enough for you; I know
it. I see myself as I am, sometimes, I suppose. I think you're going to
be happy--and God knows I hope so; perhaps it _is_ a realer life, your
husband's: and perhaps a man who works for his wife with his hands and
his head has got something on us other fellows after all! I've often
wished----But that doesn't matter now. But I want you to know I'll
always remember you as the finest woman I ever knew--just the best there
is! And if ever I've hurt you, forgive me, won't you, Norma?--and--and
let me kiss you good-bye!"

She raised her face to his confidently, and her eyes were misty when she
went upstairs, because she had seen that his were wet. But there was no
more unhappiness; indeed an overwhelming sense that everything was
right--that every life had shifted back into normal and manageable and
infinitely better lines, went with her as she walked slowly out into the
sunshine, and wandered in the general direction of Aunt Kate's. As she
left the old Melrose home, the big limousine was standing at the door,
and presently Annie and Leslie would sweep out in their flowing veils
and crapes, and whirl off to the Von Behrens mansion. But Norma Sheridan
was content to walk to the omnibus, and to take the jolting front seat,
and to look down in all brotherly love and companionship at the moving
and shifting crowds that were glorying in the warm spring weather.

To be busy--to be needed--to be loved--she said to herself. That was the
sweet of life, and it could not be taken from the policeman at the
crossing or the humblest little shop-girl who scampered under his big
arm, or bought by the bored women in limousines who, furred and flowered
and feathered, were moving from the matinee to the tea table. Caroline
Craigie, Aunt Annie, Leslie; she had seen the material advantages of
life fail them all.

CHAPTER XXXV

Aunt Kate was out when Norma reached the apartment, but she knew that
the key was always on the top of the door frame, and entered the
familiar old rooms without any trouble. But she saw in a dismayed flash
that Aunt Kate was not coming back, for that night at least. The kitchen
window had been left four inches open, to accommodate the cat, milk and
bones were laid in waiting, and a note in the bottle notified the
milkman "no milk until to-morrow." There was also a note in pencil, on
the bottom of an egg-box, for the nurses who rented two rooms, should
either one of them chance to come in