're a woman now--you're Wolf's wife----"

But that was just what she did not feel herself, a woman and Wolf's
wife. She was a girl--interested in shaggy sport coats and lace
stockings; she did not want to be any one's wife! She wanted to punish
Leslie and Aunt Annie, and to have plenty of money, and to have a
wonderful little apartment on the east side of the Park, and delicious
clothes; she wanted to become a well-known figure in New York society,
at Palm Beach and the summer resorts, and at the opera and the big
dining-rooms of the hotels.

"And I could do it, too!" Norma thought, walking through the cool, dark
night restlessly. "In two years--in three or four, anyway, I would be
where Aunt Annie is; or at least I would if Chris and I were married--he
could do anything! I suppose," she added, with youthful recklessness, "I
suppose there are lots of old fogies who would never understand my
getting separated from Wolf, but it isn't as if _he_ didn't understand,
for I know he does! Wolf has always known that it took just _certain
things_ to make me happy!"

Something petty, and contemptible, and unworthy, in this last argument
smote her ears unpleasantly, and she was conscious of flushing in the
dark.

"Well, people have to be happy, don't they?" she reasoned, with a rising
inflection at the end of the phrase that surprised and a trifle
disquieted her. "Don't they?" she asked herself, thoughtfully, as she
crept in at the side door of the magnificent, cumbersome old house that
was her own now. No one but an amazed-looking maid saw her, as she
regained her room, and fifteen minutes later she was circulating about
the dim and mournful upper floor again. Annie called her into her room.

"You look fearfully tired, Norma! Do get some sleep," her aunt said,
with unusual kindness. "I'm going to try to, although my head is aching
terribly, and I know I can't. To-morrow will be hard on us all. I shall
go home to-morrow night, and I'm trying to persuade Leslie to come with
me."

"No, I shan't! I'm going to stay here," Leslie said, with a sort of
weary pettishness. "My house is closed, and poor Chris is going to begin
closing Aunt Alice's house, and he doesn't want to go to a club--he'd
much rather be here, wouldn't he, Norma?"

Something in the tired way that both aunt and niece appealed to her
touched Norma, and she answered sympathetically:

"Truly, I think he would, Aunt Annie. And if little Patricia and the
nurse get