. "Norma, do be advised by me in this," he urged
her earnestly. "It is one of the most important crises in your life.
Annie can put you exactly where you want to be, introduced and accepted
everywhere--a constant guest in her house, in her opera box, or Annie
can drop you--I've seen her do it!--and it would take you ten years to
make up the lost ground!"

"It didn't take Annie ten years to be a--a--social leader!" Norma
argued, resentfully.

"Annie? Ah, my dear, a woman like Annie isn't born twice in a hundred
years! She has--but you know what she has, Norma. Languages,
experiences, friends--most of all she has the grand manner--the _belle
aire_."

Norma was fighting to regain her composure over almost unbearable hurt
and chagrin.

"But, Chris," she argued, desperately, "you've always said that you had
no particular use for Annie's crowd--that you'd rather live in some
little Italian place--or travel slowly through India----"

"I said I would like to do that, and so I would!" he answered. "But
believe me, Norma, your money makes a very different sort of thing
possible now, and you would be mad--you would be _mad_!--to throw it
away. Put yourself in Annie's hands," he finished, with the first hint
of his old manner that she had seen for forty-eight hours, "and have
your car, your maids, your little establishment on the upper East Side,
and then--then"--and now his arm was about her, and he had tipped up her
face close to his own--"and then you and I will break our little
surprise to them!" he said, kindly. "Only be careful, Norma. Don't let
them say that you did anything ostentatious or conspicuous----"

She freed herself, her heart cold and desolate almost beyond bearing,
and Chris answered her as if she had spoken.

"Yes--and I must go, too! To-morrow will be a terrible day for us all.
Oh, one thing more, Norma! Annie asked me if I had any idea of who the
man was--the man Wolf speaks of there in that note--and I had to say
someone, just to quiet her. So I said that I thought it was Roy
Gillespie--you don't mind?--I knew he liked you tremendously, and I
happened to think of him! Is that all right?"

She made no audible answer, almost immediately leaving him, and going
upstairs. There was nothing to do, in her room, and she knew that she
could really be of use downstairs, among the intimate old friends who
were protecting Annie and Leslie from annoyance, but she felt in no mood
for that. She hated herself and e