“I’m afraid it’s diphtheria,” said Zelda, hoarsely, putting her hand to the red flannel. “You must telephone to Mrs. Carr right away that I wish to see her immediately. And when she comes bring her right up here.”
“Yes, Miss Zee,” said the black woman, turning away in alarm.
“And Polly,”—Zelda’s face convulsed with pain and she sat up in bed and coughed violently,—“don’t alarm father. Tell him I’m not very sick. And Polly—when Mrs. Carr comes don’t let her fall and break her neck on the stairs. Pull down all the shades and light those candles on the dressing-table.”
She lay back, gathering the collar of a pink bath-robe about her throat.
“Don’t I look awfully sick, Polly? It would be dreadful to die, and me so young. And, Polly,”—she waited for a moment as though in deep thought—“Polly,”—her voice rang out clear, and she waved a hand to the colored woman,—“you may go and telephone Mrs. Carr and then bring me,”—she assumed her hoarse whisper again,—“bring me a cup of coffee, a plate of toast and a jar of marmalade. A doctor, say you, Polly Apollo? Not if I know myself!”—and she hummed in a perfectly natural voice:
“Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door where in I went.”
In an hour Mrs. Carr’s station wagon was at the door of the Dameron house. The president of the Dramatic Club heard Polly’s solemn whisper that “Miss Zee was ‘pow’ful sick’” and she ran up the dark narrow stairway with a speed that brought her in undignified breathlessness to Zelda’s room, where the star of the Dramatic Club cast lay coughing. The odor of camphor filled the room, which was not surprising, as Zelda had soaked her handkerchief from a bottle of spirits of camphor only a few moments before and swung it in the air the better to distribute its aroma.