Patricia turned, indignant at her levity in the face of trouble.
"Rosamond is in a stupor and I can't wake her up. I'm going for Miss Ardsley," she said shortly.
Then Constance dropped her bantering tone and, closing her own door, came over to Patricia. "Let me see her before you call out the authorities," she said earnestly. "She may not be seriously ill, and if they once get hold of her they'll keep her in quarantine for weeks after she's all over it."
Patricia remembered Rosamond saying something much to this effect, and she agreed eagerly.
"I'll go in first and see if she's waked up," she said on the threshold of Rosamond's room.
Rosamond was lying in the same position as she had been and was as unresponsive to efforts to rouse her as before. Patricia beckoned Constance into the room.
"I'm afraid she's very ill," she whispered, as Constance came to the bedside, and she waited in great suspense for what should come next.
Constance felt Rosamond's head and listened to her heart in quite a professional manner. Then she disappeared for a moment and came back with a thermometer and an alcohol bottle.
"Get some hot water ready for me," she said in a business-like way that won Patricia's confidence. "I think it's an attack of the grippe, but I'm not sure yet."
When Patricia came back with the steaming pitcher, she had finished her investigations. "It's grippe, all right," she said, contentedly. "I know the symptoms without being told a word. I've had it every year since it became the fashion, drat it! We'll have to get the doctor, of course, but I think she can be made more comfortable in the meanwhile."