I sat up, eyeing her severely and picking gra.s.s and ants out of my hair.

"D' you mean to tell me that you woke me out of that babe-like slumber to make me drink that goo? What is it, anyway? I'll bet it's another egg-nogg."

"Egg-nogg it is; and swallow it right away, because there are guests to see you."

I emerged from the first dip into the yellow mixture and fixed on her as stern and terrible a look at any one can whose mouth is encircled by a mustache of yellow foam.

"Guests!" I roared, "not for me! Don't you dare to say that they came to see me!"

"Did too," insists Norah, with firmness, "they came especially to see you. Asked for you, right from the jump."

I finished the egg-nogg in four gulps, returned the empty tumbler with an air of decision, and sank upon the gra.s.s.

"Tell 'em I rave. Tell 'em that I'm unconscious, and that for weeks I have recognized no one, not even my dear sister. Say that in my present nerve-shattered condition I--"

"That wouldn't satisfy them," Norah calmly interrupts, "they know you're crazy because they saw you out here from their second story back windows. That's why they came. So you may as well get up and face them.

I promised them I'd bring you in. You can't go on forever refusing to see people, and you know the Whalens are--"

"Whalens!" I gasped. "How many of them? Not--not the entire fiendish three?"

"All three. I left them champing with impatience."

The Whalens live just around the corner. The Whalens are omniscient.

They have a system of news gathering which would make the efforts of a New York daily appear antiquated. They know that Jenny Laffin feeds the family on soup meat and oat-meal when Mr. Laffin is on the road; they know that Mrs. Pearson only shakes out her rugs once in four weeks; they can tell you the number of times a week that Sam Dempster comes home drunk; they know that the Merkles never have cream with their coffee because little Lizzie Merkle goes to the creamery every day with just one pail and three cents; they gloat over the knowledge that Professor Grimes, who is a married man, is sweet on Gertie Ashe, who teaches second reader in his school; they can tell you where Mrs. Black got her seal coat, and her husband only earning two thousand a year; they know who is going to run for mayor, and how long poor Angela Sims has to live, and what Guy Donnelly said to Min when he asked her to marry him.

The three Whalens--mother and daughters--hunt in a group. They send meaning glances to one another across the room, and at parties they get together and exchange bulletins in a corner. On pa.s.sing the Whalen house one is uncomfortably aware of shadowy forms lurking in the windows, and of parlor curtains that are agitated for no apparent cause.

Therefore it was with a groan that I rose and prepared to follow Norah into the house. Something in my eye caused her to turn at the very door.

"Don't you dare!" she hissed; then, banishing the warning scowl from her face, and a.s.suming a near-smile, she entered the room and I followed miserably at her heels.

The Whalens rose and came forward effusively; Mrs. Whalen, plump, dark, voluble; Sally, lean, swarthy, vindictive; Flossie, pudgy, powdered, over-dressed. They eyed me hungrily. I felt that they were searching my features for signs of incipient insanity.

"Dear, DEAR girl!" bubbled the billowy Flossie, kissing the end of my nose and fastening her eye on my ringless left hand.

Sally contented herself with a limp and fishy handshake. She and I were sworn enemies in our school-girl days, and a baleful gleam still lurked in Sally's eye. Mrs. Whalen bestowed on me a motherly hug that enveloped me in an atmosphere of liquid face-wash, strong perfumery and fried lard. Mrs. Whalen is a famous cook. Said she:

"We've been thinking of calling ever since you were brought home, but dear me! you've been looking so poorly I just said to the girls, wait till the poor thing feels more like seeing her old friends. Tell me, how are you feeling now?"

The three sat forward in their chairs in att.i.tudes of tense waiting.

I resolved that if err I must it should be on the side of safety. I turned to sister Norah.

"How am I feeling anyway, Norah?" I guardedly inquired.

Norah's face was a study. "Why Dawn dear," she said, sugar-sweet, "no doubt you know better than I. But I'm sure that you are wonderfully improved--almost your old self, in fact. Don't you think she looks splendid, Mrs. Whalen?"

The three Whalens tore their gaze from my blank countenance to exchange a series of meaning looks.

"I suppose," purred Mrs. Whalen, "that your awful trouble was the real cause of your--a-a-a-sickness, worrying about it and grieving as you must have."

She p.r.o.nounces it with a capital T, and I know she means Peter. I hate her for it.

"Trouble!" I chirped. "Trouble never troubles me. I just worked too hard, that's all, and acquired an awful 'tired.' All work and no play makes Jill a nervous wreck, you know."

At that the elephantine Flossie wagged a playful finger at me. "Oh, now, you can't make us believe that, just because we're from the country!

We know all about you gay New Yorkers, with your Bohemian ways and your midnight studio suppers, and your cigarettes, and c.o.c.ktails and high jinks!"

Memory painted a swift mental picture of Dawn O'Hara as she used to tumble into bed after a whirlwind day at the office, too dog-tired to give her hair even one half of the prescribed one hundred strokes of the brush. But in turn I shook a reproving forefinger at Flossie.

"You've been reading some naughty society novel! One of those millionaire-divorce-actress-automobile novels. Dear, dear! Shall I, ever forget the first New York actress I ever met; or what she said!"

I felt, more than saw, a warning movement from Sis. But the three Whalens had hitched forward in their chairs.

"What did she say?" gurgled Flossie. "Was it something real reezk?"

"Well, it was at a late supper--a studio supper given in her honor," I confessed.

"Yes-s-s-s," hissed the Whalens.

"And this actress--she was one of those musical comedy actresses, you know; I remember her part called for a good deal of kicking about in a short Dutch costume--came in rather late, after the performance. She was wearing a regal-looking fur-edged evening wrap, and she still wore all her make-up"--out of the corner of my eye I saw Sis sink back with an air of resignation--"and she threw open the door and said--

"Yes-s-s-s!" hissed the Whalens again, wetting their lips.

"--said: 'Folks, I just had a wire from mother, up in Maine. The boy has the croup. I'm scared green. I hate to spoil the party, but don't ask me to stay. I want to go home to the flat and blubber. I didn't even stop to take my make-up off. My G.o.d! If anything should happen to the boy!--Well, have a good time without me. Jim's waiting outside.'" A silence.

Then--"Who was Jim?" asked Flossie, hopefully.

"Jim was her husband, of course. He was in the same company."

Another silence.

"Is that all?" demanded Sally from the corner in which she had been glowering.

"All! You unnatural girl! Isn't one husband enough?"

Mrs. Whalen smiled an uncertain, wavering smile. There pa.s.sed among the three a series of cabalistic signs. They rose simultaneously.

"How quaint you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Whalen, "and so amusing! Come girls, we mustn't tire Miss--ah--Mrs.--er--" with another meaning look at my bare left hand.

"My husband's name is still Orme," I prompted, quite, quite pleasantly.

"Oh, certainly. I'm so forgetful. And one reads such queer things in the newspapers nowa-days. Divorces, and separations, and soul-mates and things." There was a note of gentle insinuation in her voice.

Norah stepped firmly into the fray. "Yes, doesn't one? What a comfort it must be to you to know that your dear girls are safe at home with you, and no doubt will be secure, for years to come, from the buffeting winds of matrimony."

There was a tinge of purple in Mrs. Whalen's face as she moved toward the door, gathering her brood about her. "Now that dear Dawn is almost normal again I shall send my little girlies over real often. She must find it very dull here after her--ah--life in New York."

"Not at all," I said, hurriedly, "not at all. You see I'm--I'm writing a book. My entire day is occupied."