“I am sorry I have n't made my meaning clear,” she said, resuming her seat by the window; “and I don't know whether I can make it much clearer. Anyhow, I'll try, mother. I used to think that love was either a school-girl sentimentality, a fiction of the poets, or else the sort of thing that lands married women who don't know how to take care of themselves in the divorce court. I find it is n't. That's all.” Mrs. Hardacre ran up to the window and faced Norma. “And Morland?” “It won't break his heart.” “What won't?” “The breaking off of our engagement.” Mrs. Hardacre looked at her daughter in a paralysis of bewilderment. “The madhouse is the only place for you.” “Perhaps it is. Anyway I can't marry a man when I care for his intimate friend--and when the intimate friend cares for me. Somehow it's not quite decent. Even you, mother, can see that.” “So you and the intimate friend have arranged it all between you?” “Oh, no. He does n't know that I care, and he does n't know that I know that he cares. I'll say that over again if you like. It is quite accurately expressed. And you know I'm not in the habit of lying.” “And you propose to marry----” “I don't propose to do anything,” interrupted Norma, quickly. “I at least can wait till he asks me. And now, mother, I've had rather a bad time--don't you think we might stop?” “It seems to me, my dear Norma, we are only just beginning,” said Mrs. Hardacre. Norma rose with nervous impatience. “O heavens, mother,” she said, in the full deep notes of her voice, which were only sounded at rare moments of feeling, “can't you see that I'm in earnest? This man is like no one else I have ever met. I have grown to need him. Do you know what that means? With him I am a changed woman--as God made me, I suppose; natural, fresh, real--” Mrs. Hardacre sat in Norma's vacated chair by the window and stared at her, as she moved about the room. “I somehow feel that I am a woman, after all. I have got something higher than myself that I can fall at the feet of, and that's what every woman craves when she's decent. As for marrying him--I'm not fit to marry him. There is n't any one living who is. That's an end of it, mother. I can't say anything more.” “And do you propose to go on seeing this person when he recovers?” asked Mrs. Hardacre. “Why not?” “I really can't argue with you,” said her mother, mystified. “If you had told me this rubbish yesterday, I should have thought you touched in your wits. To-day it is midsummer madness.” “Why to-day?” asked Norma.