"Très bien," Christopher agreed. And as if the phrase suggested it, he went on to test Norma's French. Norma was never self-conscious with him, and in a few seconds he and Alice were laughing at her earnest absurdities. When husband and wife went on into a conversation of their own, Norma sat back idly, conscious that the atmosphere was always easy and pleasant when Chris was at home, there were no petty tensions and no sensitive misconstructions while Chris was talking. Sometimes with Annie and Alice, and even with Leslie, Norma could be rapidly brought to the state of feeling prickly all over, afraid to speak, and equally uncomfortable in silence. But Chris always smoothed her spirit into utter peace, and reëstablished her sense of proportion, her sense of humour.
Neither he nor Alice noticed her when she presently went away to change her gown for dinner, but when she came out of her room, half an hour later, Chris was just coming up to his. Their rooms were on the same floor—his the big front room, and hers one of the sunny small ones at the back of the house. Norma's and that of Miss Slater, Alice's nurse, were joined by a bathroom; Chris had his own splendid dressing-room and bath, fitted, like his bedroom, with rugs and chests and highboys worthy of a museum.
"Aren't you going to be late, Chris?" Norma asked, when they met at the top of the stairs. Fresh from a bath, with her rich dark hair pushed back in two shining wings from her smooth forehead, and her throat rising white and soft from the frills of a black lacy gown, she was the incarnation of youth and sweetness as she looked up at him. "Seven o'clock!" she reminded him.
For answer he surprised her by catching her hand, and staring gravely down at her.
"Were you angry at me, Norma?" he asked, in a quiet, businesslike voice.
"Angry?" she echoed, surprised. But her colour rose. "No, Chris. Why should I be?"
"There is no reason why you should be, of course," he answered, simply, almost indifferently. And immediately he went by her and into his room.