The Beloved Woman Part 25

She met his eyes with something like terror in her own; standing still, a few feet away from him, with her breath coming and going stormily.

"No," she said in a sharp whisper. "Not _that_!"

A moment later she was flying upstairs, her blue eyes still dilated with fright, her face pale, and her senses rocking. Unseeing, unhearing, she reached her own room, paced it distractedly, moving between desk and dressing-table, window and bed, like some bewildered animal. Sometimes she put her two hands over her face, the spread fingers pressed against her forehead. Sometimes she stood perfectly still, arms hanging at her sides, eyes blankly staring ahead. Once she dropped on her knees beside the bed, and buried her burning cheeks against the delicate linen and embroideries.

Regina came in; Norma made a desperate attempt to control herself. She saw a gown laid on the bed, heard bath water running, faced her own haggard self in the mirror, as she began dressing. But when the maid was gone, and Norma, somewhat pale, but quite self-possessed again, was dressed for dinner, she lifted from its place on her book-shelf a little picture of Chris and herself, taken the summer before, and studied it with sorrowful eyes.

He had been teaching her to ride, and Norma was radiant and sun-browned in her riding-trousers and skirted coat, her cloud of hair loosened, and her smart little hat in one hand. Chris, like all well-built men, was always at his best in sports clothes; the head of his favourite mare looked mildly over his shoulder. Behind the group stretched the exquisite reaches of bridle-path, the great trees heavy with summer foliage and heat.

Norma touched her lips to the gla.s.s.

"Chris--Chris--Chris!" she said, half aloud. "I love you so--and I have brought you, of all men, to this! To the point when you would throw it all aside--everything your wonderful and generous life has stood for--for me! G.o.d," said Norma, softly, putting the picture down, and covering her face with her hands, "don't let me do anything that will hurt him and shame him; help me! Help us both!"

A few minutes later she went down to dinner, which commenced auspiciously, with the old lady in a gracious and expansive mood, and her guests, old Judge Lee and his wife, and old Doctor and Mrs. Turner, sufficiently intimate, and sufficiently reminiscent, to absolve Norma from any conversational duty. The girl could follow her own line of heroic and resolute thought uninterruptedly.

But with the salad came utter rout again, and Norma's colour, and heart, and breath, began to fluctuate in a renewed agony of hope and fear. It was only Joseph, leaning deferentially over Judge Lee's shoulder, who said softly:

"Mr. Christopher Liggett, Judge. He has telephoned that he would like to see you for a moment after dinner, and will be here at about nine o'clock."

The dinner went on, for Norma, in a daze. At a quarter to nine she went upstairs; she was standing in the dark upper hallway at the window when Chris came, saw him leave his car, and come quickly across the sidewalk under the bare, moving boughs of the old maples. She was trembling with the longing just to speak to him again, just to hear his voice.

She went to her room, rang for Regina, meditating a message of good-night that should include a headache as excuse. But before the maid came she went quickly downstairs, and into his presence, as instinctively as a drowning man might cling to anything that meant air--just the essential air. They could not exchange a word alone, but that was not important. The one necessity was to be together.

Before ten o'clock Norma went back to her room. She undressed, and put on a loose warm robe, and seated herself before the old-fashioned fireplace. When Regina came, she asked the girl to put out all the lights.

Voices floated up from the front hall: the great entrance door closed, the motors wheeled away. The guests were gone--Chris was gone. Norma heard old Mrs. Melrose come upstairs, heard her door shut, then there was silence.

Silence. Eleven struck from Madison Tower; midnight struck. Even the streets were quieter now. The squares of moonlight shifted on Norma's floor, went away. The fire died down, the big room was warm, and dim, and very still.

Hugged in her warm wrap, curled into her big chair, the girl sat like some tranced creature, thinking--thinking--thinking.

At first her thoughts were of terror and shame. In what fool's paradise had she been drifting, she asked herself contemptuously, that she and Chris, reasonable, right-thinking man and woman, could be reduced to this fearful and wretched position, could even consider--even name--what their sane senses must shrink from in utter horror! Norma was but twenty-two, but she knew that there was only one end to that road.

So that way was closed, even to the br.i.m.m.i.n.g tide that rose up in her when she thought of it, and flooded her whole being with the ecstatic realization of her love for Chris, and of what surrender to him would mean.

That way was closed. She must tell herself over and over. For her own sake, for the sake of Aunt Kate and Aunt Marianna, for Rose even, she must not think of that. Above all, for his sake--for Chris, the fine, good, self-sacrificing Chris of her first friendship, she must be strong.

And Norma, at this point in her circling and confused thoughts, would drop her face in the crook of her bent arm, and the tears would brim over again and again. She was not strong. She could not be strong. And she was afraid.

CHAPTER XXIII

Regina, coming through the hallway at seven o'clock, was amazed to encounter Miss Sheridan, evidently fresh from a bath, a black hat tipped over her smiling eyes, and her big fur coat belted about her. Norma's vigil had lasted until after two o'clock, but then she had had four hours of restful sleep, for she knew that she had found the way.

She left a message with Regina for Mrs. Melrose; she was going to Mrs.

Sheridan's, and would telephone in a day or two. Smiling, she slipped out into the quiet street, where the autumn sunlight was just beginning to strike across the damp pavements, and smilingly she disappeared into the great currents of men and women who were already pouring to and fro along the main thoroughfares.

But she did not go quite as far as her aunt's, after all. For perhaps fifteen minutes she waited on the corner of the block, walking slowly to and fro, watching the house closely.

Then Wolf Sheridan came out, and set off at his usual brisk walk toward the subway. Norma stepped before him, trembling and smiling.

"Nono--for the Lord's sake! Where did you come from?"

He took her suit-case from her as she caught his arm, drew him aside, and looked up at him with her old childish air of coaxing.

"Wolf----! I've been waiting for you. Wolf, I'm in trouble!" She laughed at his concern. "Not real trouble!" she rea.s.sured him, quickly.

"But--but----"

And suddenly tears came, and she found she could not go on.

"Is it a man?" Wolf asked, looking down at her with everything that was brotherly and kind in his young face.

"Yes," Norma answered, not raising her eyes from the overcoat b.u.t.ton that she was pushing in and out of its hold. "Wolf," she added, quickly, "I'm afraid of him, and afraid of myself! You--you told me months ago----" She looked up, suffocating.

"I know what I told you!" Wolf said, clearing his throat.

"And--do you still feel--that way?"

"You know I do, Norma," Wolf said, more concerned for her emotion than his own. "Do you--do you want me to send this--this fellow about his business?"

"Oh, no!" she said, laughing nervously. "I don't want any one to know it; n.o.body must dream it! I can't marry him, I shall never marry him.

But--he won't let me alone. Wolf----" She seemed to herself to be getting no nearer her point, and now she seized her courage in both hands, and looked up at him bravely. "Will you--take care of me?" she faltered. "I mean--I mean as your wife?"

"Do you mean----" Wolf began. Then his expression changed, and his colour rose. "Norma--you don't mean that!"

"Yes, but I do!" she said, exquisite and flushed and laughing, in the sweet early sunlight.

"You mean that you will marry me?" Wolf asked, dazedly.

"To-day!" she answered, fired by his look of awe and amazement and rapture all combined. "I want to be safe," she added, quickly. "I trust you more than any other man I know--I've loved you like a little sister all my life."

"Ah--Norma, you darling--you darling!" he said. "But are you sure?"

"Oh, quite sure!" Norma turned him toward Broadway, her little arm linked wife-fashion in his. "Don't we go along together nicely?" she asked, gaily.

"Norma--my G.o.d! If you knew how I love you--how I've longed for you! But I can't believe it; I never will believe it! What made you do it?"

Her face sobered for a second.

"Just needing you, I suppose! Wolf"--her colour rose--"I want you to know who it is; it's Chris."

"Who--the man who annoys you?" Wolf asked in healthy distaste.

"The man I'm afraid of," she answered, honestly.

"But--Lord!" Wolf exclaimed, simply, "he has a wife!"