sing of some
emotion singularly akin to contempt.

A maid signalled her, and she stepped to the dressing-room door. A
special delivery letter had come from Wolf. The maid went away again,
but Norma stood where she was, reading it. Wolf had written:

DEAR NORMA,

Mother wrote me of all that you have been going through, and I
am as sorry as I can be for all their trouble, and glad that
they have you to help them through. Mother also told me of the
change in your position there; I had always known vaguely that
we didn't understand it all. I remember now your coming to us
in Brooklyn, and your mother crying when she went away. I know
this will make a difference to you, and be one more reason for
your not coming West with me. You must use your own judgment,
but the longer I think of it, the meaner it seems to me for me
to take advantage of your coming to me, last spring, and our
getting married. I've thought about it a great deal. Nothing
will ever make me like, or respect, the man you say you care
for. I don't believe you do care for him. And I would rather see
you dead than married to him. But it isn't for me to say, of
course. If you like him, that's enough. If you ever stop liking
him, and will come back to me, I'll meet you anywhere, or take
you anywhere--it won't make any difference what Mother thinks,
or Rose thinks, or any one else. I've written and destroyed this
letter about six times. I just want you to know that if you
think I am standing in the way of your happiness, I won't stand
there, even though I believe you are making an awful mistake
about that particular man. And I want to thank you for the
happiest eight months that any man ever had.

Yours always,
WOLF.

Norma stood perfectly still, after she read the letter through, with the
clutch of vague pain and shame at her heart. The stiff, stilted words
did not seem like Wolf, and the definite casting-off hurt her. Why
couldn't they be friends, at least? Granted that their marriage was a
mistake, it had never had anything but harmony in it, companionship,
mutual respect and understanding, and a happy intimacy as clean and
natural as the meeting of flowers.

She was standing, motionless and silent, when Leslie's voice came
clearly to her ears. Evidently Acton, Annie, and Leslie were alone, in
Annie's room, out of sight, but not a dozen feet away from