first
questions, "and Leslie's baby is much less fat and solid looking, and
getting to be so cunning. Where is Aunt Marianna?"

"Upstairs," he answered with a slight backward inclination of his head.
"We had a most satisfactory day, and you and she can get off to Great
Barrington to-morrow without any trouble."

"She and I?" Norma said, distressed by something cold and casual in his
manner. "But aren't you coming, too? Alice depends upon your coming!"

"I can't, I'm sorry to say. I may get up on Friday night," Chris said,
with an almost weary air of politeness.

"Friday! Why, then--then I'll persuade Aunt Marianna to wait," Norma
decided, eagerly. "You must come with us, Chris; it's quite lovely up
through Connecticut!"

"I'm very sorry," the man repeated, glancing beyond her as if in a hurry
to terminate the conversation. "But I may not get up at all this week.
And I've arranged with Aunt Marianna that Poole drives you up to-morrow.
You'll find her," he added, lightly, "enthusiastic over the baby's
pictures. They're really excellent, and I think Leslie will be
delighted. And now I have to go, Norma----"

"But you're coming back to have dinner with us?" the girl interrupted,
thoroughly uneasy at the change in him.

"Not to-night. I have an engagement! Good-bye. I'll see you very soon.
The hat's charming, Norma, I think you may safely order more of them by
mail if you have to. Good-bye."

And with another odd smile, and his usually courteous bow, he was gone,
and Norma was left staring after him in a state almost of stupefaction.

What was the matter with him? The question framed itself indignantly in
Norma's mind as she automatically crossed the foyer of the hotel and
went upstairs. Mechanically, blindly, she took off the big hat, flung
aside the parasol, and went through the uniting bathroom into Mrs.
Melrose's room. What on earth had been the matter with Chris? What right
had he--how dared he--treat her so rudely?

Mrs. Melrose was in a flowered chair near a wide-opened window. She had
put on a lacy robe of thin silk, after the heat and burden of the day,
and her feet were in slippers. Beside her was a tall glass, holding an
iced drink, and before her, on a small table, Regina had ranged the
beautiful photographs of Leslie's baby that were to be the young
mother's birthday surprise next week.

"Hello, dear!" she said, in the pleasant, almost cooing voice with which
she almost always addressed the girls of