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 and be hungry, she was to eat "the
pudding and the chicken stew, and get herself a good supper."
Norma, chuckling a little, got herself the good supper instead. It was
with a delightful sense of solitude and irresponsibility that she sat
eating it, at the only window in the flat that possessed a good view,
the kitchen window. Aunt Kate, she decided, was with Rose, who had no
telephone; Norma thought that she would wait until Aunt Kate got home
the next day, rather than chance the long trip to the Oranges again. An
alternative would have been to go to Aunt Annie's house, but somehow the
thought of the big, silent handsome place, with the men in evening wear,
Aunt Annie and Leslie in just the correct mourning décolleté, and the
conversation decorously funereal, did not appeal to her. Instead it
seemed a real adventure to dine alone, and after dinner to put on a
less conspicuous hat and coat, and slip out into the streets, and walk
about in her new-found freedom.
The night was soft and balmy, and the sidewalks filled with sauntering
groups enjoying the first delicious promise of summer as much as Norma
did. The winter had been long and cold and snowy; great masses of
thawing ice from far-away rivers were slowly drifting down the
star-lighted surface of the Hudson, and the trees were still bare. But
the air was warm, and the breezes lifted and stirred the tender darkness
above her head with a summery sweetness.
Norma loved all the world to-night; the work-tired world that was
revelling in idleness and fresh air. Romance seemed all about her, the
doorways into which children reluctantly vanished, the gossiping women
coming back from bakery or market, the candy stores flooded with light,
and crowded with young people who were having the brightest and most
thrilling moments of all their lives over banana specials and chocolate
sundaes. The usual whirlpools eddied about the subway openings and
moving-picture houses, the usual lovers locked arms, in the high rocking
darkness of the omnibus tops, and looked down in apathetic indifference
upon the disappointment of other lovers at the crossings. In the bright
windows of dairy restaurants grapefruit were piled, and big baked apples
ranged in saucers, and beyond there were hungry men leaning far over the
table while they discussed doughnuts and strong coffee, and shook open
evening papers.
She and Wolf had studied it all for years; it was sordid and crowded and
cheap, perhaps, but it was honest and happy, too, and it was real. There
was no affectation here, even the premature spring hats, and the rouge,
and the high heels were an ingenuous bid for just a little notice, just
a little admiration, just a little longer youth.
Sauntering along in the very heart of it, hearing the flirtation, the
theatrical chatter, the homely gossip about her, Norma knew that she was
at home. Leslie, perhaps, might have loathed it had she been put down in
the midst of it; to Aunt Annie it would always seem entirely beneath
even contempt. But Norma realized to-night, as she slipped into church
for a few minutes, as she dropped a coin into a beggar's tin cup, as she
entered into casual conversation with the angry mother of a defiant boy,
that this, to her, was life. It was life--to work, to plan, to marry and
bear children, to wrest her own home from unfavourable conditions, and
help her own man to win. She would live, because she would care--care
deeply how Wolf fared in his work, how her house prospered, how her
children developed. She would not be Aunt Annie's sort of woman--Chris's
sort--she would be herself, judged not by what she had, but by what she
could do--what she could give.
"And that's the kind of woman I am, after all," she said to herself,
rejoicingly. "The child of a French maid and a spoiled, rich young man!
But no, I'm not their child. I'm Aunt Kate's--just as much as Rose and
Wolf are----!" And at the thought of Wolf she smiled. "Won't Wolf
Sheridan _open his eyes_?"
When she reached Forty-first Street she turned east, and went past the
familiar door of the opera house. It was a special performance, and the
waiting line stretched from the box office down the street, and around
the corner, into the dark. They would only be able to buy standing
room, these patient happy music lovers who grew weary and cold waiting
for their treat, and even standing, they would be behind an immovable
crowd, they would catch only occasional glimpses of the stage. But Norma
told herself that she would rather be in that line, than yawningly
deciding, as she had so often seen Annie decide, that she would perhaps
rustle into the box at ten o'clock for the third act--although it was
rather a bore.
She flitted near enough to see the general stir, and to see once more
the sign "No Footmen Allowed in This Lobby," and then, smiling at the
old memories, she slipped away into the darkness, drinking in insatiably
the intimate friendliness of the big city and the spring night.