However, that hour had borne fruit, and in two separate ways had had its
distinct effect upon Norma's mind and soul. In the first place, she had
a secret now with Chris, and understanding that made her most casual
glance at him significant, and gave a double meaning to almost every
word they exchanged. It was at his suggestion that she decided to keep
the revelation from Alice, even though she knew what Alice knew, for
Alice was not very well, and Chris was sure that it would only agitate
and frighten the invalid to feel that the family's discreditable secret
was just that much nearer betrayal. So she and Chris alone shared the
agitation, strain, and bewilderment of the almost overwhelming
discovery; and Norma, in turning to him for advice and sympathy,
deepened tenfold the tie between them.
But even this result was not so far-reaching as the less-obvious effect
of the discovery upon her character. Everything that was romantic,
undisciplined, and reckless in Norma was fostered by the thought that so
thrilling and so secret a history united her closely to the Melrose
family. That she was Leslie's actual cousin, that the closest of all
human relationships bound her to the magnificent Mrs. von Behrens, were
thoughts that excited in her every dramatic and extravagant tendency to
which the amazing year had inclined _her_. With her growing ease in her
changed environment, and the growing popularity she enjoyed there, came
also a sense of predestination, the conviction that her extraordinary
history justified her in any act of daring or of unconventionality.
There was nothing to be gained by self-control or sanity, Norma might
tell herself, at least for those of the Melrose blood.
Her shyness of the season before had vanished, and she could plunge into
the summer gaiety with an assurance that amazed even herself. Her first
meeting with Annie, after the day of Chris's disclosures, was an ordeal
at which he himself chanced to be a secretly thrilled onlooker. Norma
grew white, and her lips trembled; there was a strained look in her
blue, agonized eyes. But Annie's entire unconsciousness that the
situation was at all tense, and the presence of three or four total
outsiders, helped Norma to feel that this amazing and dramatic moment
was only one more in a life newly amazing and dramatic, and she escaped
unnoticed from the trial. The second time was much less trying, and
after that Norma showed no sign that she ever thought of the matter at
all.
Mrs. von Behrens took Norma to her Maine camp in July, and when the girl
joined the Chris Liggetts in August, it was for a season of hard tennis,
golf, polo, dancing, yachting, and swimming. Norma grew lean and tanned,
and improved so rapidly in manner and appearance that Alice felt,
concerning her, certain fears that she one day confided to her mother.
It was on an early September day, dry and airless, and they were on the
side porch of the Newport cottage.
"You see how pretty she's growing, Mama," Alice said. And then, in a
lower tone, with a quick cautious glance about: "Mama, doesn't she
often remind you of Annie?"
Mrs. Melrose, who had been contentedly rocking and drowsing in the heat,
paled with sudden terror and apprehension, and looked around her with
sick and uneasy eyes.
"Alice--my darling," she stammered.
"I know, Mama--I'm not going to talk about it, truly!" Alice assured
her, quickly. "I never even _think_ of it!" she added, earnestly.
"No--no--no, that's right!" her mother agreed, hurriedly. Her soft old
face, under the thin, crimped gray hair, was full of distress.
"Mama, there is no reason why it should worry you," Alice said,
distressed, too. "Don't think of it; I'm sorry I spoke! But sometimes,
even though she is so dark, Norma is so like Annie that it makes my
blood run cold. If Annie ever suspected that she is--well, her own
daughter----"
Mrs. Melrose's face was ashen, and she looked as if touched by the heat.
"No--no, dear!" she said, with a sort of terrified brevity. "You and
Chris were wrong there. I can't talk to you about it, Alice," she broke
off, pleadingly; "you mustn't ask me, dear. You said you wouldn't," she
pleaded, trembling.
Alice was stupefied. For a full minute she lay in her pillows, staring
blankly at her mother.
"_Isn't_----!" she whispered at last, incredulous and bewildered.
"No, dear. Poor Annie----! No, no, no; Norma's mother is dead. But--but
you must believe that Mama is acting as she believes to be for the
best," she interrupted herself, in painful and hesitating tones, "and
that I can't talk about it now, Alice; I can't, indeed! Some day----"
"Mama darling," Alice cried, really alarmed by her leaden colour and
wild eyes, "please--I'll never speak of it again! Why, I know that
everything you do is for us all, darling! Please be happy about it. Come
on, we'll talk of something else. When do you leave for
town--to-morrow?"
"Poole drives us as far as Great Barrington to-morrow, Norma and me,"
the old lady began, gaining calm as she reviewed her plans. Chris needed
her for a little matter of business, and Norma was anxious to see her
Cousin Rose's new baby. The conversation drifted to Leslie's baby, the
idolized Patricia who was now some four months old.