"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.