"You not only showed her, you showed all the world, Chris," Annie said, stretching a hand toward him. Norma felt a sudden uprising of some emotion singularly akin to contempt.
A maid signalled her, and she stepped to the dressing-room door. A special delivery letter had come from Wolf. The maid went away again, but Norma stood where she was, reading it. Wolf had written:
Dear Norma,
Mother wrote me of all that you have been going through, and I am as sorry as I can be for all their trouble, and glad that they have you to help them through. Mother also told me of the change in your position there; I had always known vaguely that we didn't understand it all. I remember now your coming to us in Brooklyn, and your mother crying when she went away. I know this will make a difference to you, and be one more reason for your not coming West with me. You must use your own judgment, but the longer I think of it, the meaner it seems to me for me to take advantage of your coming to me, last spring, and our getting married. I've thought about it a great deal. Nothing will ever make me like, or respect, the man you say you care for. I don't believe you do care for him. And I would rather see you dead than married to him. But it isn't for me to say, of course. If you like him, that's enough. If you ever stop liking him, and will come back to me, I'll meet you anywhere, or take you anywhere—it won't make any difference what Mother thinks, or Rose thinks, or any one else. I've written and destroyed this letter about six times. I just want you to know that if you think I am standing in the way of your happiness, I won't stand there, even though I believe you are making an awful mistake about that particular man. And I want to thank you for the happiest eight months that any man ever had.
Yours always,
Wolf.
Norma stood perfectly still, after she read the letter through, with the clutch of vague pain and shame at her heart. The stiff, stilted words did not seem like Wolf, and the definite casting-off hurt her. Why couldn't they be friends, at least? Granted that their marriage was a mistake, it had never had anything but harmony in it, companionship, mutual respect and understanding, and a happy intimacy as clean and natural as the meeting of flowers.
She was standing, motionless and silent, when Leslie's voice came clearly to her ears. Evidently Acton, Annie, and Leslie were alone, in Annie's room, out of sight, but not a dozen feet away from where she stood. Norma did not catch the exact words, but she caught her name, and her heart stood still with the instinctive terror of the trapped. Annie had not heard either evidently; she said "What, dear?" sympathetically.
"I asked what's Norma doing here—isn't she overdoing her relationship a little?" Leslie said, languidly.
Norma's face burned, she could hardly breathe as she waited.
"Mama sent for her, for some reason," Annie answered, with a little drawl.
"After all, she's a sort of cousin, isn't she?" Acton added.