“You were fortunate to get off so well.” Absorbed in his own recital, Justin did not observe her. “He was going from one car to another when the train went off the trestle—I don’t wonder you would never talk about it, Dosia. He was able to help some of the survivors. There was a poor young girl who was alone, like you—he didn’t know what became of her; he was ill himself in the hospital for two weeks afterwards. His description of the whole thing was extraordinarily vivid.” Justin was now bolting windows and putting out lights as he talked. “You two girls must go to bed at once; it’s nearly twelve.”
“What was his name?” asked Dosia.
“His name? Why, I thought I’d told you. His name’s Girard—Bailey Girard.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Reginald has the measles.”
Lois made the announcement breathlessly, as she stood outside of the drawing-room, addressing the visitors who sat on the sofa, talking to Dosia.
“The doctor has just gone, and he says it is the measles. I don’t suppose I had better come in the room.” There was a tone of resentment in her voice which seemed to originate in the idea of being excluded; in reality, it was caused by the bitter thought that she had known for a couple of days that Redge was not well, and that his father had been exacting with him. “I really suppose I had better not come in.”
“Oh, don’t mind me!” Mrs. Leverich, gorgeous in velvet and furs, spoke reassuringly. “There are no children at our house, and I’ve had the measles.”
“Of course, it’s not scarlet fever,” continued Lois, dropping into a chair, “or diphtheria. I suppose Zaidee will get it, and we have to be quarantined. I don’t know what to do about you, Dosia.” She was feeling the fell blow of a contagious disease, which upsets every previously stable condition.
“I’ve had the measles,” said the girl, but she added with quick anxiety: “There are my lessons; do you suppose it will make any difference about them? I don’t see how I can lose them now, and there’s that concert Saturday.”