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——