"I don't hear you!" Leslie protested, impatiently. The insignificant inquiry did not seem to gain much by repetition, and Norma's cheeks burned in shame when Leslie followed it by a blank little pause. "Oh—everyone's fine. The baby wasn't well, but she's all right now."
Another slight pause, then Norma said:
"She must be adorable—I'd like to see her."
"She's not here now," Leslie answered, quickly.
"I've been shopping," Norma said. "Any chance that you could come down town and lunch with me?"
"No, I really couldn't, to-day!" Leslie answered, lightly and promptly.
A moment later Norma said good-bye. She walked away from the telephone booth with her face burning, and her heart beating quickly with anger and resentment.
"Snob—snob—snob!" she said to herself, furiously, of Leslie. And of herself she presently added honestly, "And I wasn't much better, for I don't really like her any more than she does me!" And she stopped for flowers, and a little box of pastry, and went out to delight her Aunt Kate's heart with an unexpected visit.
But a sting remained, and Norma brooded over the injustice of life, as she went about her little house in the wintry sunlight, and listened to Wolf, and made much of Rose and the new baby girl. By Thanksgiving it seemed to her that she had only dreamed of "Aïda" and of Newport, and that the Norma of the wonderful frocks and the wonderful dreams had been only a dream herself.