Such evenings as this one, even in the wonderful Melrose house, were undeniably dull. She and Rose had often grumbled, years ago, because there were so many of these quiet times, in between the Saturday and Sunday excitements. But Norma, in those days, had never supposed that dulness was ever compatible with wealth and ease.
"Cards?" said old Mrs. Melrose, hopefully, as the girl made a sudden move. She loved to play patience, but only when she had an audience. Norma, who had just decided to give her French verbs a good hour's attention, smiled amiably, and herself brought out the green table. She sat watching the fall of kings and aces, reminding her companion of at least every third play. But her thoughts went back to Chris, and the faint odour of powder and soap, and the touch of his shaved cheek.
CHAPTER XIII
Norma met Chris again no later than the following afternoon. It was twilight in Alice's room, and she and Norma were talking on into the gloom, discussing the one or two guests who had chanced to come in for tea, and planning the two large teas that Alice usually gave some time late in November.
Chris came in quietly, kissed his wife, and nodded carelessly to Norma. The girl's sudden mad heartbeats and creeping colour could subside together unnoticed, for he apparently paid no attention to her, and presently drifted to the piano, leaving the women free to resume their conference.
Alice was a person of more than a surface sweetness; she loved harmony and serenity, and there was almost no inclination to irritability or ugliness in her nature. Her voice was always soothing and soft, and her patience in the unravelling of other people's problems was inexhaustible. Alice was, as all the world conceded, an angel.
But Norma had not been a member of her household for eight months without realizing that Alice, like other household angels, did not wish an understudy in the rôle. She did not quite enjoy the nearness of another woman who might be all sweet and generous and peace-making, too. That was her own sacred and peculiar right. She could gently and persistently urge objections and find inconsistencies in any plan of her sister or of Norma, no matter how advantageous it sounded, and she could adhere to a plan of her own with a tenacity that, taken in consideration with Alice's weak body and tender voice, was nothing less than astonishing.
Norma, lessoned in a hard school, and possessing more than her share of adaptability and common sense, had swiftly come to the conclusion that, since it was not her part to adjust the affairs of her benefactors, she might much more wisely constitute herself a sort of Greek chorus to Alice's manipulations. Alice's motives were always of the highest, and it was easy to praise them in all honesty, and if sometimes the younger woman had mentally arrived at a conclusion long before Alice had patiently and sweetly reached it, the little self-control was not much to pay toward the comfort of a woman as heavily afflicted as Alice.