"She and I?" Norma said, distressed by something cold and casual in his manner. "But aren't you coming, too? Alice depends upon your coming!"
"I can't, I'm sorry to say. I may get up on Friday night," Chris said, with an almost weary air of politeness.
"Friday! Why, then—then I'll persuade Aunt Marianna to wait," Norma decided, eagerly. "You must come with us, Chris; it's quite lovely up through Connecticut!"
"I'm very sorry," the man repeated, glancing beyond her as if in a hurry to terminate the conversation. "But I may not get up at all this week. And I've arranged with Aunt Marianna that Poole drives you up to-morrow. You'll find her," he added, lightly, "enthusiastic over the baby's pictures. They're really excellent, and I think Leslie will be delighted. And now I have to go, Norma——"
"But you're coming back to have dinner with us?" the girl interrupted, thoroughly uneasy at the change in him.
"Not to-night. I have an engagement! Good-bye. I'll see you very soon. The hat's charming, Norma, I think you may safely order more of them by mail if you have to. Good-bye."
And with another odd smile, and his usually courteous bow, he was gone, and Norma was left staring after him in a state almost of stupefaction.
What was the matter with him? The question framed itself indignantly in Norma's mind as she automatically crossed the foyer of the hotel and went upstairs. Mechanically, blindly, she took off the big hat, flung aside the parasol, and went through the uniting bathroom into Mrs. Melrose's room. What on earth had been the matter with Chris? What right had he—how dared he—treat her so rudely?
Mrs. Melrose was in a flowered chair near a wide-opened window. She had put on a lacy robe of thin silk, after the heat and burden of the day, and her feet were in slippers. Beside her was a tall glass, holding an iced drink, and before her, on a small table, Regina had ranged the beautiful photographs of Leslie's baby that were to be the young mother's birthday surprise next week.
"Hello, dear!" she said, in the pleasant, almost cooing voice with which she almost always addressed the girls of the family, "isn't this just a dreadful, dreadful day? Oh, my, so hot! Look here, Norma, just see my little Patricia's pictures. Aren't they perfectly lovely? I'm so pleased with them. I was just——Regina, will you order Miss Norma something cool to drink, please. Tea, dear? Or lemonade, like your old aunty?—I was just showing them to Chris. Yes. And he thought they were just perfectly lovely; see the little fat hand, and how beautifully the lace took! There—that one's the best. You'll see, Leslie will like that one."