n't I own _this_,
now? I thought----"

"I don't really know," Chris answered. "We'll open the will next week,
and then we'll straighten everything out."

"In the meanwhile," Annie said, lazily, "if she suggests going back to
her own family, for Heaven's sake don't stop her! I like Norma--always
have. But after all, there are times when _any_ outsider--no matter how
agreeable she is----"

"I think she'll go immediately after the funeral," Chris said,
constrainedly and uncertainly.

Norma, suddenly roused both to a realization of the utter impropriety of
her overhearing all this, and the danger of detection, slipped from the
dressing-room by the hall door, and so escaped to her own room.

She shut the door behind her, walked irresolutely to the bed, stood
there for a moment, with her hands pressed to her cheeks, walked blindly
to the window, only to pause again, paced the room mechanically for a
few minutes, and finally found herself seated on the broad,
old-fashioned sill of the dressing-room window, staring down unseeing at
the afternoon traffic in Madison Avenue.

Oh, how she hated them--cruel, selfish, self-satisfied
snobs--snobs--snobs that they were! Leslie--Leslie "making allowances
for her!" Leslie making allowances for _her_! And Annie--hoping that for
Heaven's sake nobody would prevent her from going home after the
funeral! The remembered phrases burned and stung like acid upon her
soul; she wanted to hurt Annie and Leslie as they had hurt her, she
wanted to shame them and anger them.

Yes, and she could do it, too! She could do it! They little knew that
within a few days' time utter consternation and upheaval, notoriety and
shame, and the pity of their intimates, would disrupt the surface of
their lives, that surface that they felt it so important to keep smooth!
"People will comment," Norma quoted to herself, with a bitter
smile--indeed people would comment, as they had never commented even
upon the Melroses before! Leslie would be robbed not only of her
inheritance but of her name and of her position. And Annie--even
magnificent Aunt Annie must accept, with what surface veneer of
cordiality she might affect, the only child of her only brother, the
heir to the family estate.

"I believe I'm horribly tired," Norma said to herself, looking out into
the dimming winter day, "or else I'm nervous, or something! I wish I
could go over to Rose's and help her put the children to bed----! Or I
wish Aunt Kate