one o'clock
By Thanksgiving it seemed to her that she had only dreamed of `` Aïda '' and of Newport , and that the Norma of the wonderful frocks and the wonderful dreams had been only a dream herself . And then suddenly she was delighted to have a friendly little note from Alice , asking her to come to luncheon on a certain December Friday , as there was `` a tiny bit of business '' that she would like to discuss ; Chris was away , she would be alone . Norma accepted with no more than ordinary politeness , and showed neither Wolf nor his mother any elation , but she felt a deep satisfaction in the renewed relationship . On the appointed Friday , at one o'clock , she mounted the familiar steps of the Christopher Liggetts ' house , and greeted the butler with a delighted sense of returning to her own . Alice was in the front room , before a wood fire ; she greeted Norma with her old smile , and with an outstretched hand , but Norma was shocked to see how drawn and strangely aged the smile was , and how thin the hand ! The room had its old scent of violets , and its old ordered beauty and richness , but Norma was vaguely conscious , for the first time , of some new invalid quality of fussiness , of a pretty and superfluous cluttering that had not been characteristic of Alice 's belongings a year ago . Alice , too , wore newly a certain stamp of frailty , her always pure high forehead had a faint transparency and shine that Norma did not remember , and the increasing accumulation of pillows and little bookcases and handsome stands about her suggested that her horizon was closing in , that her world was diminishing to this room , and this room alone .