"Not at all," he replied, with a tiny grin for my cleverness, "not a bit of it. She only insists on taking five baths a day and never touching any washable thing that's been handled. She wears five changes a day and cleans the piano keys before she plays—plays very well, too."
"But—but, is that all?"
"Every bit."
"Then why must she come here?"
"Oh, well, there are practical complications, of course. She thinks most people are pigs, and says so. Then her family is nervous—I notice most of them come from very nervous families—and they simply couldn't rub on. She shampoos her head every day. It's my firm belief, aunty, that if some steady-going German-American family without any nerves would give her two rooms and a bath and put up with her for a few months, she'd be all right. Honestly, as it is, she's fretting herself crazy. She's no fool, you know."
"Heavens, Will! Why, I can perfectly understand——"
"Of course you can. Not mother, though. Mother won't hear about her—and the joke of it is, you know, aunty, mother takes her three tubs a day all summer and never shakes hands in warm weather!"
I gasped.
"But, Will, this is awful! Why, we're all on the verge, if you look at it that way!"
He shrugged and put out his hand to a heavy-faced, ordinary woman of the well-groomed New York type.