When Mrs. Hardacre came for news of the interview, Norma told her of the arrangement.
“Which is it going to be?” she asked.
Norma set her teeth. “I can't marry him,” she said.
But the proud spirit of Norma Hardacre was broken. The three days' Inferno that Mrs. Hardacre created in the house drove the girl to desperation. Her father came to her one day with the tears running down his puffy cheeks. Unknown to her mother he had borrowed money from Morland, which he had lost on the Stock Exchange. Norma looked in her mirror, and found herself old, ugly, hag-ridden. Anything was preferable to the torture and degradation of her home. The next time that Morland called he stayed to dinner, and the wedding was definitely fixed for Easter.
Chapter XIX—ABANA AND PHARPAR
Do you know, Miss Hardacre, that I once had a wife?” said Theodore Weever, suddenly.
It was after dinner at the Wolff-Salamons', who, it may be remembered, had lent their house to the Hardacres in the summer.
“I was not aware of it,” said Norma, wondering at the irrelevance of the remark, for they had just been discussing the great painter's merciless portrait of their hostess, which simpered vulgarly at them from the wall. They were sitting on a sofa in a corner of the room.