Turning from her disconcerted parents, Norma pulled back the thick curtains from the French window and opened one of the doors.
“What are you doing that for?” cried Mrs. Hardacre irritably, as the cold air of a wet May night swept through the room.
“I'm going to try to ventilate my soul,” said Norma, stepping on to the balcony.
Chapter II—THE FOOL'S WISDOM
LIKE the inexplicable run on a particular number at the roulette-table, there often seems to be a run on some particular phenomenon thrown up by the wheel of daily life. Such a recurrent incident was the meeting of Norma and Jimmie Padgate during the next few weeks. She met him at Mrs. Deering's, she ran across him in the streets. Going to spend a weekend out of town, she found him on the platform of Paddington Station. The series of sheer coincidences established between them a certain familiarity. When next they met, it was in the crush of an emptying theatre. They found themselves blocked side by side, and they laughed as their eyes met.
“This seems to have got out of the domain of vulgar chance and become Destiny,” she said lightly.
“I am indeed favoured by the gods,” he replied.
“You don't deserve their good will because you have never come to see me.”