“I haven’t decided yet on my plans.  Hadn’t you better take Susette out to the Park?”

“All right.”

“And keep her there as much as you can—­till it’s over.”

“All right,” said the nurse again.

Ethel went out of the room.  Were there only strangers here?

Just after that Fanny Carr arrived, and Ethel had a feeling at once of a shrewd strong personality.  A woman of about medium height, still young but rather over-developed, artificial and overdressed, with a full bust and thick red lips and lustrous eyes of greenish grey—­her beauty was of the obtrusive type that is made to catch the eye on the street and in noisy crowded rooms.  When Fanny kissed her, Ethel shrank.  “I mustn’t do that!” she exclaimed to herself.  But the other woman had noticed it and shot a little look at her.

“You poor girl.  I can’t tell you how sorry I feel,” she was saying.  “It’s horrible.  Tell me about it.”

And Ethel in a lifeless voice recounted the tragedy of the night.

“Where’s Joe?”

“In there, with his partner.”

“Oh, Mr. Nourse.  He would be.”  Mrs. Carr threw a glance of dislike at the door.  “And you, my dear—­I won’t ask you now what are your plans.  Just let me help you.  What can I do?  There’s that dinner tonight, to begin with.  Have you let the people know?”

“Not yet—­”

“Have you a list of the ones who were asked?”

“I think there’s one on Amy’s desk.”

“Then I’ll attend to it.”

Soon Fanny was at the telephone.  Her voice, hard and incisive, kept talking, stopping, talking again, repeating it to friend after friend, and making it hard, abrupt and real, stripping it of its mystery, making it naked and commonplace, like a newspaper item—­Amy’s death.  And Ethel sat rigid, listening.

“Amy’s best friend!  Oh, how strange!”

Suddenly she remembered things Amy had said about this friend—­admiring things.  She bit her lips.

“What a queer time for hating a person.  But I hate you—­oh, I hate you!” She went to the window and frowned at the street and slowly again got control of herself.  “What’s wrong with me?  Why am I so dull I ought to be doing something.  But what?” Again came the voice from the telephone, and again she clenched her hands.  “How did you make Amy take you for a friend?  Oh, what difference does it make?”

But it did make a difference.  The presence of Fanny got on her nerves; and when a little later two of the dinner guests arrived, to exclaim and pity and offer their help, she faced them and thought: 

“You’re all alike!  You’re all just hard and over-dressed!  You’re cheap!  Oh, please—­please go away!”

The two visitors seemed glad enough to find she did not want them here, that she was not going to cling to them and make this abyss she was facing a region they must face by her side.  In their eyes again she caught the look she had seen on the face of the doctor.  “After all, this is not my affair.”