ld interfere with possible plans of hers. If she
was ready to go, he would drive her, perhaps to discourse impersonally
upon the quality of the pictures, or the countryside mantled with snow,
upon the way. If she wanted a message telephoned, a telegram sent, even
a borrowed book returned, it was "no trouble at all"; Chris would of
course attend to it.

At dinner parties he was rarely placed beside her; hers was naturally
the younger set. But he found a hundred ways to remind her that he was
constantly attentive. Norma would feel her heart jump in her side as he
started toward her across a ball-room floor, handsome, perfectly poised,
betraying nothing but generous interest in her youthful good times as he
took his place beside her.

So Christmas came and went, and the last affairs of the brief season
began to be announced: the last dances, the last dinners, the
"pre-Lenten functions" as the papers had it. Norma, apologizing, in one
of her flying calls on Aunt Kate, for the long intervals between visits,
explained that she honestly did not know where the weeks flew!

"And are you happy, Baby?" her aunt asked, holding her close, and
looking anxiously into her eyes.

"Oh--happy!" the girl exclaimed, with a sort of shallow, quick laugh
that was quite new. "Of course I am. I never in my life dreamed that I
could be so happy. I've nothing left to wish for. Except, of course,
that I would like to know where I stand; I would like to have my own
position a little more definite," she added. But the last phrases were
uttered only in her own soul, and Mrs. Sheridan, after a rather
discontented scrutiny of the face she loved so well, was obliged to
change the subject.

CHAPTER XVI

In mid-Lent, when an early rush of almost summery warmth suddenly poured
over the city, Chris and Norma met on the way home from church. Norma
walked every Sunday morning to the big cathedral, but Chris went only
once or twice a year to the fashionable Avenue church a few blocks away.
This morning he had joined her as she was quietly leaving the house, and
instantly it flashed into her mind that he had deliberately planned to
do so, knowing that Miss Slater, who usually accompanied her, was away
for a week's vacation.

Their conversation was impersonal and casual, as always, as they walked
along the drying sidewalks, in the pleasant early freshness, but as
Chris left her he asked her at about what time she would be returning,
and Norma was