +long as he's tied, it doesn't seem to me that he has any business----" + +His gentle tone disarmed her, and she took up Chris's defence eagerly. + +"Wolf, don't you believe there is such a thing as love? Just that two +people find out that they belong to each other--whether it's right or +wrong, or possible or impossible--and that it may last for ever?" + +"No," said Wolf, harshly, "I don't believe it! He's married--doesn't he +love his wife?" + +"Well, of course he loves her! But this is the first time in all his +life that he has--cared--this way!" Norma said. + +Wolf made no answer, and she felt that she had scored. They were in the +station now, and weaving their way down toward the big concourse. Norma +took her husband's arm. + +"Please--please--don't make scenes, Wolf! If you will just believe me +that I wouldn't--truly I wouldn't!--hurt you and Aunt Kate for all the +world----" + +"Ah, Norma," he said, quickly, "I can't take my wife on those terms!" +And turning from the ticket window he added, sensibly: "Liggett is tied, +of course. But would you like me to leave you here when I go West? Until +you are surer of yourself--one way or another? You only have to say so!" + +She only had to say so. He had reached, of his own accord, the very +point to which she long had hoped to bring him. But perversely, Norma +did not quite like to have Wolf go off to Philadelphia with this +unpalatable affirmative ringing in his ears. She looked down. A moment's +courage now, and she would win everything--and more than everything!--to +which Chris had ever urged her. But she felt oddly sad and even hurt by +his willingness to give her her way. + +"All right!" he said, hastily. "That's understood. I'll tell Mother I +don't want you to follow, for awhile. Good-bye, Norma! You're taking the +next tube? Wait a minute--I want a _Post_----" + +Was he trying to show her how mean he could be? she thought, as with a +heartache, and a confused sense of wrong and distress, she slowly went +upon her way. Of course that parting was just bravado, of course he felt +more than that! She resented it--she thought he had been unnecessarily +unkind---- + +But her spirits slowly settled themselves. Wolf knew what she felt, now, +and they had really parted without bitterness. A pleasant sense of being +her own mistress crept over her, her cheeks cooled, her fluttering +heart came back to its normal beat. She began to hear herself telling +Chris how courageous she had been. + +It was too bad--it was one of the sad things of life. But after all, +love was love, in spite of Wolf's scepticism, and if it soothed Wolf to +be rude, let him have that consolation! What did a little pain more or +less signify now? There was no going back. Years from now Wolf would +forgive her, recognizing that great love was its own excuse for being. +"And if this sort of thing exists only to be crushed and killed," Norma +wrote Chris a few days later, "then half the great pictures, the great +novels, the great poems and dramas, the great operas, are lies. But you +and I know that they are not lies!" + +She was unhappy at home, for Aunt Kate was grave and silent, Rose +wrapped in the all-absorbing question of the tiny Catherine's meals, and +Wolf neither came nor wrote on Saturday night. But in Chris's devotion +she was feverishly and breathlessly happy, their meetings--always in +public places, and without a visible evidence of their emotion--were +hours of the most stimulating delight. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +So matters went on for another ten days. Then suddenly, on a mid-week +afternoon, Norma, walking home from a luncheon in a wild and stormy +wind, was amazed to see the familiar, low-slung roadster waiting outside +her aunt's door when she reached the steps. Chris jumped out and came to +meet her as she looked bewilderedly toward it, a Chris curiously +different in manner from the man she had left only an hour ago. + +"Norma!" he said, quickly, "I found a message when I got to the office. +I was to call up Aunt Marianna's house at once. She's ill--_very_ ill. +They want me, and they want you!" + +"Me?" she echoed, blankly. "What for?" + +"She's had a stroke," he said, still with that urgent and hurried air, +"and Joseph--poor old fellow, he was completely broken up--said that she +had been begging them to get hold of you!" + +Norma had gotten into the familiar front seat, but now she stayed him +with a quick hand. + +"Wait a minute, Chris, I'll run up and tell Aunt Kate where I am going!" +she said. + +"She's gone out. There's nobody there!" he assured her, glancing up at +the apartment windows. "I knew you would be coming in, so I waited." + +"Then I'll telephone!" the girl said, settling herself again. "But what +do you suppose she wants me for?" she asked, returning to the subject of +the summons. "Have they--will they--send for Aunt Annie and Leslie, do +you suppose?" + +"Leslie is in Florida with the Binneys, most unfortunately. Annie was in +Baltimore yesterday, but I believe she was expected home to-day. Joseph +said he had gotten hold of Hendrick von Behrens, and I told my clerk to +get Acton, and to warn Miss Slater that Alice isn't to be frightened." + +"But, Chris--do you suppose she is dying?" + +"I don't know--one never does, of course, with paralysis." + +"Poor Aunt Alice--it will almost kill her!" + +"Yes, it will be terribly hard for her, harder than for any one," he +answered. And Norma loved him for the grave sympathy that filled his +voice, and for the poise that could make such a speech possible, under +the circumstances, without ever a side glance for her. + +Then they reached the old house, ran up the steps, and were in the great +dark hallway that already seemed to be filled with the shadow of change. + +Whispering, solemn-faced maids went to and fro; Joseph was red-eyed; the +heavy fur coats of two doctors were flung upon chairs. Norma slipped +from her own coat. + +"How is she, Joseph?" + +"I hardly know, Miss. You're to go up, please, and Regina was to tell +one of the nurses at once that you had come, Miss." He delivered his +message impassively enough, but then the human note must break through. +"I've been with her since she was married, Miss--nigh forty years," the +old man faltered, "and I'm afraid she is very bad--very bad, indeed!" + +"Oh, I _hope_ not!" Norma went noiselessly upstairs, Chris close behind +her. Did she hope not? She hardly knew. But she knew that all this was +strangely thrilling--this rush through the tossing windy afternoon to +the old house, this sense of being a part of the emergency, this utter +departure from the tedious routine of life. + +A serious-faced nurse took charge of them, and she and Chris followed +her noiselessly into the familiar bedroom that yet looked so altered in +its new lifeless order and emptiness. The clutter of personal +possessions was already gone, chairs had been straightened and pushed +back, and on the bed that had lately been frilled and embroidered in +white and pink, and piled with foolish little transparent baby pillows, +a fresh, flawless linen sheet was spread. Silence reigned in the wide +chamber; but two doctors were standing by the window, and looked at the +newcomers with interest, and a second nurse passed them on her way out. +Norma vaguely noted the fire, burning clear and bright, the shaded light +that showed a chart, on a cleared table, the absence of flowers and +plants that made the place seem bare. But after one general impression +her attention was riveted upon the sick woman, and with her heart +beating quickly with fright she went to stand at the foot of the great +walnut bed. + +Mrs. Melrose was lying with her head tipped back in pillows; her usually +gentle, soft old face looked hard and lined, and was a dark red, and the +scanty gray hair, brushed back mercilessly from the temples, and devoid +of the usual puffs and transformations, made her look her full sixty +years. Her eyes were half-open, but she did not move them, her lips +seemed very dry, and occasionally she muttered restlessly, and a third +nurse, bending above her, leaned anxiously near, to catch what she +said, and perhaps murmur a soothing response. + +This nurse looked sharply at Norma, and breathed rather than whispered: +"Mrs. Sheridan?" and when Norma answered with a nod, nodded herself in +satisfaction. + +"She's been asking and asking for you," she said, in a low clear tone +that oddly broke the unnatural silence of the room. Norma, hearing a +stir behind her, looked back to see that both doctors had come over to +the bed, and were looking down at their patient with a profound concern +that their gray heads and their big spectacles oddly emphasized. + +"Mrs. Sheridan?" one of them questioned. Norma dared not use her voice, +and nodded again. Immediately the doctor leaned over Mrs. Melrose, and +said in a clear and encouraging tone: "Here is Mrs. Sheridan now!" + +Mrs. Melrose merely moaned heavily in answer, and Norma said softly, to +the doctor who had spoken: + +"I think perhaps she was asking for my aunt--who is also Mrs. Sheridan!" + +Before the doctor, gravely considering, could answer, the sick woman +startled them all by saying, almost fretfully, in a surprisingly clear +and quiet voice: + +"No--no--no, I want you, Norma!" + +She groped blindly about with her hand, as she spoke, and Norma kneeled +down, and covered it with both her own. Mrs. Melrose immediately began +to breathe more easily, and sank at once into the stupor from which she +had only momentarily roused. + +Norma looked for instruction to the doctor, who presently decided that +there was nothing more to be gained for a time; she joined them +presently, with Chris, in the adjoining room. This was the same old room +of her first visit to the house, with the same rich old brocaded paper +and fringed rep draperies, with the same pictures, and a few new ones, +lined on the mantel. + +"Where are Mrs. von Behrens and Leslie?" Doctor Murray, who had known +all the family intimately for years, asked Chris. + +"Is it so serious, Doctor?" Christopher asked in turn, when he had +answered. The doctor, glancing toward the closed door, nodded gravely. + +"A matter of a day or two," he said, looking at the other old doctor for +confirmation. "She was apparently perfectly normal last night, went to +bed at her usual hour," he said, "this morning she complained of her +head, when the maid went in at ten, said that she must have hurt +it--struck it against something. The maid, a sensible young woman, was +uneasy, and telephoned for me. Unfortunately, I was in Westchester this +morning, but I got here at about one o'clock and found her as she is +now. She has had a stroke--probably several slight shocks." + +"Why, but she was perfectly well day before yesterday!" Norma said, in +amazement. "And only ten days ago she came back from Florida, and said +that she never felt better!" + +"That is frequently the history of the disease," the second doctor said, +sagely. And, glancing at his watch, he added, "I don't think you will +need me again, Doctor Murray?" + +"What are the chances of her--knowing anybody?" Chris asked. + +"She may very probably have another lucid interval," Doctor Murray said. +"If Mrs. Sheridan could arrange to stay, it would be advisable. She +asked for her daughters, but she seemed even more anxious that we should +send for--_you_." He glanced at Norma, with a little old-fashioned bow. + +Mrs. Sheridan could stay, of course. She would telephone home, and +advise Aunt Kate, at once. Indeed, so keen was Norma's sense almost of +enjoyment in this thrilling hour that she would have been extremely +sorry to leave the house. It was sad, it was dreadful, of course, to +think that poor old Aunt Marianna was so ill, but at the same time it +was most dramatic. She and Chris settled themselves before the fire in +the upstairs sitting-room with Doctor Murray, who entertained them with +mild reminiscences of the Civil War. The storm was upon the city now, +rain slashed at the windows and the wind howled bitterly. + +There was whispering in the old house, quiet footsteps, muffled voices +at the door and telephone. At about six o'clock Chris went home, to tell +Alice, with what tenderness he might, of the impending sorrow. Regina, +who had been weeping bitterly, and would speak to no one, brought Norma +and the doctor two smoking hot cups of bouillon on a tray. + +"And you mustn't get tired, Mrs. Sheridan," one of the nurses, herself +healthily odorous of a beef and apple-pie dinner, said kindly to Norma, +at about seven o'clock. "There'll be coffee and sandwiches all night. +This is a part of our lives, you know, and we get used to it, but it's +hard for those not accustomed to it." + +At about nine o'clock in the evening Chris came back. Alice had received +the news bravely, he said; there had been no hysteria and she kept +admirable control of herself, and he had left her ready for sleep. But +it had hit her very hard. Miss Slater had promised him that she would +put a sleeping powder into Alice's regular ten o'clock glass of hot +milk, and let him know when she was safely off. + +"She is very thankful that you are here, she was uneasy every instant +that I stayed away!" he said softly to Norma, and Norma nodded her +approval. Long before eleven o'clock they had the report that Alice was +sleeping soundly under the combined effect of the powder and Miss +Slater's repeated and earnest assurance that there was no immediate +danger as regarded her mother. + +Chris and Norma and the doctor and two of the nurses went down to the +dining-room, and had sandwiches and coffee, and talked long and sadly of +the briefness and mutability of mortal life. When they went upstairs +again the doctor stretched out for some rest, on the sitting-room couch, +and Norma went to her own old room, and got into her comfortable, thick +padded wrapper and warm slippers. The night was still wet and stormy, +and had turned cold. Hail rattled on the window sills. + +Then she crept into the sick-room, and joined the nurses in their +unrelenting vigil. Mrs. Melrose was still lying back, her eyes +half-open, her face darkly flushed, her lips moving in an incoherent +mutter. Now and then they caught the syllables of Norma's name, and once +she said "Kate!" so sharply that everyone in the sick chamber started. + +Norma, leaning back in a great chair by the bed, mused and pondered as +the slow hours went by. The softened lights touched the nurses' crisp +aprons, the fire was out now, and only the two softly palpitating disks +from the shaded lamps dimly illumined the room. + +Annie and Theodore and Alice had all been born in this very room, Norma +thought. She imagined Aunt Marianna, a handsome, stout, radiant young +woman, in the bustles and pleats of the early eighties, with the flowing +ruffles of Theodore's christening robe spreading over her lap. How +wonderful life must have seemed to her then, rich and young, and adored +by her husband, and with her first-born child receiving all the homage +due the heir of the great name and fortune! Then came Annie, and some +years later Alice, and how busy and happy their mother must have been +with plenty of money for schools and frocks, trips to the country with +her handsome, imperious children; trips to Europe when no desire need be +denied them, all the world the playground for the fortunate Melroses! + +How short the perspective must look now, thought Norma, to that troubled +brain that was struggling among closing shadows, nearer and nearer every +slow clocktick to the end. How loathsome it must be to the prisoned +spirit, this handsome, stifling room, this army of maids and nurses and +doctors so decorously resigned to facing the last scene of all. Why, the +poorest child in the city to-night, healthily asleep in some unspeakable +makeshift for a bed, possessed what all the Melrose money could not buy +for this moaning, suffocating old autocrat. + +"I should like to die out on a hillside, under the stars," thought +Norma, "with no one to watch me. This is--somehow--so horrible!" + +And she crept toward the bed and slipped to her knees again, forcing +herself against her inclination--for somehow prayers seemed to have +nothing to do with this scene--to pray for the departing soul. + +"Norma," the old lady said, suddenly, opening her eyes. She looked +quietly and intelligently at the girl. + +"Yes, dear!" Norma stammered, with a frightened glance toward the +nurses. + +These were instantly intent, at the bedside. But Mrs. Melrose paid no +attention to them. She patted Norma's hand. + +"Late for you, dear!" she whispered. "Night!" Obediently she drank +something the nurse put to her lips, and when she spoke it was more +clearly. A moment later Doctor Murray had her pulse between his +nerveless fingers. She moved her eyes lazily to smile at him. "Tide +running out, old friend!" she said, in a deep, rich voice. The doctor +smiled, shaking his head, but Norma saw his eyes glisten behind his +glasses. + +Suddenly Mrs. Melrose frowned, and began to show excitement. + +"Norma!" she said, quickly. "I want Chris!" + +"Right here, Aunt Marianna!" Norma answered, soothingly. And Chris was +indeed leaning over the bed almost before she finished speaking. + +"I want to talk to you and Chris," the old lady said, contentedly +closing her eyes. "Everybody else out!" she whispered. + +The room was immediately cleared. "It can't hurt her now!" Doctor Murray +looked rather than said to Norma as he passed her. Chris watched the +closing doors, sat beside the bed's head with one arm half-supporting +his mother-in-law's pillows. + +"We're all alone, Aunt Marianna," he said. "Leslie and Annie will be +here in the morning, and Alice told me to tell you that she hoped----" + +"Chris," the sick woman interrupted, gazing at him with an intense and +painful stare, "this child here--Norma! I--I must straighten it all out +now, Chris. Kate knows. Kate has all the papers--letters--Louison's +letters! Ask Kate----" + +She shut her eyes. Norma and Chris looked at one another in +bewilderment. There was a long silence. + +"So now you know!" Mrs. Melrose said, presently, returning to full +consciousness as naturally as she had before. "I told you, didn't I?" +she asked, faintly anxious. + +"Don't bother now, Aunt Marianna," the girl begged in distress. +"To-morrow----" + +"Louison," Mrs. Melrose said, "was Annie's French maid--very superior +girl!" + +"I remember her--Theodore's wife," Chris said, eager to help her. + +"And she was this girl's mother," Mrs. Melrose added, clasping Norma's +fingers. "You understand that, Chris?" + +"Yes, darling--we understand!" Norma said, with a nod to Chris that he +was to humour her. But Chris looked only strangely troubled. + +"Annie's poor baby lived--Kate brought it home from France, and we named +it Leslie," the invalid said, clearly. "I couldn't--I couldn't forget +it, Chris. I used to go see it--at Kate's. And then, when it was three, +I met Louison--poor girl, I had been cruel to her--and Theodore was far +off in California--dying, we knew. And I met Louison in Brooklyn. And I +had a sudden idea, Chris! I told her to go to Kate, and get Annie's +baby, and bring it to me as if it was her own. I told her to! I told her +to say that it was her baby--Theodore's baby. And she did, Chris, and I +paid her well for it. She brought Leslie here, and Annie never +knew--nobody ever knew! But I never knew that Louison had a baby of her +own, Chris--I never knew that! Louison hated me, and she never told me +she had a little girl. No--no--no, I never knew that!" + +"Then Leslie--is--Annie's child by Mueller, the riding master!" Chris +whispered, staring blindly ahead of him. "And what--what became of the +other child--Theodore's child?" + +"Louison kept her until she was five," the old lady explained, eagerly, +"and then she wanted to marry again, and she had to go live in a wild +sort of place, in Canada. She didn't want to take the little girl there, +and she remembered Kate Sheridan, who had had the other baby, and who +had been so good to it--so devoted to it! And she went there, Chris, and +left her baby there." + +"And that baby----" Chris began. + +"Yes. That was Norma!" Mrs. Melrose said. "It is all Norma's, the whole +thing--and you must take care that she gets it, Chris. I--even my will, +dear, only gives Norma the Melrose Building and some bonds. But those +are for Leslie, now, all the rest--the whole estate goes to Theodore's +child--Norma. You must forgive me if I did it all wrong. I meant it for +the best. I never knew that you were living, dear, until Kate brought +you here three years ago. She didn't dare do it until your mother died; +she had promised she would never tell a living soul. But Louison +softened toward the end, and wrote Kate she must use her own judgment. +And Kate--Kate--knows all about it----" + +The voice thickened. The old lady raised herself in bed. + +"That man--behind you, Chris!" she gasped. Chris put her down again, +Norma flew for help. The muttering and the heavy breathing recommenced. +Nurses and doctors ran back, Regina came to kneel at the foot of the +bed. + +Another slight stroke, they said later, when they were all about the +fire in the next room again. Norma was white, her eyes glittering, her +bitten lips scarlet in her colourless face. Chris looked stunned. + +But he found time for just one aside, as the endless night wore on. +Annie had arrived, superbly horrified and stricken, and Acton was there. +Mrs. Melrose was still breathing. The sickly light of a winter morning +was tugging at the shutters. + +"Norma," Chris said, "do you realize what a tremendous thing has +happened to you? Do you realize who you are? You are a rich woman now, +my dear!" + +"But do you believe it?" she asked, in a low tone. + +"I know it is true! It explains everything," he answered. "It will be a +cruel blow to Leslie--poor child, and Annie, too. Alice, I think, need +never know. But Norma--even though this doesn't seem the time or the +place, let me be the first to congratulate you on your new position--my +old friend Theodore's daughter, and the last of the Melroses!" + +At seven o'clock in the morning Norma, exhausted with excitement and +emotion, took a hot bath, and finding things unchanged in the sick-room, +except that the lights had been extinguished, and the winter daylight +was drearily mingling with firelight, went on downstairs for coffee and +for one more conference with the blinking nurses and the tired old +doctor. She found herself too shaken to eat, but the hot drink was +wonderfully soothing and stimulating, and for the first time, as she +stood looking out into the street from the dining-room window, a sense +of power and pride began to thrill her. Old people must die, of course, +and after this sad and dark scene was over--then what? Then what? Then +she would be in Leslie's long-envied place, the heiress, the important +figure among all the changes that followed. + +"If you please, Mrs. Sheridan----!" It was Joseph, haggard and white, +who had come softly behind her to interrupt her thoughts. She glanced +with quick apprehension toward the hall stairway. There had been a +change----? + +"No, it was the telephone, Miss." Norma, puzzled by the old butler's +stricken air, went to the instrument. It was Miss Slater. + +"Norma," Miss Slater said, agitatedly, "is Mr. Liggett--there?" + +"I think he's with Aunt Annie, upstairs, but he's going home about +eight," Norma answered. "There is no change. Is Aunt Alice awake? Mr. +Liggett wanted to be there when she woke!" + +"No--she's not awake," the other woman's voice said, solemnly. "She went +to sleep like a child last night, Norma. But about half an hour ago I +went in--she hadn't called me--it was just instinct, I suppose! She was +lying--hadn't changed her position even----" + +"_What's that!_" Norma cried, in a whisper that was like a scream. The +grave voice and the sudden break of tears chilled her to the soul. + +"We've had Doctor Merrill here," Miss Slater said. "Norma, you'll have +to tell him--God help us all! She's gone!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Mrs. Melrose never spoke again, or showed another flicker of the clear +and normal intelligence that she had shown in the night. But she still +breathed, and the long, wet day dragged slowly, in the big, mournful old +house, until late in the unnatural afternoon. People--all sorts of +people--were coming and going now, and being answered, or being turned +away; a few privileged old friends came softly up the carpeted stairs, +and cried quietly with Annie, who looked unbelievably old and ashen +under the double shock. Norma began to hear, on all sides, respectful +and sympathetic references to "the family." The family felt this, and +would like that, the family was not seeing any one, the family must be +protected and considered in every way. The privileged old friends talked +with strange men in the lower hall, and were heard saying "I suppose so" +dubiously, to questions of hats and veils and carriages and the church. + +Chris was gone all day, but at four o'clock an urgent message was sent +him, and he and Acton came into Mrs. Melrose's room about half an hour +later, for the end. His face was ghastly, and he seemed almost unable to +understand what was said to him, but he was very quiet. + +Norma never forgot the scene. She knelt on one side of the bed, praying +with all the concentration and fervour that she could rally under the +circumstances. But her frightened, tired eyes were impressed with every +detail of the dark old stately bedroom none the less. This was the end +of the road, for youth and beauty and power and wealth, this sunken, +unrecognizable face, this gathering of shadows among the dull, wintry +shadows of the afternoon. + +Annie was kneeling, too, her fine, unringed hands clasping one of her +mother's hands. Chris sat against the back of the bed, half-supporting +the piled pillows, in a futile attempt to make more easy the fighting +breath, and Acton and Hendrick von Behrens, grave and awed, stood beside +him, their faces full of sympathy and distress. There was an outer +fringe of nurses, doctors, maids; there was even an audible whisper from +one of them that caused Annie to frown, annoyed and rebuking, over her +shoulder. + +Minutes passed. Norma, pressing her cheek against the hand she held, +began a Litany, very low. Suddenly the dying woman opened her eyes. + +"Yes--yes--yes!" she whispered, eagerly, and with a break in her +frightened voice Norma began more clearly, "Our Father, Who art in +Heaven----" and they all joined in, somewhat awkwardly and uncertainly. + +Mrs. Melrose sank back; she had raised herself just a fraction of an +inch to speak. Now her head fell, and Norma saw the florid colour drain +from her face as wine drains from an overturned glass. A leaden pallor +settled suddenly upon her. When the prayer was finished they +waited--eyed each other--waited again. There was no other breath. + +"Doctor----" Annie cried, choking. The doctor gently laid down the limp +hand he had raised; it was already cool. And behind him the maids began +to sob and wail unrebuked. + +Norma went out into the hall dazed and shaken. This was her first sight +of death. It made her feel a little faint and sick. Chris came and +talked to her for a few minutes; Annie had collapsed utterly, and was +under the doctor's care; Acton broke down, too, and Norma heard Chris +attempting to quiet him. There was audible sobbing all over the house +when, an hour or two later, Alice's beautiful body in a magnificent +casket was brought to lie in the old home beside the mother she had +adored. + +The fragrance of masses and masses of damp flowers began to penetrate +everywhere, and Norma made occasional pilgrimages in to Annie's bedside, +and told her what beautiful offerings were coming and coming and coming. +Joseph had reinforcements of sympathetic, black-clad young men, who kept +opening the front door, and murmuring at the muffled telephone. Annie's +secretary, a young woman about Norma's age, was detailed by Hendrick to +keep cards and messages straight--for every little courtesy must be +acknowledged on Annie's black-bordered card within a few weeks' +time--and Norma heard Joseph telephoning several of the prominent +florists that Mr. Liggett had directed that all flowers were to come to +the Melrose house. Nothing was overlooked. + +When Norma went to her room, big boxes were on the bed, boxes that held +everything that was simple and beautiful in mourning: plain, charming +frocks, a smart long seal-bordered coat, veils and gloves, small and +elegant hats, even black-bordered handkerchiefs. She dressed herself +soberly, yet not without that mournful thrill that fitness and +becomingness lends to bereavement. When she went back to Annie's side +Annie was in beautiful lengths of lustreless crape, too; they settled +down to low, sad conversation, with a few of the privileged old friends. +Chris was nowhere to be seen, but at about six o'clock Acton came in to +show them a telegram from Leslie, flying homeward. Judge Lee was +hurrying to them from Washington, and for a few minutes Annie's +handsome, bewildered little boys came in with a governess, and she cried +over them, and clung to them forlornly. + +After a distracted half-hour in the dining-room, when she and Acton and +Annie's secretary had soup and salad from a sort of buffet meal that was +going on there indefinitely, Norma went upstairs to find that the door +to the front upper sitting-room, closed for hours, was set ajar, and to +see a vague mass of beautiful flowers within--white and purple flowers, +and wreaths of shining dark round leaves. With a quick-beating heart she +stepped softly inside, and went to kneel at the nearer coffin, and cover +her face with her shaking hands. The thick sweetness of the wet leaves +and blossoms enveloped her. Candles were burning; there was no other +light. + +Two or three other women were in the room, catching their breath up +through their nostrils with little gasps, pressing folded handkerchiefs +against their trembling mouths, letting fresh tears well from their +tear-reddened eyes. Chris was standing a few feet away from the +white-clad, flower-circled, radiant sleeper who had been Alice; his arms +were folded, his splendid dark gaze fell upon her with a sort of sombre +calm; he seemed entirely unconscious of the pitying and sorrowful +friends who were moving noiselessly to and fro. + +In the candlelight there was a wavering smile on Alice's quiet face, her +broad forehead was unruffled, and her mouth mysteriously sweet. Norma's +eyes fell upon a familiar black coat, on the kneeling woman nearest her, +and with a start she recognized Aunt Kate. + +They left the room together a few minutes later, and Norma led her aunt +to her own room, where they talked tenderly of the dead. The older woman +was touched by the slender little black figure, and badly shaken by the +double tragedy, and she cried quite openly. Norma had Regina send her up +some tea, and petted and fussed about her in her little daughterly way. + +"I saw about Miss Alice this morning, but I had no idea the poor old +lady----!" Mrs. Sheridan commented sadly. "Well, well, it seems only +yesterday that here, in this very house--and they were all young +then----" Aunt Kate fell silent, and mused for a moment, before adding +briskly: "But now, will they want you, Norma, after the funeral, I mean? +Wolf wrote me----" + +"I don't think Aunt Annie wants me now," Norma said, and with a +heightened colour she added, suddenly, "But I belong here, now, Aunt +Kate--I know who I am at last!" + +Mrs. Sheridan's face did not move; but an indefinable tightness came +about her mouth, and an indefinable sharpness to her eyes. She looked at +Norma without speaking. + +"Aunt Marianna told me," the girl said, simply. "You're sorry," she +added, quickly, "I can see you are!" + +"No--I wouldn't say that, Baby!" But Mrs. Sheridan spoke heavily, and +ended on a sigh. There was a short silence. + +Then Regina came in with a note for Norma, who read it, and turned to +her aunt. + +"It's Chris--he wants very much to see you before you go away," she +said. "I wonder if you would ask Mr. Liggett to come in here, Regina?" +But five minutes later, when Chris came in, he looked so ill that she +was quick to spare him. "Chris, wouldn't to-morrow do--you look so +tired!" + +"I _am_ tired," Chris said, after quietly accepting Mrs. Sheridan's +murmured condolence, with his hand holding hers, as if he liked the big, +sympathetic woman. "But I want this off my mind before I see Judge Lee! +You are right, Mrs. Sheridan," he said, with a sort of boyish gruffness, +not yet releasing her hands, "my wife was an angel. I always knew +it--but I wish I could tell her so just once more!" + +"Ah, that's the very hardest thing about death," Mrs. Sheridan said, +sitting down, and quite frankly wiping from her eyes the tears that +sympathy for his sorrow had made spring again. "We'd always want one +more hour!" + +"But Norma perhaps has told you----?" Chris said, in a different tone. +"Told you of the--the remarkable talk we had yesterday--with my poor +mother-in-law----" + +Kate Sheridan nodded gravely. + +"Yes," she answered, almost reluctantly, "Norma is Theodore Melrose's +child. I have letters--all their letters. I knew her mother, that was +Louison Courtot, well. It was a mixed-up business--but you've got the +whole truth at last. I've lost more than one night's sleep over my share +of it, Mr. Liggett, thinking who this child was, and whether I had the +right to hold my tongue. + +"I was a widow when I went to Germany with Mrs. Melrose. She begged and +begged me to, for she was sick with worry about Miss Annie. Miss Annie +had been over there about eight months, and something she'd written had +made her mother feel that she was ill, or in trouble. Well, I didn't +want to leave my own children, but she coaxed me so hard that I went. We +sailed without cabling, and went straight to Leipsic, and to the +dreadful, dreary pension that Miss Annie was in--a dismal, lonely place. +She came downstairs to see her mother, and I'll never forget the scream +she gave, for she'd had no warning, poor child, and Mueller had taken all +her money, and she was--well, we could see how she was. She began +laughing and crying, and her mother did, too, but Mrs. Melrose stopped +after a few minutes, and we couldn't stop Miss Annie at all. She +shrieked and sobbed and strangled until we saw she was ill, and her +mother gave me one look, and bundled her right out to the carriage, and +off to a better place, and we got a doctor and a nurse. But all that +night she was in danger of her life. I went in to her room that evening, +to put things in order, and she was lying on the bed like a dead +thing--white, sick, and with her eyes never moving off her mother's +face. I could hear her murmuring the whole story, the shame and the +bitter cruelty of it, crying sometimes--and her mother crying, too. + +"'And, Mama,' she said--the innocence of her! 'Mama, did the doctor tell +you that there might have been a baby?--I didn't know it myself until a +few weeks ago! And that's why they're so frightened about me now. But,' +she said, beginning to cry again, 'I should have hated it--I've always +hated it, and I'd rather have it all over--I don't want to have to face +anything more!' + +"Well, it looked then as if she couldn't possibly live through the +night, and all her mother could think of was to comfort her. She told +her that they would go away and forget it all, and Miss Annie clung to +her through the whole terrible thing. We none of us got any sleep that +night, and I think it was at about three o'clock the next morning that I +crept to the door, and the doctor--Doctor Leslie--an old English doctor +who was very kind, came to the door and gave me the poor little pitiful +baby in a blanket. I almost screamed when I took it, for the poor little +soul was alive, working her little mouth! I took her to my room, and +indeed I baptized her myself--I named her Mary for my mother, and Leslie +for the doctor, but I never thought she'd need a name--then. She was +under four pounds, and with a little claw like a monkey's paw, and so +thin we didn't dare dress her--we thought she was three months too soon, +then, and I just sat watching her, waiting for her to die, and thinking +of my own----! + +"Miss Annie was given up the next day, she'd gone into a brain fever, +but my poor little soul was wailing a good healthy wail--I remember I +cried bitterly when the doctor told me not to hope for her! But she +lived--and on the fourth day Mrs. Melrose sent us away, and we went and +stayed in the country for two months after that. + +"Then I had a letter from the Riviera, the first that'd come. Miss Annie +was getting well, her hair was coming out curly, and she hardly +remembered anything about what had happened at all. She wasn't nineteen +then, poor child! She had cried once, her mother wrote, and had said she +thanked God the baby had died and that was all she ever said of it. + +"I brought the baby home, and for nearly three years she lived with my +own, and of course Mrs. Melrose paid me for it. And then one day Louison +Courtot came to see me--I'd known her, of course--Mr. Theodore's wife, +that had been Miss Annie's maid. She had a letter from Mrs. Melrose, and +she took Leslie away, and gave her to her grandmother--just according to +plan. Well, I didn't like it--though it gave the child her rights, but +it didn't seem honest. I had no call to interfere, and a few months +later Mrs. Melrose gave me the double house in Brooklyn, that you'll +well remember, Norma--and your own father made out the deed of gift, Mr. +Chris----! + +"And then, perhaps a year later, Louison came to call on me again, and +with her was a little girl--four years old, and I looked at her, and +looked at Louison, and I said, 'My God--that's a Melrose!' She said, +yes, it was Theodore's child." + +"Norma!" Chris said. + +"Norma--and I remember her as if it was yesterday! With a blue velvet +coat on her, and a white collar, and the way she dragged off her little +mittens to go over and play with Rose and Wolf--and the little coaxing +air she had! So then Louison told me the story, how she had never told +Mrs. Melrose that Theodore really had a daughter, because she hated her +so! But she was going to be married again, and go to Canada, and she +wanted me to keep the baby until she could send for her. I said I would +see how it went, but I could see then that there never was in the +world----" Mrs. Sheridan interrupted herself, coughed, and glanced at +the girl. "Well, we liked Norma right then and there!" she finished, a +little tamely. + +"Oh, Aunt Kate!" Norma said, smiling through tears, her hand tight upon +the older woman's, "you never will praise me!" + +"So Norma," the story went on, "had her supper that night between my two +children, and for fourteen years she never knew that she wasn't our own. +And perhaps she never would have known if Louison hadn't written me that +she was in a hospital--she was to have an operation, and she was willing +at last to make peace with her husband's family. In the same letter was +her husband's note that she was gone, so I had to use my own judgment +then. And when I heard Norma talk of the rich girls she saw in the +bookstore, Mr. Chris, and knew how she loved what money could do for +her, it seemed to me that at least I must tell her grandmother the +truth. So we came here, three years ago, and if it wasn't for Miss +Alice's mistake about her, perhaps the story would have come out then! +But that's all the truth." + +Chris nodded, his arms folded on his chest, his tired face very +thoughtful. + +"It makes her a rich woman, Mrs. Sheridan," he said. + +"I suppose so, sir. I understand Mr. Melrose--the old gentleman--left +everything to his son, Theodore." + +"But not only that," Chris said. "She can claim every penny that has +ever been paid over to Leslie, all through her minority, and since she +came of age, and she also inherits the larger part of her grandmother's +estate, under the will. Probably Mrs. Melrose would have changed that, +if she had lived when all this came to light, and given that same legacy +to Leslie, but we can't act on that supposition. The court will +probably feel that a very grave injustice has been done Norma, and exact +the full arrears." + +"But, Chris," Norma said, quickly, "surely some way can be found to +_give_ Leslie all that would have come to me----" + +"Well, that, of course, would be pure generosity on your part!" he said, +quietly. "However, it would seem to me desirable all round," he added, +"to keep this in the family." + +"Oh, I think so!" Norma agreed, eagerly. + +"Annie and Hendrick must be informed, and, as Leslie's mother, Annie +will provide for her some day, of course. We'll discuss all that later. +But to-day I only wanted to clear up a few points before I see Judge +Lee. He has the will, I believe. He will be here to-morrow morning. In +the meanwhile, I think I would say nothing, Norma, just because Annie is +so upset, and if Leslie heard any garbled story, before she got +here----" + +"Oh, I agree with you entirely, Chris! Anything that makes it easier all +round!" Norma could afford to be magnanimous and agreeable. She would +not have been human not to feel herself the most interesting figure in +all this dramatic situation, not to know that thoughtfulness and +generosity were the most charming parts of her new role. Quietly, +affectionately, she went to the door with Aunt Kate. + +"I wish I could go home with you!" she said. "But I think they need me +here! And if Wolf should come up Saturday, Aunt Kate, you'll tell him +about the funeral----" + +"Rose said he wasn't coming up on Saturday," his mother said. "But if he +does, of course he'll understand! Remember, Norma," she added, drawing +the girl aside a moment, in the lower hall, "remember that they've all +been very kind to you, dear! It's going to be hard for them all!" + +"Yes, I know!" Norma said, hastily, the admonition not to her taste. + +"And what you and Wolf will do with all that money----!" her aunt mused, +shaking her head. "Well, one thing at a time! But I know," she finished, +fondly, "my girl will show them all what a generous and a lovely nature +she has, in all the changes and shifts!" + +Clever Aunt Kate! Norma smiled to herself as she went upstairs. She had +hundreds of times before this guided the girl by premature confidence +and praise; she knew how Norma loved the approbation of those about her. + +Not but what Norma meant to be everything that was broad and considerate +now; she had assumed that position from the beginning. Leslie's chagrin, +Aunt Annie's consternation, should be respected and humoured. They had +sometimes shown her the arrogant, the supercilious side of the Melrose +nature, in the years gone by. Now she, the truest Melrose of them all, +would show them real greatness of soul. She would talk it all over with +Wolf, of course---- + +She missed Wolf. It was, as always, a curiously unsatisfying atmosphere, +this of the old Melrose house. The whispers, the hushed footsteps, the +lowered voices, Aunt Annie's plaintive heroism in her superb crapes, the +almost belligerent loyalty of the intimate friends who praised and +marvelled at her, the costly flowers--thousands of dollars' worth of +them--the extra men helping Joseph to keep everything decorous and +beautiful--somehow it all sickened Norma, and she wished that Wolf +could come and take her for a walk, and talk to her about it. He would +be interested in it all, and he would laugh at her account of the +undertakers, and he would break into elementary socialism when the cost +of the whole pompous pageant was estimated. + +And what would he think of her new-found wealth? Norma tried to imagine +it, but somehow she could not think of Wolf as very much affected. He +hated society, primarily, and he would never be idle, not for the +treasures of India. He would let her spend it as she pleased, and go on +working rapturously at his valves and meters and gauges, perhaps +delighted if she bought him the costliest motor-car made, or the finest +of mechanical piano-players, but quite as willing that the pearls about +his wife's throat should cost fifty dollars as fifty thousand, and quite +as anxious that the heiress of the Melroses should "make good" with his +associate workers as if she had been still a little clerk from Biretta's +Bookshop! + +But cheerfully indifferent as he was to everything that made life worth +living to such a man as Christopher Liggett, she knew that he would not +go to California without her unless there was a definite break between +them. She knew she could not persuade him to leave her here, as a normal +and pleasant solution, just until everything was settled, and until they +could see a little further ahead. No, Wolf was annoyingly conventional +where his wife was concerned: her place was with him, unless for some +secondary reason they had decided to part. And she knew that if he let +her go it would be because he felt that he never should have claimed +her--that, in the highest sense, he never had had her at all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +Moving automatically through the solemn scenes of the next two days, +that, mused Norma, must be the solution. Wolf must go alone to +California. Not because she did not love him--who could help loving him +indeed?--but because she loved Chris more--or differently, at least, and +she belonged to Chris's world now, by every right of birth, wealth, and +position. + +"Of course you must stay here," Chris said, positively, on the one +occasion when they spoke of her plans. "In the first place, there is the +estate to settle, we shall need you. Then there are books--pictures--all +that sort of thing to manage, the old servants to dispose of, and +probably this house to sell--but we can discuss that. Judge Lee has felt +for a long time that this is the right site for a big apartment house, +especially if we can get hold of Boyer's plot. You had better take a +suite at one of the hotels, and later we can look up the right sort of +an apartment for you." + +Not a word of his personal hopes; missing them she felt oddly cheated. + +"Wolf goes to California next month," she said. Christopher gave her a +sharp, quizzing look. + +"But I think you had decided, weeks ago, that you were not going?" + +"Yes--I've told him so!" she faltered. She felt strangely lost and +forlorn, releasing her hold on Wolf, and yet not able to claim +Christopher's support. It was contemptible--it was weak in her, she +felt, but she could not quite choke down her hunger for one reassuring +word from Chris. "I feel so--lonely, Chris," she said. + +He gave a quick, uneasy glance about the breakfast-room, where they were +having a hasty three-o'clock luncheon. No one was within hearing. + +"You understand my position now," he said. + +"Oh, of course!" But she felt oddly chilled. Chris as the bereaved +husband and son-in-law was perfect, of course, almost too perfect. If +Wolf loved a woman---- + +But then the fancy of Wolf, married, and confessedly loving a woman who +was another man's wife, was absurd, anyway. Wolf did not belong to the +world where such things were common, it was utterly foreign to his +nature, with all the rest. Wolf did not go to operas and picture +galleries and polo matches; he did not know how to comport himself at +afternoon teas or summer lunches at the country club. + +And Norma's life would be spent in this atmosphere now. She would get +her frocks from Madame Modiste, and her hats from the Avenue +specialists; she would be a smart and a conspicuous little figure at +Lenox and Bar Harbour and Newport; she would spend her days with +masseuses and dressmakers, and with French and Italian teachers. She +could travel, some day--but here the thought of Chris crept in, and she +was a little hurt at Chris. His exquisite poise, his sureness of being +absolutely correct, was one of his charms. But it was a little hard not +to have the depth of his present feeling for her sweep him off his feet +just occasionally. He had, indeed, shown her far more daring favour +when Alice was alive--meeting Norma down town, driving her about, +walking with her where they might reasonably fear to be seen now and +then. + +It came to her painfully that, even there, Chris's respect for the +conventions of his world was not at fault. Flirtations, "crushes," +"cases," and "suitors" were entirely acceptable in the circle that Chris +so conspicuously ornamented. To pay desperate attentions to a pretty +young married woman was quite excusable; it would have been universally +understood. + +But to show the faintest trace of interest in her while his wife lay +dead, and while his house was plunged into mourning, no--Chris would not +do that. That would not be good form, it would be censured as not being +compatible with the standard of a gentleman. His conduct now must be +beyond criticism, he was the domestic dictator in this, as in every +emergency. Norma listened while he and Hendrick and Annie discussed the +funeral. + +They were in the big upstairs bedroom that Annie had appropriated to +herself during these days. Annie was resting on a couch in a nest of +little pillows, her long bare hands very white against the blackness of +her gown. Hendrick did most of the talking, Chris listening +thoughtfully, accepting, rejecting, Norma a mere spectator. She decided +that Annie was playing her part with a stimulating consciousness of its +dignity, and that Chris was not much better. Honest, red-faced Hendrick +was only genuinely anxious to arrange these details without a scene. + +"I take Annie up the aisle," Chris said, "you'll be a pall-bearer, +Hendrick. Mrs. Lee says that the Judge feels he is too old to serve, so +he will follow me, with Leslie. She gets here this afternoon. Then +Acton brings Norma, and that fills the family pew. Now, in the next +pew----" + +It reminded Norma of something, she could not for a moment remember +what. Then it came to her. Of course!--Leslie's wedding. They had +discussed precedence and pews just that way. Music, too. Hendrick was +making a note of music--Alice's favourite dirge was to be played, and +"Come Ye Disconsolate" which had been sung at Theodore's funeral, +thirteen years ago, and at his father's, seven years before that, was to +be sung by the famous church choir. + +The church was unfortunately small, so cards were to be given to the few +hundreds that it would accommodate. Hendrick suggested a larger church, +but Annie shut her eyes, leaning back, and faintly shaking her head. + +"Please--Hendrick--_please_!" she articulated, wearily. "Mama loved that +church--and there's so little that we can do now--so little that she +ever wanted, dear old saint!" + +It was not hypocrisy, Norma thought. Annie had been a good daughter. +Indeed she had been unusually loyal, as the daughters of Annie's set saw +their filial duties. But something in this overwhelming, becoming grief, +combined with so lively a sense of what was socially correct, jarred +unpleasantly on the younger woman. Of course, funerals had to have +management, like everything else. And it was only part of Annie's code +to believe that an awkwardness now, a social error ever so faint, an +opportunity given the world for amusement or criticism, would reflect +upon the family and upon the dead. + +Norma carried on long mental conversations with Wolf, criticizing or +defending the Melroses. She imagined herself telling him of the shock it +had given her to realize that her grandmother's body was barely cold +before an autocratic and noisy French hairdresser had arrived, demanding +electric heat and hand-glasses as casually as if his customer had been +the bustling, vain old lady of a week ago. She laughed secretly whenever +she recalled the solemn undertaker who had solicited her own aid in +filling out a blank. His first melancholy question, "And thud dame of +the father----" Norma had momentarily supposed to be the beginning of a +prayer, and it had been with an almost hysterical revulsion of feeling +that she had said: "Oh, her father's name? Oh, Francis Dabney Murison." + +Wolf, who would not laugh at one tenth of the things that amused Chris, +or that Annie found richly funny, would laugh at these little glimpses +of a formal funeral, Norma knew, and he would remember other odd bits of +reading that were in the same key--from Macaulay, or Henry George, or a +scrap of newspaper that had chanced to be pasted upon an engine-house +wall. + +Leslie came into the house late on the afternoon of Friday, and there +was much fresh crying between her and Annie. Leslie had on new black, +too, "just what I could grab down there," she explained--and was pettish +and weary with fatigue and the nervous shock. She gave only the side of +her cheek to Acton's dutiful kiss, and answered his question about the +baby with an impatient, "Oh, heavens, she's all _right_! What could be +the matter with her? She did have a cold, but now she's all right--and +when I'm half-crazy about Grandma and poor Aunt Alice, I do _wish_ you +wouldn't take me up so quickly. I've been travelling all night, and my +head is splitting! If it was _I_ that had the cold, I don't believe +you'd be so fussy!" + +"Poor little girl, it's hard for you not to have seen them once more," +Christopher said, tenderly, failing to meet the half-amused and +half-indignant glance that Norma sent him. Leslie burst into +self-pitying tears, and held tight to his hand, as they all sat down in +Annie's room. + +"I believe I feel it most for you, Uncle Chris," she sobbed. + +"It changes my life--ends it as surely as it did hers," Chris said, +quietly. "Just now--well, I don't see ahead--just now. After awhile I +believe she'll come back to me--her sweetness and goodness and +bigness--for Alice was the biggest woman, and the finest, that I ever +knew; and then I'll try to live again--just as she would have had me. +And meanwhile, I try to comfort myself that I tried to show her, in +whatever clumsy way I could, that I appreciated her!" + +"You not only showed her, you showed all the world, Chris," Annie said, +stretching a hand toward him. Norma felt a sudden uprising of some +emotion singularly akin to contempt. + +A maid signalled her, and she stepped to the dressing-room door. A +special delivery letter had come from Wolf. The maid went away again, +but Norma stood where she was, reading it. Wolf had written: + + DEAR NORMA, + + Mother wrote me of all that you have been going through, and I + am as sorry as I can be for all their trouble, and glad that + they have you to help them through. Mother also told me of the + change in your position there; I had always known vaguely that + we didn't understand it all. I remember now your coming to us + in Brooklyn, and your mother crying when she went away. I know + this will make a difference to you, and be one more reason for + your not coming West with me. You must use your own judgment, + but the longer I think of it, the meaner it seems to me for me + to take advantage of your coming to me, last spring, and our + getting married. I've thought about it a great deal. Nothing + will ever make me like, or respect, the man you say you care + for. I don't believe you do care for him. And I would rather see + you dead than married to him. But it isn't for me to say, of + course. If you like him, that's enough. If you ever stop liking + him, and will come back to me, I'll meet you anywhere, or take + you anywhere--it won't make any difference what Mother thinks, + or Rose thinks, or any one else. I've written and destroyed this + letter about six times. I just want you to know that if you + think I am standing in the way of your happiness, I won't stand + there, even though I believe you are making an awful mistake + about that particular man. And I want to thank you for the + happiest eight months that any man ever had. + + Yours always, + WOLF. + +Norma stood perfectly still, after she read the letter through, with the +clutch of vague pain and shame at her heart. The stiff, stilted words +did not seem like Wolf, and the definite casting-off hurt her. Why +couldn't they be friends, at least? Granted that their marriage was a +mistake, it had never had anything but harmony in it, companionship, +mutual respect and understanding, and a happy intimacy as clean and +natural as the meeting of flowers. + +She was standing, motionless and silent, when Leslie's voice came +clearly to her ears. Evidently Acton, Annie, and Leslie were alone, in +Annie's room, out of sight, but not a dozen feet away from where she +stood. Norma did not catch the exact words, but she caught her name, and +her heart stood still with the instinctive terror of the trapped. Annie +had not heard either evidently; she said "What, dear?" sympathetically. + +"I asked what's Norma doing here--isn't she overdoing her relationship a +little?" Leslie said, languidly. + +Norma's face burned, she could hardly breathe as she waited. + +"Mama sent for her, for some reason," Annie answered, with a little +drawl. + +"After all, she's a sort of cousin, isn't she?" Acton added. + +"Oh, don't jump on me for _everything_ I say, Acton," Leslie said, +angrily. "My _goodness_----!" + +"Chris says that Mama left her the Melrose Building--and I don't know +what besides!" Annie said. There was a moment of silence. + +"I don't believe it! What for!" Leslie exclaimed, then, incredulously. +And after another silence she added, in a puzzled tone, "Do _you_ +understand it, Aunt Annie?" + +Evidently Annie answered with a glance or a shrug, for there was another +pause before Annie said: + +"What I don't like about it, and what I do wish Mama had thought of, is +the way that people comment on a thing like that. It's not as if Norma +needed it; she has a husband to take care of her, now, and it makes us a +little ridiculous! One likes to feel that, at a time like this, +everything is to be done decently, at least--not enormous legacies to +comparative strangers----" + +"I like Norma, we've all been kind to her," Leslie contributed, as +Annie's voice died listlessly away. "I've always made allowances for +her. But I confess that it was rather a surprise to find her here, one +of the family----! After all, we Melroses have always rather prided +ourselves on standing together, haven't we? If she wants to wear black +for Grandma, why, it makes no difference to _me_----" + +"I suppose the will could be broken without any notoriety, Chris?" Annie +asked, in an undertone. Norma's heart turned sick. She had not supposed +that Chris was listening without protest to this conversation. + +"No," she heard him say, briefly and definitely, "that's impossible!" + +"It isn't the money----" Annie began. But Leslie interrupted with a +bitter little laugh. + +"It may not be with you, Aunt Annie, but I assure you I wouldn't mind a +few extra thousands," she said. + +"I think you get the Newport house, Leslie," Chris said, in a tone whose +dubiety only Norma could understand. + +"The Newport house!" Leslie exclaimed. "Why, but don't I own _this_, +now? I thought----" + +"I don't really know," Chris answered. "We'll open the will next week, +and then we'll straighten everything out." + +"In the meanwhile," Annie said, lazily, "if she suggests going back to +her own family, for Heaven's sake don't stop her! I like Norma--always +have. But after all, there are times when _any_ outsider--no matter how +agreeable she is----" + +"I think she'll go immediately after the funeral," Chris said, +constrainedly and uncertainly. + +Norma, suddenly roused both to a realization of the utter impropriety of +her overhearing all this, and the danger of detection, slipped from the +dressing-room by the hall door, and so escaped to her own room. + +She shut the door behind her, walked irresolutely to the bed, stood +there for a moment, with her hands pressed to her cheeks, walked blindly +to the window, only to pause again, paced the room mechanically for a +few minutes, and finally found herself seated on the broad, +old-fashioned sill of the dressing-room window, staring down unseeing at +the afternoon traffic in Madison Avenue. + +Oh, how she hated them--cruel, selfish, self-satisfied +snobs--snobs--snobs that they were! Leslie--Leslie "making allowances +for her!" Leslie making allowances for _her_! And Annie--hoping that for +Heaven's sake nobody would prevent her from going home after the +funeral! The remembered phrases burned and stung like acid upon her +soul; she wanted to hurt Annie and Leslie as they had hurt her, she +wanted to shame them and anger them. + +Yes, and she could do it, too! She could do it! They little knew that +within a few days' time utter consternation and upheaval, notoriety and +shame, and the pity of their intimates, would disrupt the surface of +their lives, that surface that they felt it so important to keep smooth! +"People will comment," Norma quoted to herself, with a bitter +smile--indeed people would comment, as they had never commented even +upon the Melroses before! Leslie would be robbed not only of her +inheritance but of her name and of her position. And Annie--even +magnificent Aunt Annie must accept, with what surface veneer of +cordiality she might affect, the only child of her only brother, the +heir to the family estate. + +"I believe I'm horribly tired," Norma said to herself, looking out into +the dimming winter day, "or else I'm nervous, or something! I wish I +could go over to Rose's and help her put the children to bed----! Or I +wish Aunt Kate would telephone for me--I'm sick of this place! Or I wish +Wolf would come walking around that corner--oh, if he would--if he +would----!" Norma said, staring out with an intensity so great that it +seemed to her for the moment that Wolf indeed might come. "If only he'd +come to take me to dinner, at some little Italian place with a backyard, +and skyscrapers all about, so that we could talk!" + +Regina, coming in a little later, saw that Mrs. Sheridan had been +crying, and reproached her with the affectionate familiarity of an old +servitor. + +"You that were always so light-hearted, Miss, it don't seem right for +you to grieve so!" said Regina, a little tearful herself. Norma smiled, +and wiped her eyes. + +"This is a nice beginning," the girl told herself, as she bathed and +dressed for the evening ordeal of calls, and messages, and solemn visits +to the chamber of death, "this is a nice beginning for a woman who knows +that the man she loves is free to marry her, and who has just fallen +heir to a great fortune!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +The evening moved through its dark and sombre hours unchanged; Joseph's +assistants opened and opened and opened the door. More flowers--more +flowers--and more. Notes, telephone messages, black-clad callers +murmuring in the dimness of the lower hall, maids coming noiselessly and +deferentially, the clergyman, the doctor, the choir-master, old Judge +Lee tremulous and tedious, all her world circled about the lifeless form +of the old mistress of the house. Certain persons went quietly upstairs, +women in rich furs, and bare-headed, uncomfortable-looking men, entered +the front room, and passed through with serious faces and slowly shaking +heads. + +Chris spoke to Norma in the hall, just after she had said good-night to +some rather important callers, assuring them that Annie and Leslie were +well, and had been kissed herself as their representative. He extended +her a crushed document in which she was alarmed to recognize Wolf's +letter. + +"Oh--I think I dropped that in Aunt Annie's dressing-room!" Norma said, +turning scarlet, and wondering what eyes had seen it. + +"There was no envelope; a maid brought it to her, and Annie read it," +Chris said. Norma's eyes were racing through it. + +"There are no names!" she said, thankfully. + +"It would have been a most unfortunate--a--a horrible thing, if there +had been," Chris commented. Something in his manner said as plainly as +words that dropping the letter had been a breach of good manners, had +been extremely careless, almost reprehensible. Norma felt herself +unreasonably antagonized. + +"Oh, I don't know! It's true," she said, recklessly. + +"Annie is a very important person in your plans, Norma," Chris reminded +her. "It would be most regrettable for you to lose your head now, to +give everyone an opportunity of criticizing you. I should advise you to +enlist your Aunt Annie's sympathies just as soon as you can. She is, of +all the world, the one woman who can direct you--help you equip +yourself--tell you what to get, and how to establish yourself. If Annie +chose to be unfriendly, to ignore you----" + +"I don't see Annie von Behrens ignoring me--now!" Norma said, with +anger, and throwing her head back proudly. They were in a curtained +alcove on the landing of the angled stairway, completely hidden by the +great curtain and by potted palms. "When my revered aunt realizes----" + +"Your money will have absolutely no effect on Annie," Chris said, +quickly. + +"No, but what I _am_ will!" Norma answered, breathing hard. + +"Not while we keep it to ourselves, as of course we must," Chris +answered, in displeasure. "No one but ourselves will ever know----" + +"The whole world will know!" Norma said, in sudden impatience with +smoothing and hiding and pretending. Chris straightened his eyeglasses +on their ribbon, and gave her his scrutinizing, unruffled glance. + +"That would be foolish, I think, Norma!" he told her, calmly. "It would +be a most unnecessary piece of vulgarity. Old families are constantly +hushing up unfortunate chapters in their history; there is no reason why +the whole thing should not be kept an absolute secret. My dear girl, you +have just had a most extraordinary piece of good fortune--but you must +be very careful how you take it! You will be--you are--a tremendously +wealthy woman--and you will be in the public eye. Upon how you conduct +yourself now your future position largely depends. Annie can--and I +believe will--gladly assist you. Acton and Leslie will go abroad, I +suppose--they can't live here. But a breath of scandal--or an +ill-advised slip on your part--would make us all ridiculous. You must +play your cards carefully. If you could stay with Annie, now----" + +"I _hate_ Aunt Annie!" Norma interrupted, childishly. + +"My dear girl--you're over-tired, you don't mean what you say!" Chris +said, putting his hand on her arm. Under the light touch she dropped her +eyes, and stood still. "Norma, do be advised by me in this," he urged +her earnestly. "It is one of the most important crises in your life. +Annie can put you exactly where you want to be, introduced and accepted +everywhere--a constant guest in her house, in her opera box, or Annie +can drop you--I've seen her do it!--and it would take you ten years to +make up the lost ground!" + +"It didn't take Annie ten years to be a--a--social leader!" Norma +argued, resentfully. + +"Annie? Ah, my dear, a woman like Annie isn't born twice in a hundred +years! She has--but you know what she has, Norma. Languages, +experiences, friends--most of all she has the grand manner--the _belle +aire_." + +Norma was fighting to regain her composure over almost unbearable hurt +and chagrin. + +"But, Chris," she argued, desperately, "you've always said that you had +no particular use for Annie's crowd--that you'd rather live in some +little Italian place--or travel slowly through India----" + +"I said I would like to do that, and so I would!" he answered. "But +believe me, Norma, your money makes a very different sort of thing +possible now, and you would be mad--you would be _mad_!--to throw it +away. Put yourself in Annie's hands," he finished, with the first hint +of his old manner that she had seen for forty-eight hours, "and have +your car, your maids, your little establishment on the upper East Side, +and then--then"--and now his arm was about her, and he had tipped up her +face close to his own--"and then you and I will break our little +surprise to them!" he said, kindly. "Only be careful, Norma. Don't let +them say that you did anything ostentatious or conspicuous----" + +She freed herself, her heart cold and desolate almost beyond bearing, +and Chris answered her as if she had spoken. + +"Yes--and I must go, too! To-morrow will be a terrible day for us all. +Oh, one thing more, Norma! Annie asked me if I had any idea of who the +man was--the man Wolf speaks of there in that note--and I had to say +someone, just to quiet her. So I said that I thought it was Roy +Gillespie--you don't mind?--I knew he liked you tremendously, and I +happened to think of him! Is that all right?" + +She made no audible answer, almost immediately leaving him, and going +upstairs. There was nothing to do, in her room, and she knew that she +could really be of use downstairs, among the intimate old friends who +were protecting Annie and Leslie from annoyance, but she felt in no mood +for that. She hated herself and everybody; she was half-mad with fatigue +and despondency. + +Oh, what was the use of living--what was the use of living! Chris +despised her; that was quite plain. He had advised her to-night as he +would have advised an ignorant servant--an inexperienced commoner who +might make the family ridiculous--who might lose her head, and descend +to "unnecessary pieces of vulgarity!" Leslie had always "made allowances +for Norma"; Annie considered her an "outsider." Wolf was going to +California without her, and even Aunt Kate--even Aunt Kate had scolded +her, reminded her that the Melroses had always been kind to her! + +Norma's tears flowed fast, there seemed to be no end to the flood. She +sopped them away with the black-bordered handkerchief, and tried walking +about, and drinking cold water, but it was of no use. Her heart seemed +broken, there was no avenue for her thoughts that did not lead to +loneliness and grief. They had all pretended to love her--but not one of +them did--not one of them did! She had never had a father, and never had +a mother, she had never had a fair chance! + +Money--she thought darkly. But what was the use of money if everyone +hated her, if everyone thought she was selfish and stupid and ignorant +and superfluous! Why find a beautiful apartment, and buy beautiful +clothes, if she must flatter and cajole her way into Annie's favour to +enjoy them, and bear Chris's superior disdain for her stumbling literary +criticisms and her amateurish Italian? + +And she was furious at Chris. How dared he--how dared he insult her by +coupling her name with that of Roy Gillespie, to quiet Annie and to +protect himself! She was a married woman; she had never given him any +reason to take such liberties with her dignity! Roy Gillespie, indeed! +Annie was to amuse herself by fancying Norma secretly enamoured of that +big, stupid, simple Gillespie boy, who was twenty-two years old, and +hardly out of college! And it was for him that Norma was presumably +leaving her husband! + +It was insufferable. It was insufferable. She would go straight to +Annie--but no, she couldn't do that. She couldn't tell Annie, on the +night before Annie's sister was buried, that that same sister's husband +loved and was beloved by another woman. + +"Still, it's true," Norma mused, darkly. "Only we seem unable to speak +the truth in this house! Well, I'm stifling here----" + +She had been leaning out of the open window, the night was soft and +warm. Norma looked at her wrist watch; it was nine o'clock. A sudden mad +impulse took her: she would go over to Jersey, and see Rose. It was not +so very late, the babies kept Rose and Harry up until almost eleven. She +thirsted suddenly for Rose, for Rose's beautiful, pure little face, her +puzzled, earnest blue eyes under black eyebrows, her pleasant, unready +words that were always so true and so kind. + +Rapidly Norma buttoned the new black coat, dropped the filmy veil, fled +down the back stairway, and through a bright, hot pantry, where maids +were laughing and eating gaily. She explained to their horrified silence +that she was slipping out for a breath of air, went through doorways +and gratings, and found herself in the blessed coolness and darkness of +the side street. + +Ah--this was delicious! She belonged here, flying along inconspicuous +and unmolested in light and darkness, just one of the hurrying and +indifferent millions. The shop windows, the subways, the very +gum-machines and the chestnut ovens with their blowing lamps looked +friendly to Norma to-night; she loved every detail of blowing newspapers +and yawning fellow-passengers, in the hot, bright tube. + +On the other side she was hurrying off the train with the plunging crowd +when her heart jumped wildly at the sight of a familiar shabby overcoat +some fifty feet ahead of her, topped by the slightly tipped slouch hat +that Wolf always wore. Friday night! her thoughts flashed joyously, and +he was coming to New Jersey to see his mother and Rose! Of all fortunate +accidents--the one person in the world she wanted to see--and must see +now! + +Norma fled after the coat, dodging and slipping through every opening, +and keeping the rapidly moving slouch hat before her. She was quite out +of breath when she came abreast of the man, and saw, with a sickening +revulsion, that it was not Wolf. + +What the man thought Norma never knew or cared. The surprising blankness +of the disappointment made her almost dizzy; she turned aside blindly, +and stumbled into the quiet backwater behind a stairway, where she could +recover her self-possession and endure unobserved the first pangs of +bitterness. It seemed to her that she would die if she could not see +Wolf, if she had to endure another minute of loneliness and darkness and +aimless wandering through the night. + +Rose's house was only three well-lighted blocks from the station; Norma +almost ran them. Other houses, she noted, were still brightly lighted at +quarter to eleven o'clock, and Rose's might be. Aunt Kate was there, and +she and Rose might well be sitting up, with the restless smaller baby, +or to finish some bit of sewing. + +It was a double house, and the windows that matched Rose's bedroom and +dining-room were lighted in the wrong half. But all Rose's side was +black and dark and silent. + +Norma, for the first time in her life, needed courage for the knocking +and ringing and explaining. If they would surely be kind to her, she +might chance it, she thought. But if Aunt Kate was angry with her +vacillations in regard to Wolf, and if Rose had also taken Wolf's side, +then she knew that she, Norma, would begin to cry, and disgrace herself, +and have good-natured simple old Harry poking about and wondering what +was the matter---- + +No, she didn't dare risk it. So she waited in the little garden, looking +up at the windows, praying that little Harry would wake up, or that the +baby's little acid wail would drift through the open window, and then +the dim light bloom suddenly, and show a silhouette of Rose, tall and +sweet in her wrapper, with a great rope of braid falling over one +shoulder. + +But moments went by, and there was no sound. Norma went to the street +lamp a hundred feet away and looked at her wrist watch. Quarter past +eleven; it was useless to wait any longer; it had been a senseless quest +from the beginning. + +She went back to the city by train and boat, crying desolately in the +darkness above the ploughing of the invisible waters. She cried with +pity for herself, for it seemed to her that life was very unfair to her. + +"Is it _my_ fault that I inherit all that money?" she asked the dark +night angrily. "Is it my fault that I love Chris Liggett? Isn't it +better to be honest about it than live with a man I don't love? Isn't +that the worst thing that woman can endure--a loveless marriage? + +"But that's just the High School Debating Society!" she interrupted +herself, suddenly, using a phrase that she and Wolf had coined long ago +for glib argument that is untouched by actual knowledge of life. +"Loveless marriage--and wife in name only! I wonder if I am getting to +be one of the women who throw those terms about as an excuse for just +sheer selfishness and stupidity!" + +And her aunt's phrases came back to her, making her wonder unhappily +just where the trouble lay, just what sort of a woman she was. + +"I think you will be whatever you want to be, Norma," Mrs. Sheridan had +said, "you're a woman now--you're Wolf's wife----" + +But that was just what she did not feel herself, a woman and Wolf's +wife. She was a girl--interested in shaggy sport coats and lace +stockings; she did not want to be any one's wife! She wanted to punish +Leslie and Aunt Annie, and to have plenty of money, and to have a +wonderful little apartment on the east side of the Park, and delicious +clothes; she wanted to become a well-known figure in New York society, +at Palm Beach and the summer resorts, and at the opera and the big +dining-rooms of the hotels. + +"And I could do it, too!" Norma thought, walking through the cool, dark +night restlessly. "In two years--in three or four, anyway, I would be +where Aunt Annie is; or at least I would if Chris and I were married--he +could do anything! I suppose," she added, with youthful recklessness, "I +suppose there are lots of old fogies who would never understand my +getting separated from Wolf, but it isn't as if _he_ didn't understand, +for I know he does! Wolf has always known that it took just _certain +things_ to make me happy!" + +Something petty, and contemptible, and unworthy, in this last argument +smote her ears unpleasantly, and she was conscious of flushing in the +dark. + +"Well, people have to be happy, don't they?" she reasoned, with a rising +inflection at the end of the phrase that surprised and a trifle +disquieted her. "Don't they?" she asked herself, thoughtfully, as she +crept in at the side door of the magnificent, cumbersome old house that +was her own now. No one but an amazed-looking maid saw her, as she +regained her room, and fifteen minutes later she was circulating about +the dim and mournful upper floor again. Annie called her into her room. + +"You look fearfully tired, Norma! Do get some sleep," her aunt said, +with unusual kindness. "I'm going to try to, although my head is aching +terribly, and I know I can't. To-morrow will be hard on us all. I shall +go home to-morrow night, and I'm trying to persuade Leslie to come with +me." + +"No, I shan't! I'm going to stay here," Leslie said, with a sort of +weary pettishness. "My house is closed, and poor Chris is going to begin +closing Aunt Alice's house, and he doesn't want to go to a club--he'd +much rather be here, wouldn't he, Norma?" + +Something in the tired way that both aunt and niece appealed to her +touched Norma, and she answered sympathetically: + +"Truly, I think he would, Aunt Annie. And if little Patricia and the +nurse get here on Sunday, she won't be lonely." + +"Norma, why don't you stay here, too--your husband's in Philadelphia," +Leslie asked her. "Do! We shall have so much to do----" + +"We haven't seen the will, but I believe Judge Lee is going to bring it +on Wednesday," Annie said, "and Chris said that Mama left you--well, I +don't know what! I wish you could arrange to stay the rest of the week, +at least!" + +"I will!" Norma agreed. She had been feeling neglected and lonely, and +this unexpected friendliness was heartwarming. + +"You've been a real comfort," Annie said, good-naturedly. "You're such a +sensible child, Norma. I hope one of these days--afterward"--and Annie +faintly indicated with her eyebrows the direction of the front room from +which the funeral procession would start to-morrow--"afterward, that +you'll let us know your husband better. And now it's long past midnight, +girls, and you ought to be in bed!" + +It was mere casual civility on Annie's part, as accidental as had been +her casual unkindness a few hours before. But it lifted Norma's heart, +and she went out into the hall in a softer frame of mind than she had +known for a long time. She managed another word with Chris before going +to her room for almost nine hours of reviving and restoring sleep. + +"Chris, I feel terribly about breaking this news to Aunt Annie and +Leslie while they feel so badly about Aunt Alice and Aunt Marianna!" she +said. Again Chris gave the hallway, where she had met him, a quick, +uneasy scrutiny before he answered her: + +"Well, of course! But it can't be helped." + +"But do you think that we could put it off until Wednesday, Chris, when +the will is to be read? Everyone will be here then, and it would seem a +good time to do it!" + +"Yes," he consented, after a moment's thought, "I think that is a good +idea!" And so they left it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Regina roused Norma just in time for the long, wearisome ceremonials of +the following day, a cold, bright gusty day, when the wet streets +flashed back sombre reflections of the motor wheels, and the newly +turned earth oozed flashing drops of water. The cortege left the old +Melrose house at ten minutes before ten o'clock, and it was four before +the tired, headachy, cramped members of the immediate family group +regathered there, to discard the crape-smothered hats, and the odorous, +sombre furs, and to talk quietly together as they sipped hot soup and +crumbled rolls. Everything had been changed, the flowers were gone, +furniture was back in place, and the upper front room had been opened +widely to the suddenly spring-like afternoon. There was not a fallen +violet petal to remind her descendants that the old mistress of forty +full years was gone for ever. + +Annie's boys came to bring Mother home, after so many strange days' +absence, and Norma liked the way that Annie smiled wearily at Hendrick, +and pressed her white face hungrily against the boys' blonde, firm +little faces. Leslie, in an unwontedly tender mood, drew Acton's arm +about her, as she sat in a big chair, and told him with watering eyes +that she would be glad to see old Patsie-baby on Sunday. Norma sat +alone, the carved Tudor oak rising high above her little tired head with +its crushed soft hair, and Chris sat alone, too, at the other end of +the table, and somehow, in the soul fatigue that was worse than any +bodily fatigue, she did not want the distance between them bridged, she +did not want--she shuddered away from the word--love-making from Chris +again! + +Leslie, who felt quite ill with strain and sorrow, went upstairs to bed, +the Von Behrens went away, and presently Acton disappeared, to telephone +old Doctor Murray that his wife would like a sedative--or a heart +stimulant, or some other little attention as a recognition of her broken +state. + +Then Chris and Norma were alone, and with a quiet dignity that surprised +him she beckoned him to the chair next to her, and, leaning both elbows +on the cloth, fixed him with her beautiful, tired eyes. + +"I want to talk to you, Chris, and this seems to be the time!" she said. +"You'll be deep in all sorts of horrible things for weeks now, poor old +Chris, and I want this said first! I've been thinking very seriously all +these days--they seem months--since Aunt Marianna died, and I've come to +the conclusion that I'm--well, I'm a fool!" + +She said the last word so unexpectedly, with such obvious surprise, that +Chris's tired, colourless face broke into something like a smile. He had +seated himself next to her, and was evidently bending upon her problem +his most earnest attention. + +"Some months ago," Norma said in a low voice, "I thought--I +_thought_--that I fell in love! The man was rich, and handsome, and +clever, and he knew more--of certain things!--in his little finger, than +I shall ever know in my whole life. Not exactly more French, or more of +politics, or more persons--I don't mean quite that. But I mean a +conglomerate sort of--I'm expressing myself badly, but you understand--a +conglomerate total of all these things that make him an aristocrat! +That's what he is, an aristocrat. Now, I'm not! I've found that out. I'm +different." + +"Nonsense!" Chris said, lightly, but listening patiently none the less. + +"I know," Norma resumed, hammering her thought out slowly, and frowning +down at the teaspoon that she was measuring between her finger-tips, "I +know that there are two women in me. One is the Melrose, who +_could_--for I know I could!--push her husband out of sight, take up the +whole business of doing things correctly, from hair-dressing and writing +notes of condolence to being"--she could manage a hint of a smile under +swiftly raised lashes--"being presented at Saint James's!" she said. "In +five years she would be an admired and correct and popular woman, and +perhaps even married to this man I speak of! The other woman is my +little plain French mother's sort--who was a servant--my Aunt Kate's +kind," and Norma suddenly felt the tears in her eyes, and winked them +away with an April smile, "who belongs to her husband, who likes to cook +and tramp about in the woods, and send Christmas boxes to Rose's babies, +and--and go to movies, and picnics! And that's the sort of woman I _am_, +Chris," Norma ended, with a sudden firmness, and even a certain relief +in her voice. "I've just discovered it! I've been spoiled all my +life--I've been loved too much, I think, but I've thought it all out--it +really came to me, as I stood beside Aunt Marianna's grave to-day, and +you don't know how happy it's made me!" + +"You are talking very recklessly, Norma," Chris said, as she paused, in +his quiet, definite voice. "You are over-excited now. There is no such +difference in the two--the two classes, to call them that, as you fancy! +The richer people, the people who, as you say, do things correctly, and +are presented at Saint James's, have all the simple pleasures, too. One +likes moving pictures now and then; I'm sure we often have picnics in +the summer. But there are women in New York--hundreds of them, who would +give the last twenty years of their lives to step into exactly what you +can take for the asking now. You will have Annie and me back of +you--this isn't the time, Norma, for me to say just how entirely you +will have my championship! But surely you know----" + +He was just what he had always been: self-possessed, finished, +splendidly sure in voice and manner. He was rich, he was popular, he was +a dictator in his quiet way. And she knew even if the shock of his +wife's sudden going had pushed his thought of her into the background, +that in a few months he would be hovering about her again, +conventionally freed for conventional devotion. + +She saw all this, and for the first time to-day she saw other things, +too. That he was forty, and looked it. That there was just the faintest +suggestion of thinning in his smooth hair, where Wolf's magnificent mane +was the thickest. That it was just a little bloodless, this decorous +mourning that had so instantly engulfed him, who had actually told her, +another man's wife, a few weeks before, that his own wife was dying, and +so would free him for the woman he loved at last! + +In short, Norma mused, watching him as he fell into moody silence, he +had not scrupled to break the spirit of his bond to Alice, he had not +hesitated to tell Norma that he loved her when only Norma, and possibly +Alice, might suffer from his disloyalty. But when the sacred letter was +touched, the sacred outside of the vessel that must be kept clean before +the world, then Chris was instantly the impeccable, the irreproachable +man of his caste again. It was all part of the superficial smallness of +that world where arbitrary form ruled, where to send a wedding +invitation printed and not engraved, or to mispronounce the name of a +visiting Italian tenor or Russian dancer, would mark the noblest woman +in the world as hopelessly "not belonging." + +"One of the things you do that really you oughtn't to, Norma," he +resumed, presently, in quiet distaste, "is assume that there is some +mysterious difference between, say, the Craigies, and well--your +husband. The Craigies are enormously wealthy, of course. That means that +they have always had fine service, music, travel, the best of everything +in educational ways, friendship with the best people--and those things +_are_ an advantage, generation after generation. It's absurd to deny +that Annie's children, for example, haven't any real and tremendous +advantages over--well, some child of a perfectly respectable family that +manages nicely on ten thousand a year. But that Annie's pleasures are +not as real, or that there must necessarily be something +dangerous--something detestable--in the life of the best people, is +ridiculous!" + +"That's just what I do assert," she answered, bravely. "It may not be so +for you, for you were born to it! But when you've lived, as I have, in a +different sort of life, with people to whom meals, and the rent, and +their jobs, really matter--this sort of thing doesn't seem _real_. You +feel like bursting out laughing and saying, 'Oh, get out! What's the +difference if I _don't_ make calls, and broaden my vowels, and wear just +this and that, and say just this and that!' It all seems so _tame_." + +"Not at all," Chris said, really roused. "Take Betty Doane, now, the +Craigies' cousin. There's nothing conventional about her. There's a girl +who dresses like a man all summer, who ran away from school and tramped +into Hungary dressed as a gipsy, who slapped Joe Brinckerhoff's face for +him last winter, and who says that when she loves a man she's going off +with him--no matter who he is, or whether he's married or not, or +whether she is!" + +"I'll tell you what she sounds like to me, Chris, a little saucy girl of +about eight trying to see how naughty she can be! Why, that," said +Norma, eagerly, "that's not _real_. That isn't like house-hunting when +you know you can't pay more than thirty dollars' rent, or surprising +your husband with a new thermos bottle that he didn't think he could +afford!" + +"Ah, well, if you _like_ slums, of course!" Chris said, coldly. "But +nothing can prevent your inheriting an enormous sum of money, Norma," he +said, ending the conversation, "and in six months you'll feel very +differently!" + +"There is just one chance in ten--one chance in a hundred--that I +might!" she said to herself, going upstairs, after Chris and Acton, who +presently returned to the dining-room, had begun an undertoned +conversation. And with a sudden flood of radiance and happiness at her +heart, she sat down at her desk, and wrote to Wolf. + +The note said: + + WOLF DEAR: + + I have been thinking very seriously, during these serious days, + and I am writing you more earnestly than I ever wrote any one in + my life. I want you to forgive me all my foolishness, and let me + come back to you. I have missed you so bitterly, and thought how + good and how sensible you were, and how you took care of us all + years ago, and gave Rose and me skates that Christmas that you + didn't have your bicycle mended, and how we all sat up and cried + the night Aunt Kate was sick, and you made us chocolate by the + rule on the box. I have been very silly, and I thought I + cared--and perhaps I _did_ care--for somebody else; or at least + I cared for what he stood for, but I am over that now, and I + feel so much older, and as if I needed you so. I shall have a + tremendous lot of money, and we'll just have to decide what to + do with it, but I think I know now that there won't be any + particular pleasure in spending it. We'll always love the old + car, and----But it just occurs to me that we _could_ send poor + Kitty Barry to the hospital, and perhaps ship them all off + somewhere where they'd get better. Aunt Kate would like that. + But won't you come up, Wolf, and see me? I'll meet you anywhere, + and we can talk, on Monday or Tuesday. Will you write me or wire + me? I can't wait to see you! + +She cried over the letter, and over the signature that she was his +loving Nono, but she mailed it with a dancing heart. The road had been +dark and troubled for awhile, but it was all clear now! The wrong had +been--the whole wretched trouble had been--in her thinking that she +could toss aside the solemn oath that she had taken on the bewildering +day of her marriage almost a year ago. + +Never since old, old days of childhood, when she and Wolf and Rose had +wiped the dishes and raked the yard, and walked a mile to the +twenty-five-cent seats at the circus, had Norma been so sure of +herself, and so happy. She felt herself promoted, lifted above the old +feelings and the old ways, and dedicated to the work before her. And one +by one the shadows lifted, and the illusions blew away, and she could +see her way clear for the first time in more than three years. It was +all simple, all right, all just as she would have had it. She would +never be a petted and wealthy little Leslie, she would never be a +leader, like Mrs. von Behrens, and she would never stand before the +world as the woman chosen by the incomparable Chris. Yet she was the +last Melrose, and she knew now how she could prove herself the proudest +of them all, how she could do these kinspeople of hers a greater favour +than any they had ever dreamed of doing her. And in the richness of +renouncing Norma knew herself to be for the first time truly rich. + +Chris saw the difference in her next day, felt the new dignity, the +sudden transition from girl to woman, but he had no inkling of its +cause. Leslie saw it, and Annie, but Norma gave them no clue. At +luncheon Annie, who had joined them for the meal, proposed that Leslie +and Norma and the Liggetts come to her for a quiet family dinner, but +Norma begged off; she really must see Aunt Kate, and would seize this +opportunity to go home for a night. But leaving the table Norma asked +Chris if she might talk business to him for a few minutes. + +They sat in the old library, Chris sunk in a great leather chair, +smoking cigarettes, Norma opposite, her white hands clasped on the +blackness of her simple gown, and her eyes moving occasionally from +their quiet study of the fire to rest on Chris's face. + +"Chris," she said, "I've thought this all out, now, and I'm not really +asking your advice, I'm telling you what I am going to do! I'm going to +California with Wolf in a week or two--that's the first thing!" + +He stared at her blankly, and as the minutes of silence between them +lengthened Norma noticed his lips compress themselves into a thin, +colourless line. But she returned his look bravely, and in her eyes +there was something that told the man she was determined in her +decision. + +"I don't quite follow you, Norma," he said at last with difficulty. "You +mean that all the plans and hopes we shared and discussed----" He +faltered a moment and then made another effort: "Now that whatever +obstacles there were have been removed, and you and I are free to +fulfill our destinies, am I to understand that--that you are going back +to your husband?" + +"Exactly." The girl's answer was firm and determined. + +The colour fled from Chris's face, and a cold light came into his eye; +his jaw stiffened. + +"You must use your own judgment, Norma," he answered, with a displeased +shrug. + +"I'll leave with you, or send you, my power of attorney," the girl went +on, "and you and Hendrick as executors must do whatever you think right +and just--just deposit the money in the bank!" + +"I see," Chris said, noncommittally. + +"And there's another thing," Norma went on, with heightened colour. "I +don't want either Leslie or Aunt Annie ever to know--what you and I +know!" + +Chris looked at her, frowning slightly. + +"That's impossible, of course," he said. "What are they going to think?" + +"They'll think nothing," Norma said, confidently, but with anxious eyes +fixed on his face, "because they'll know nothing. There'll be no change, +nothing to make them suspect anything." + +"But--great God! You don't seem to understand, Norma. Proofs of your +birth, of your rightful heritage, your identity, the fact that you are +Theodore's child, must be shown them, of course. You have inherited by +Aunt Marianna's will the bulk of her personal fortune, but besides this, +as Theodore's child, you inherit the Melrose estate, and Leslie must +turn this all over to you, and make such restitution as she is able, of +all income from it which she has received since Judge Lee and I turned +it over to her on her eighteenth birthday." + +"No, that's just what she is _not_ to do! I will get exactly what is +mentioned in the will--as Norma Sheridan, bonds and the Melrose +Building, and so on," Norma broke in, eagerly. "And that's enough, +goodness knows, and a thousand times more than Wolf and I ever expected +to have. Aunt Annie and Leslie are reconciled to that. But for the rest, +I refuse to accept it. I don't want it. I've never been so unhappy in my +life as I've been in this house, for all the money and the good times +and the beautiful clothes. And if that much didn't make me happy, why +should ten times more? Isn't it far, far better--all round----" + +"You are talking absurdities," said Chris. "Do you think that Hendrick +and I could consent to this? Do you suppose----" + +"Hendrick doesn't know it, Chris. It is only you and I and Aunt +Kate--that's all! And if I do this, and swear you and Aunt Kate to +secrecy, who is responsible, except me?" + +Chris shook his head. "Aunt Marianna wished you righted--wished you to +take your place as Theodore's daughter. It is her wish, and it is only +our duty----" + +"But think a minute, Chris, think a minute," Norma said, eagerly, +leaning forward in her chair, so that her locked hands almost touched +his knees. "_Was_ it her wish? She wanted me to _know_--that's certain! +And I do know. But do you really think she wanted Leslie to be shamed +and crushed, and to take away the money Leslie has had all her life, to +shock Aunt Annie, and stir that old miserable matter up with Hendrick? +Chris, you _can't_ think that! The one thing she would have wished and +prayed would have been that somehow the matter would have been righted +without hurting any one. Chris, _think_ before you tear the whole family +up by the roots. What harm is there in this way? I have plenty of +money--and I go away. The others go on just as they always have, and in +a little way--in just a hundredth part--I pay back dear old Aunt +Marianna for all the worrying and planning she did, to make up to me for +what should have been mine, and was Leslie's. Please--_please_, help me +to do this, Chris. I can't be happy any other way. Aunt Kate will +approve--you don't know how much she will approve, and it will repay +her, too, just a little, to feel that it's all known now, and that it +has turned out this way. And she will destroy every last line and shred +of letters and papers, and the photographs she said she had, and it will +all be over--for ever and for ever!" + +"You put a terrible responsibility upon me," Chris said, slowly. + +"No--I take it myself!" Norma answered. He had gotten to his feet, and +was standing at the hearth, and now she rose, too, and looked eagerly up +at him. "It isn't anything like the responsibility of facing the world +with the whole horrible story!" + +Chris was silent, thinking. Presently he turned upon her the old smile +that she had always found irresistible, and put his two hands on her +shoulders. + +"You are a wonderful woman, Norma!" he said, slowly. "What woman in the +world, but you, would do that? Yes, I'll do it--for Leslie's sake, and +Acton's sake, and because I believe Alice would think it as wonderful in +you as I do. But think," Chris said, "think just a few days, Norma. You +and I--you and I might go a long way, my dear!" + +If he had said it even at this hour yesterday, he might have shaken her, +for the voice was the voice of the old Chris, and she had been even then +puzzled and confused to see the wisest way. But now everything was +changed; he could not reach her now, even when he put his arm about her, +and said that this was one of their rare last chances to be alone +together, and asked if it must be good-bye. + +She looked up at him gravely and unashamedly. + +"Yes, it must be good-bye--dear Chris!" she said, with a little emotion. +"Although I hope we will see each other often, if ever Wolf and I come +back. Engineers live in Canada and Panama and India and Alaska, you +know, and we never will know we are coming until we get here! And I'm +not going to try to thank you, Chris, for what you did for an ignorant, +silly, strange little girl; you've been a big brother to me all these +last years! And something more, of course," Norma added, bravely, "and +I won't say--I can't say--that if it hadn't been for Wolf, and all the +changes this year--changes in me, too--I wouldn't have loved you all my +life. But there's no place that you could take me, as Wolf Sheridan's +divorced wife, that would seem worth while to me, when I got there--not +if it was in the peerage!" + +"There's just one thing that I want to say, too, Norma," Chris said, +suddenly, when she had finished. "I'm not good enough for you; I know +it. I see myself as I am, sometimes, I suppose. I think you're going to +be happy--and God knows I hope so; perhaps it _is_ a realer life, your +husband's: and perhaps a man who works for his wife with his hands and +his head has got something on us other fellows after all! I've often +wished----But that doesn't matter now. But I want you to know I'll +always remember you as the finest woman I ever knew--just the best there +is! And if ever I've hurt you, forgive me, won't you, Norma?--and--and +let me kiss you good-bye!" + +She raised her face to his confidently, and her eyes were misty when she +went upstairs, because she had seen that his were wet. But there was no +more unhappiness; indeed an overwhelming sense that everything was +right--that every life had shifted back into normal and manageable and +infinitely better lines, went with her as she walked slowly out into the +sunshine, and wandered in the general direction of Aunt Kate's. As she +left the old Melrose home, the big limousine was standing at the door, +and presently Annie and Leslie would sweep out in their flowing veils +and crapes, and whirl off to the Von Behrens mansion. But Norma Sheridan +was content to walk to the omnibus, and to take the jolting front seat, +and to look down in all brotherly love and companionship at the moving +and shifting crowds that were glorying in the warm spring weather. + +To be busy--to be needed--to be loved--she said to herself. That was the +sweet of life, and it could not be taken from the policeman at the +crossing or the humblest little shop-girl who scampered under his big +arm, or bought by the bored women in limousines who, furred and flowered +and feathered, were moving from the matinee to the tea table. Caroline +Craigie, Aunt Annie, Leslie; she had seen the material advantages of +life fail them all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +Aunt Kate was out when Norma reached the apartment, but she knew that +the key was always on the top of the door frame, and entered the +familiar old rooms without any trouble. But she saw in a dismayed flash +that Aunt Kate was not coming back, for that night at least. The kitchen +window had been left four inches open, to accommodate the cat, milk and +bones were laid in waiting, and a note in the bottle notified the +milkman "no milk until to-morrow." There was also a note in pencil, on +the bottom of an egg-box, for the nurses who rented two rooms, should +either one of them chance to come in and be hungry, she was to eat "the +pudding and the chicken stew, and get herself a good supper." + +Norma, chuckling a little, got herself the good supper instead. It was +with a delightful sense of solitude and irresponsibility that she sat +eating it, at the only window in the flat that possessed a good view, +the kitchen window. Aunt Kate, she decided, was with Rose, who had no +telephone; Norma thought that she would wait until Aunt Kate got home +the next day, rather than chance the long trip to the Oranges again. An +alternative would have been to go to Aunt Annie's house, but somehow the +thought of the big, silent handsome place, with the men in evening wear, +Aunt Annie and Leslie in just the correct mourning decollete, and the +conversation decorously funereal, did not appeal to her. Instead it +seemed a real adventure to dine alone, and after dinner to put on a +less conspicuous hat and coat, and slip out into the streets, and walk +about in her new-found freedom. + +The night was soft and balmy, and the sidewalks filled with sauntering +groups enjoying the first delicious promise of summer as much as Norma +did. The winter had been long and cold and snowy; great masses of +thawing ice from far-away rivers were slowly drifting down the +star-lighted surface of the Hudson, and the trees were still bare. But +the air was warm, and the breezes lifted and stirred the tender darkness +above her head with a summery sweetness. + +Norma loved all the world to-night; the work-tired world that was +revelling in idleness and fresh air. Romance seemed all about her, the +doorways into which children reluctantly vanished, the gossiping women +coming back from bakery or market, the candy stores flooded with light, +and crowded with young people who were having the brightest and most +thrilling moments of all their lives over banana specials and chocolate +sundaes. The usual whirlpools eddied about the subway openings and +moving-picture houses, the usual lovers locked arms, in the high rocking +darkness of the omnibus tops, and looked down in apathetic indifference +upon the disappointment of other lovers at the crossings. In the bright +windows of dairy restaurants grapefruit were piled, and big baked apples +ranged in saucers, and beyond there were hungry men leaning far over the +table while they discussed doughnuts and strong coffee, and shook open +evening papers. + +She and Wolf had studied it all for years; it was sordid and crowded and +cheap, perhaps, but it was honest and happy, too, and it was real. There +was no affectation here, even the premature spring hats, and the rouge, +and the high heels were an ingenuous bid for just a little notice, just +a little admiration, just a little longer youth. + +Sauntering along in the very heart of it, hearing the flirtation, the +theatrical chatter, the homely gossip about her, Norma knew that she was +at home. Leslie, perhaps, might have loathed it had she been put down in +the midst of it; to Aunt Annie it would always seem entirely beneath +even contempt. But Norma realized to-night, as she slipped into church +for a few minutes, as she dropped a coin into a beggar's tin cup, as she +entered into casual conversation with the angry mother of a defiant boy, +that this, to her, was life. It was life--to work, to plan, to marry and +bear children, to wrest her own home from unfavourable conditions, and +help her own man to win. She would live, because she would care--care +deeply how Wolf fared in his work, how her house prospered, how her +children developed. She would not be Aunt Annie's sort of woman--Chris's +sort--she would be herself, judged not by what she had, but by what she +could do--what she could give. + +"And that's the kind of woman I am, after all," she said to herself, +rejoicingly. "The child of a French maid and a spoiled, rich young man! +But no, I'm not their child. I'm Aunt Kate's--just as much as Rose and +Wolf are----!" And at the thought of Wolf she smiled. "Won't Wolf +Sheridan _open his eyes_?" + +When she reached Forty-first Street she turned east, and went past the +familiar door of the opera house. It was a special performance, and the +waiting line stretched from the box office down the street, and around +the corner, into the dark. They would only be able to buy standing +room, these patient happy music lovers who grew weary and cold waiting +for their treat, and even standing, they would be behind an immovable +crowd, they would catch only occasional glimpses of the stage. But Norma +told herself that she would rather be in that line, than yawningly +deciding, as she had so often seen Annie decide, that she would perhaps +rustle into the box at ten o'clock for the third act--although it was +rather a bore. + +She flitted near enough to see the general stir, and to see once more +the sign "No Footmen Allowed in This Lobby," and then, smiling at the +old memories, she slipped away into the darkness, drinking in insatiably +the intimate friendliness of the big city and the spring night. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +It was ten o'clock the next day, a silent gray day, when Aunt Kate let +herself into the apartment, and "let out," to use her own phrase, a +startled exclamation at finding her young daughter-in-law deeply asleep +in her bed. Norma, a vision of cloudy dark tumbled hair and beautiful +sleepy blue eyes, half-strangled the older woman in a rapturous embrace, +and explained that she had come home the night before, and eaten the +chicken stew, and perhaps overslept--at any rate would love some coffee. + +Something faintly shadowed in her aunt's welcome, however, was +immediately apparent, and Norma asked, with a trace of anxiety, if +Rose's babies were well. For answer her aunt merely asked if Wolf had +telephoned. + +"Wolf!" said Wolf's wife. "Is he home?" + +"My dear," Mrs. Sheridan said. "He's going--he's gone!--to California!" + +Norma did not move. But the colour went out of her face, and the +brightness from her eyes. + +"Gone!" she whispered. + +"Well--he goes to-day! At six o'clock----" + +"At six o'clock!" Norma leaped from her bed, stood with clenched hands +and wild eyes, thinking, in the middle of the floor. "It's twenty-two +minutes past ten," she breathed. "Where does he leave?" + +"Rose and I were to see him at the Grand Central at quarter past five," +his mother began, catching the contagious excitement. "But, darling, I +don't know where you can get him before that!--Here, let me do that," +she added, for Norma had dashed into the kitchen, and was measuring +coffee recklessly. A brown stream trickled to the floor. + +"Oh, Lord--Lord--help me to get hold of him somewhere!" she heard Norma +breathe. "And you weren't going to let me know--but it's my fault," she +said, putting her hands over her face, and rocking to and fro in +desperate suspense. "Oh, how can I get him?--I must! Oh, Aunt +Kate--_help me_! Oh, I'm not even dressed--and that clock says half-past +ten! Aunt Kate, will you help me!" + +"Norma, my darling," her aunt said, arresting the whirling little figure +with a big arm, and looking down at her with all the love and sadness of +her great heart in her face, "why do you want to see him, dear? He told +me--he had to tell his mother, poor boy, for his heart is broken--that +you were not going with him!" + +"Oh, but Aunt Kate--he'll have to wait for me!" Norma said, stamping a +slippered foot, and beginning to cry with hurt and helplessness. "Oh, +won't you help me? You always help me! Don't--don't mind what I said to +Wolf; you know how silly I am! But please--_please_----" + +"But, Baby--you're sure?" Mrs. Sheridan asked, feeling as if ice that +had been packed about her heart for days was breaking and stirring, and +as if the exquisite pain of it would kill her. "Don't--hurt him again, +Norma!" + +"But he's going off--without me," Norma wailed, rushing to the bathroom, +and pinning her magnificent mass of soft dark hair into a stern knob for +her bath. "Aunt Kate, I've always loved Wolf, always!" she said, +passionately. "And if he really had gone away without me I think it +would have broken my heart! You _know_ how I love him! We'll catch him +somewhere, I know we will! We'll telephone--or else Harry----" + +She trailed into the kitchen half-dressed, ten minutes later. + +"I've telephoned for a taxi, Aunt Kate, and we'll find him somewhere," +she said, gulping hot coffee appreciatively. "I must--I've something to +tell him. But I'll have to tell you everything in the cab. To begin +with--it's all over. I'm done with the Melroses. I appreciate all they +did for me, and I appreciate your worrying and planning about that old +secret. But I've made up my mind. Whatever you have of letters, and +papers and proofs, I want you please to do the family a last favour by +burning--every last shred. I've told Chris, I won't touch a cent of the +money, except what Aunt Marianna left me; and I never, never, never +intend to say one more word on the subject! Thousands didn't make me +happy, so why should a million? The best thing my father ever did for me +was to give my mother a chance to bring me here to you!" + +She had gotten into her aunt's lap as she spoke, and was rubbing her +cheek against the older, roughened cheek, and punctuating her +conversation with little kisses. Mrs. Sheridan looked at her, and +blinked, and seemed to find nothing to say. + +"Perhaps some day when it's hot--and the jelly doesn't jell--and the +children break the fence," pursued Norma, "I will be sorry! I haven't +much sense, and I may feel that I've been a fool. But then I just want +you to remind me of Leslie--and the Craigies--or better, of what a beast +I am myself in that atmosphere! So it's all over, Aunt Kate, and if +Wolf will forgive me--and he always does----" + +"He's bitterly hurt this time, Nono," said her aunt, gently. + +Norma looked a little anxious. + +"I wrote him in Philadelphia," she said, "but he won't get that letter. +Oh, Aunt Kate--if we don't find him! But we will--if I have to walk up +to him in the station the last minute--and stop him----" + +"Ah, Norma, you love him!" his mother said, in a great burst of +thankfulness. "And may God be thanked for all His goodness! That's all I +care about--that you love him, and that you two will be together again. +We'll get hold of him, dear, somehow----!" + +"But, my darling," she added, coming presently to the bedroom door to +see the dashing little feathered hat go on, and the dotted veil pinned +with exquisite nicety over Norma's glowing face, and the belted brown +coat and loose brown fur rapidly assumed, "you're not wearing your +mourning!" + +"Not to-day," Norma said, abstractedly. And aloud she read a list: + +"Bank; Grand Central; drawing-room; new suit-case; notary for power of +attorney; Kitty Barry; telephone Chris, Leslie, Annie; telephone Regina +about trunks. Can we be back here at say--four, Aunt Kate?" + +"But what's all that for?" her aunt asked, dazedly. + +Norma looked at a check book; put it in her coat pocket. Then as her +aunt's question reached her preoccupied mind, she turned toward her with +a puzzled expression. + +"Why, Aunt Kate--you don't seem to understand; I'm going with Wolf to +California this evening." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +It was exactly nineteen minutes past five o'clock when Wolf Sheridan +walked into the Grand Central Station that afternoon. He had stopped +outside to send his wife some flowers, and just a brief line of +farewell, and he was thinking so hard of Norma that it seemed natural +that the woman who was coming toward him, in the great central +concourse, should suggest her. The woman was pretty, too, and wore the +sort of dashing little hat that Norma often wore, and there was +something so familiar about the belted brown coat and the soft brown +furs that Wolf's heart gave a great plunge, and began to +ache--ache--ache--hopelessly again. + +The brown coat came nearer--and nearer. And then he saw that the wearer +was indeed his wife. She had dewy violets in her belt, and her violet +eyes were dewy, too, and her face paled suddenly as she put her hand on +his arm. + +What Norma all that tired and panicky afternoon had planned to say to +Wolf on this occasion was something like this: + +"Wolf, if you ever loved me, and if I ever did anything that made you +happy, and if all these years when I have been your little sister, and +your chum, and your wife, mean anything to you--don't push me away now! +I am sorrier for my foolishness, and more ashamed of it, than you can +possibly be! I think it was never anything but weakness and vanity that +made me want to flirt with Chris Liggett. I think that if he had once +stopped flattering me, and if ever our meetings had been anything but +stolen fruit, as it were, I would have seen how utterly blind I was! I'm +different now, Wolf; I know that what I felt for him was only shallow +vanity, and that what I feel for you is the deepest and realest love +that any woman ever knew! There's nothing--no minute of the day or night +when I don't need you. There's nothing that you think that isn't what I +think! I want to go West with you, and make a home there, and when you +go to China, or go to India, I want you to go because your wife has +helped you--because you have had happy years of working and +experimenting and picnicking and planning--with me! + +"It's all over, Wolf, that Melrose business--that dream! I've said +good-bye to them, and they have to me, and they know I'm never coming +back! I'm a Sheridan now--really and truly--for ever." + +And in the lonesome and bitter days in which his great dream had come +true, without Norma to share it, days in which he had been thinking of +her as affiliated more and more with the element he despised, identified +more and more with the man who had wrecked--or tried to wreck--her life, +Wolf had imagined this meeting, and imagined her as tentatively holding +out the olive branch of peace; and he had had time to formulate exactly +what he should answer to such an appeal. + +"I'm sorry, Norma," he had imagined himself saying. "I'm terribly sorry! +But just talking doesn't undo these things, just _saying_ that you +didn't mean it, and that it's all over. No, married life can't be picked +up and put down again like a coat. You _were_ my wife, and God knows I +worshipped you--heart and soul! If some day these people get tired of +you, or you get tired of them, that'll be different! But you've cut me +too deep--you've killed a part of me, and it won't come alive again! +I've been through hell--wondering what you were doing, what you were +going to do! I never should have married you; now let's call it all +quits, and get out of it the best way we can!" + +But when he saw her, the familiar, lovely face that he had loved for so +many years, when he felt the little gloved hand on his arm, and realized +that somehow, out of the utter desolation and loneliness of the big +city, she had come to him again, that she was here, mistily smiling at +him, and he could touch her and hear her voice, everything else +vanished, as if it had never been, and he put his big arm about her +hungrily, and kissed her, and they were both in tears. + +"Oh, Wolf----!" Norma faltered, the dry spaces of her soul flooding with +springtime warmth and greenness, and a great happiness sweeping away all +consciousness of the place in which they stood, and the interested eyes +about them. "Oh, Wolf----!" She thought that she added, "Would you have +gone away without me!" but as a matter of fact words were not needed +now. + +"Nono--you _do_ love me?" he whispered. Or perhaps he only thought he +enunciated the phrase, for although Norma answered, it was not audibly. +Neither of them ever remembered anything coherent of that first five +minutes, in which momentous questions were settled between Norma's +admiring comment upon Wolf's new coat, and in which they laughed and +cried and clung together in shameless indifference to the general +public. + +But presently they were calm enough to talk, and Wolf's first +constructive remark, not even now very steady or clear, was that he must +put off his going, get hold of Voorhies somehow---- + +But no, Norma said, even while they were dashing toward the telegraph +office. She had already bought her ticket; she was going, +too--to-night--this very hour----! + +Wolf brought her up short, ecstatic bewilderment in his face. + +"But your trunks----?" + +"Regina--I tell you it's all settled--Regina sends them on after me. And +I've got a new big suit-case, and my old brown one, that's plenty for +the present! They're checked here, in the parcel-room----" + +"But we'll----" They had started automatically to rush toward the +parcel-room, but now he brought her up short again. "It's five-thirty +now," he muttered, turning briskly in still another direction, "let me +have your ticket, we'll have to try for a section--it's pretty late, but +there may be cancellations!" + +"Oh, but see, Wolf----! I've been here since half-past four. I've got +the A drawing-room in Car 131----" She brought forth an official-looking +envelope, and flashed a flimsy bit of coloured paper. For a third time +Wolf checked his hurried rushing, and they both broke into delicious +laughter. "I've been at it all day, with Aunt Kate," Norma said, +proudly. "I've been to banks and to Judge Lee's office, and I've seen +Annie and Leslie, and I bought a new wrapper and a suit-case, and--oh, +and I saw Kitty Barry, and I got you a book for the train, and I got +myself one----" + +"Oh, Norma," Wolf said, his eyes filling, "you God-blessed little +adorable idiot, do you know how I love you? My darling--my own wife, do +you know that I want to die, to-night, I'm so happy! Do you realize what +it's going to mean to us, poking about Chicago, and sending home little +presents to Rose and the kids, and reaching San Francisco, and going up +to the big mine? Do you realize that I feel like a man out of jail--like +a kid who knows it's Saturday morning?" + +"Well--I feel that way, too!" Norma smiled. "And now," she added, in a +businesslike tone, "we've got to look for Aunt Kate and Rose, and get +our bags; and Leslie said to-day that it was a good idea to wire a +Chicago hotel for a room, just for the few hours before the Overland +pulls out, because one feels so dirty and tired; do you realize that +I've never spent a night on a Pullman yet?" + +"And I'll turn in the ticket for my lower," Wolf said; "we'll have +dinner on board, so that's all right----" + +"Oh, Wolf, and won't that be fun?" Norma exulted. And then, joyously: +"Oh, there they are!" + +And she fled across the great space to meet Rose, pretty and matronly, +at the foot of the great stairway, and Harry grinning and proud, with +his little sturdy white-caped boy in his arms, and Aunt Kate beaming +utter happiness upon them all. And then ensued that thrilling time of +incoherencies and confusions, laughter and tears, to which the big place +is, by nature, dedicated. They were parting so lightly, but they all +knew that there would be changes before they six met again. To Aunt +Kate, holding close the child whose destinies had been so strangely +entangled with her own, the moment held a poignant pleasure as well as +pain. She was launched now, their imperious, beloved youngest; she had +been taken to the mountain-tops, and shown the world at her feet, and +she had chosen bravely and wisely, chosen her part of service and +simplicity and love. Life would go on, changes indeed and growth +everywhere, but she knew that the years would bring her back a new +Norma--a developed, sweetened, self-reliant woman--and a new Wolf, his +hard childhood all swept away and forgotten in the richness and beauty +of this woman's love and companionship. And she was content. + +"And, Wolf--she told you about Kitty! Every month, as long as they need +it," Rose said, crying heartily, as she clung to her brother. "Why, it's +the most wonderful thing I ever heard! Poor Louis Barry can't believe +it--he broke down completely! And Kitty was crying, and kissing the +children, and she knelt down, and put her arms about Norma's knees; and +Norma was crying, too--you never saw anything like it!" + +"She never told me a word about it," Wolf said, trying to laugh, and +blinking, as he looked at her, a few feet away. One of her arms was +about his mother, her hand was in Harry's, her face close to the rosy +baby's face. + +"Wolf," his sister said, earnestly, drying her eyes, "it will bring a +blessing on your own children----!" + +"Ah, Rose!" he answered, quickly. "Pray that there is one, some day--one +of our own as sweet as yours are!" + +"Ah, you'll have everything, you two, never fear!" she said, radiantly. +And then a gate opened, and the bustle about them thickened, and +laughing faces grew pale, and last words faltered. + +Harry gave Rose the baby, and put his arm about Rose's mother, and they +watched them go, the red-cap leading with the suit-cases, Wolf carrying +another, Norma on his arm, twisting herself about, at the very last +second, to smile an April smile over her shoulder, and wave the green +jade handle of her slim little umbrella. There was just a glimpse of +Wolf's old boyish, proud, protecting smile, and then his head drooped +toward his companion, and the surging crowd shut them out of sight. + +Then Rose immediately was concerned for the little baby. Wouldn't it be +wiser to go straight home, just for fear that Mrs. Noon might have +fallen asleep--and the house caught on fire----? Mrs. Sheridan blew her +nose and dried her eyes, and straightened her widow's bonnet, and +cleared her throat, and agreed that it would. And they all went away. + +But there was another watcher who had shared, unseen, all this last +half-hour, and who stood immovable to the last second, until the iron +gates had actually clashed shut. It was a well-built, keen-eyed man, in +an irreproachably fitting fur-collared overcoat, who finally turned +away, fitting his eyeglasses, on their black ribbon, firmly upon the +bridge of his nose, and sighing just a little as he went back to the +sidewalk, and climbed into a waiting roadster. + +Even after he took his seat at the wheel, he made no effort to start the +car, but sat slowly drawing on his heavy gloves, and staring +abstractedly at the dull, uninteresting stretch of street before him, +where a dismal spring wind was stirring chaff and papers about the +subway entrance, and surface cars were grinding and ringing on the +curve. + +It looked dull and empty--dull and empty, he thought. She had been very +happy, looking up at her man, kissing her people good-bye. She was a +remarkable woman, Norma. + +"A remarkable woman--Norma," he said, half-aloud. "She will make him a +wonderful wife; she will help him to go a long way. And she never would +have had patience for formal living; it wasn't in her!" + +But he remembered what was in her, what eager gaiety, what hunger for +new impressions, what courage in seizing her dilemmas the instant she +saw them. He remembered the flash of her eyes, and the curve of her +proud little mouth. + +"Theodore had more charm than any of them," he said, "and she is like +him. Well--perhaps I'll meet somebody like her, some day, and the story +will have a different ending!" + +But he knew in his heart that there was nobody like her, and that she +had gone out of his life for ever. + + * * * * * + +They had hung the belted brown coat over the big new gray one in the +drawing-room, and Norma had brushed her hair, and Wolf had shoved the +suit-cases under the seats, and they had gone straight into the +dining-car, and were at a lighted little shining table by this time. +Wolf had had no lunch; Norma was, she said, starving. They ordered their +meal just as the train drew out of the underground arcades and swept +over the city, in the twilight of the dull, sunless day. + +Norma looked down, and joy and a vague heartache struggled within her. +The little city blocks, draped with their frail tangles of fire-escapes, +were as clean-cut as toys. In the streets children were screaming and +racing, at the doorways women loitered and talked. Great trucks lumbered +in and out among surging pedestrians, and women and children stood +before the green-grocers' displays of oranges and cabbages, and trickled +in and out of the markets, where cheap cuts were advertised in great +chalk signs on the windows. Red brick, yellow brick, gray cement, the +streets fled by; the dear, familiar streets that she and Wolf, and she +and Rose, had tramped and explored, in the burning dry heat of July, in +the flutter of November's first snows. + +"Say good-bye to it, Wolf; it will be a long time before we see New York +again!" + +Wolf looked down, grinning. Then, as they left the city, and the dusk +deepened, his eyes went toward the river, went toward the vague and +waiting West. The Palisades lay, a wide bar of soft dull gray, against +the paler dove-colour of the sky. Above them, bare trees were etched +sharply, and beneath them was the satiny surface of the full Hudson. + +It was still water, and the river was smooth enough to give back a clear +reflection of the buildings and the wharves on the opposite shore, and +the floating ice from the north looked like rounded bunches of foam +arrested on the shining waters. + +Suddenly the sinking sun evaded the smother of cloud, and flashed out +red and shining, for only a few brilliant minutes. It caught window +glass like flame, twinkled and smouldered in the mirror of the river, +and lighted the under edges of low clouds with a crisp touch of apricot +and pink. Wet streets shone joyously, doves rose in a circling whirl +from a near-by roof, and all the world shone and sparkled in the last +breath of the spring day. Then dusk came indeed, and the villages +across the river were strung with increasing lights, and in the tender +opal softness of the evening sky Norma saw a great star hanging. + +"That's a good omen--that's our own little star!" she said softly to +herself. She looked up to see Wolf smiling at her, and the smile in her +own eyes deepened, and she stretched a warm and comradely hand to him +across the little table. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beloved Woman, by Kathleen Norris + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BELOVED WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 28301.txt or 28301.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/3/0/28301/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Katherine Ward and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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