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.