CHAPTER XXXIV
Regina roused Norma just in time for the long, wearisome ceremonials of the following day, a cold, bright gusty day, when the wet streets flashed back sombre reflections of the motor wheels, and the newly turned earth oozed flashing drops of water. The cortège left the old Melrose house at ten minutes before ten o'clock, and it was four before the tired, headachy, cramped members of the immediate family group regathered there, to discard the crape-smothered hats, and the odorous, sombre furs, and to talk quietly together as they sipped hot soup and crumbled rolls. Everything had been changed, the flowers were gone, furniture was back in place, and the upper front room had been opened widely to the suddenly spring-like afternoon. There was not a fallen violet petal to remind her descendants that the old mistress of forty full years was gone for ever.
Annie's boys came to bring Mother home, after so many strange days' absence, and Norma liked the way that Annie smiled wearily at Hendrick, and pressed her white face hungrily against the boys' blonde, firm little faces. Leslie, in an unwontedly tender mood, drew Acton's arm about her, as she sat in a big chair, and told him with watering eyes that she would be glad to see old Patsie-baby on Sunday. Norma sat alone, the carved Tudor oak rising high above her little tired head with its crushed soft hair, and Chris sat alone, too, at the other end of the table, and somehow, in the soul fatigue that was worse than any bodily fatigue, she did not want the distance between them bridged, she did not want—she shuddered away from the word—love-making from Chris again!
Leslie, who felt quite ill with strain and sorrow, went upstairs to bed, the Von Behrens went away, and presently Acton disappeared, to telephone old Doctor Murray that his wife would like a sedative—or a heart stimulant, or some other little attention as a recognition of her broken state.
Then Chris and Norma were alone, and with a quiet dignity that surprised him she beckoned him to the chair next to her, and, leaning both elbows on the cloth, fixed him with her beautiful, tired eyes.
"I want to talk to you, Chris, and this seems to be the time!" she said. "You'll be deep in all sorts of horrible things for weeks now, poor old Chris, and I want this said first! I've been thinking very seriously all these days—they seem months—since Aunt Marianna died, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm—well, I'm a fool!"
She said the last word so unexpectedly, with such obvious surprise, that Chris's tired, colourless face broke into something like a smile. He had seated himself next to her, and was evidently bending upon her problem his most earnest attention.
"Some months ago," Norma said in a low voice, "I thought—I thought—that I fell in love! The man was rich, and handsome, and clever, and he knew more—of certain things!—in his little finger, than I shall ever know in my whole life. Not exactly more French, or more of politics, or more persons—I don't mean quite that. But I mean a conglomerate sort of—I'm expressing myself badly, but you understand—a conglomerate total of all these things that make him an aristocrat! That's what he is, an aristocrat. Now, I'm not! I've found that out. I'm different."
"Nonsense!" Chris said, lightly, but listening patiently none the less.