must be--it must be--that he had been mentioned for it,
that they had him in mind! He wasn't going even to think of it--and
Norma mustn't--but Lord, it meant being picked out of the ranks; it
meant being handed a commission on a silver platter!

Norma tried not to be cold, tried to rise to the little he asked of her,
as audience. And she had the satisfaction of knowing that he noticed
nothing amiss in her manner, and of seeing him go off to sleep, when
they had made the long trip home, with his head in a whirl of glorious
hopes. But Norma, for the first time since her marriage, cried herself
to sleep.

CHAPTER XXVII

The bitterness stayed with her, and gradually robbed her life of
everything that was happy and content. Her little household round, that
had been so absorbing and so important, became tedious and stupid. Rose,
who was expecting her second confinement, had her husband's mother with
her, and in care of the old baby, and making preparations for the new,
was busy, and had small time for the old companionship; the evenings
were too cold for motoring now, even if Wolf had not been completely
buried in engineering journals and papers of all sorts.

Norma did not call on Annie again, but a fretted and outraged sense of
Annie's coolness and aloofness, and a somewhat similar impression from
Leslie's manner, when they met in Fifth Avenue one day, was always in
her mind. They could drop her as easily as they had picked her up, these
high-and-mighty Melroses! She consoled herself, for a few days, with
spectacular fancies of Annie's consternation should Norma's real
identity be suddenly revealed to her, but even that poor solace was
taken away from her at last.

It was Aunt Kate's unconscious hand that struck the blow, on a wild
afternoon, All Hallow E'en, as it happened, when the older woman made
the long trip to see Rose, and came on to Norma with a report that
everything was going well, and Miggs more fascinating than ever.

Mrs. Sheridan found Norma at the close of the short afternoon, moping in
her unlighted house. She had been to the theatre with Wolf and a young
couple from the house next door, last night, and had fallen asleep after
an afternoon walk, and felt headachy, prickly with heat and cold, and
stupid. Yawning and chilly, she kissed her aunt, and suggested that they
move to the kitchen. It was Inga's free night and Norma was cook.

"You'll stay and surprise Wolf, he'd love it," Norma said, a