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.