first kiss, grew limp, let herself rest almost without
movement in his arms, shut her eyes.

Reason came back to them slowly; the girl almost rocking upon her feet
as the vertigo and bewilderment passed, and the man sustaining her with
an arm about her shoulders, neither looking at the other. So several
seconds, perhaps a full minute, went by, while the world settled into
place about them; the dingy, unpainted wood of the wings, the near-by
stage where absorbed groups of people were still coming and going, the
distant gloom of the house.

"So now you know!" Chris said, breathlessly, panting, and looking away
from her, with his hands hanging at his sides. "Now you know! I've tried
to keep it from you! But now--now you know!"

Norma, also breathing hard, did not answer for a little space.

"I've known since that time we were in town, in September!" she said,
almost defiantly. Chris looked toward her, surprised, and their eyes
met. "I've known what was the matter with _me_," she added,
thoughtfully, even frowning a little in her anxiety to make it all
clear, "but I couldn't imagine what it was with _you_!"

But this brought him to face her, so close that she felt the same sense
of drowning, of losing her footing, again.

"Chris--please!" she whispered, in terror.

"But, Norma--say it! Say that you love me--that's all that matters now!
I've been losing my mind, I think. I've been losing my mind. Just
that--that you do care!"

"I have----" Tears came to her lifted blue eyes, and she brushed them
away without moving her gaze from him. "I think I have always loved you,
Chris--from the very first," she whispered.

Instantly she saw his expression change. It was as if, with that
revelation, a new responsibility began for him.

"Here, dear, you mustn't cry!" he said, composedly. He gave her his
handkerchief, helped her set the tipped hat and lace veil straight,
smiled reassurance and courage into her eyes. "I'll see you,
Norma--we'll talk," he said. "Oh, my God, to talk to you again! Come,
now, we'll have to be here when Annie comes back--that's right. I--I
love the little gown--terribly sweet. I haven't seen it before, you
know; my crowd has done all its rehearsing at Mrs. Hitchcock's. Here's
Annie now----"

"Christopher," said Annie, in deadly, almost angry earnest, as she came
up desperate and weary, "you'll have to sing this thing with Norma.
Burgess Street absolutely refuses. He's in the chorus, and he sings, bu