Wyndham smiled reassuringly as he caught Millicent’s puzzled frown. “Vera’s nerves are on edge,” he said. “I quite understand her seeming rudeness.”
“Well, I don’t,” confessed Millicent. “Dorothy has a much sweeter disposition than her sister, and on her account I overlook Vera’s occasional tempers. Go and get the limousine, Hugh; Dorothy and I will be ready in ten minutes.”
However, it was less than the prescribed ten minutes when Millicent and Dorothy stood waiting in the lower hall for the arrival of the car, and the latter, going into the library to collect some notes she had left there, encountered her sister on her way out of the side entrance to Dewdrop Inn.
“I wish you were going with us, Vera,” she exclaimed impulsively. “Do come, there’s plenty of room in the limousine.”
“Not today, dear.” And Vera tempered the refusal with a kiss. She glanced at the yellow copy paper Dorothy was busy stuffing inside her muff. “Did you use the telephone in Mrs. Porter’s boudoir about fifteen minutes ago?”
Dorothy shook her head. “No, but Mrs. Porter and then Hugh tried to get Central.” Her sister’s reference to the boudoir recalled a recent conversation, and she added briskly: “Vera, why are you so stand-offish with the Porters? They are fond of you, yet you never spend any time with them, and I think they feel it.”
Vera drew back from Dorothy’s detaining clasp. “I am here in my professional capacity, Dorothy, and I don’t wish to intrude upon them,” she said gently. “Better that they think me ‘stand-offish’ than say I take advantage of ‘auld lang syne’ and push myself forward.”
“What nonsense! I declare, Vera, you are downright provoking, not to say morbid,” protested Dorothy. “It’s the result of never getting away from the atmosphere of the sick room. I don’t see how you stand it; the mere sight of suffering drives me wild, and to think of poor Craig Porter, whom I used to dance with, lying there inert—I just could not go to his room today when Mrs. Porter asked me to do so,” she wound up. “His changed appearance would break me down completely. How can you watch him night after night?”
“You and Craig were great friends, whereas I never knew him in those days.” Vera lowered her voice. “Let me see, did you first meet him when we were in mourning?”
“No, before that, when Millicent and I were at Catonsville together. We were great chums.” And she smiled, then winked away a sudden rush of tears. “Poor Craig!”