"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!"