ist watch; it was nine o'clock. A sudden mad
impulse took her: she would go over to Jersey, and see Rose. It was not
so very late, the babies kept Rose and Harry up until almost eleven. She
thirsted suddenly for Rose, for Rose's beautiful, pure little face, her
puzzled, earnest blue eyes under black eyebrows, her pleasant, unready
words that were always so true and so kind.

Rapidly Norma buttoned the new black coat, dropped the filmy veil, fled
down the back stairway, and through a bright, hot pantry, where maids
were laughing and eating gaily. She explained to their horrified silence
that she was slipping out for a breath of air, went through doorways
and gratings, and found herself in the blessed coolness and darkness of
the side street.

Ah--this was delicious! She belonged here, flying along inconspicuous
and unmolested in light and darkness, just one of the hurrying and
indifferent millions. The shop windows, the subways, the very
gum-machines and the chestnut ovens with their blowing lamps looked
friendly to Norma to-night; she loved every detail of blowing newspapers
and yawning fellow-passengers, in the hot, bright tube.

On the other side she was hurrying off the train with the plunging crowd
when her heart jumped wildly at the sight of a familiar shabby overcoat
some fifty feet ahead of her, topped by the slightly tipped slouch hat
that Wolf always wore. Friday night! her thoughts flashed joyously, and
he was coming to New Jersey to see his mother and Rose! Of all fortunate
accidents--the one person in the world she wanted to see--and must see
now!

Norma fled after the coat, dodging and slipping through every opening,
and keeping the rapidly moving slouch hat before her. She was quite out
of breath when she came abreast of the man, and saw, with a sickening
revulsion, that it was not Wolf.

What the man thought Norma never knew or cared. The surprising blankness
of the disappointment made her almost dizzy; she turned aside blindly,
and stumbled into the quiet backwater behind a stairway, where she could
recover her self-possession and endure unobserved the first pangs of
bitterness. It seemed to her that she would die if she could not see
Wolf, if she had to endure another minute of loneliness and darkness and
aimless wandering through the night.

Rose's house was only three well-lighted blocks from the station; Norma
almost ran them. Other houses, she noted, were still brightly lighted at
quarter to