"A quarter to," replied she.
"That's what my watch says. So there'll be no mistake. For half an hour—good-by!"
"Half an hour!" she called.
She and Norman stood in silence until the footsteps died away. Then she said crossly to Norman: "You ought to have gone before. I don't like to do these things."
"You do them well," said he, with a savage gleam.
She was prompt and sure with his punishment. She said, simply and sweetly: "I'd do anything to keep his good opinion of me."
Norman felt and looked cowed. "You don't know how it makes me suffer to see you fond of another man," he cried.
She seemed not in the least interested, went to the mirror of the bureau and began to inspect her hair with a view to doing it up. "You can go in five minutes," said she. "By that time he'll be well out of the way. Anyhow, if he saw you leaving the house he'd not know but what you had been to see some one else. He knows you by reputation but not by sight."
Norman went to her, took her by the shoulders gently but strongly. "Look at me," he said.
She looked at him with an expression, or perhaps absence of expression, that was simple listening.