She hesitated a moment over Mrs. Sherwood, but finally let her go without protest. When the last guest had departed she sank into a chair. As she was already on the verge of hysterics, she easily kept up an air of gayety.
"Girls, what an awful party!" she cried. "I could tear my hair! It was a perfect nightmare." Struggling to control her voice and keep back her tears, she added abruptly: "Now tell me what it is all about."
Mrs. Morrell and Sally Warner were plainly uneasy and at a loss how to meet this situation, but Mrs. Scattergood remained quite composed in her small, compact way.
"What's what all about, Nan, dear?" asked Sally Warner in her most vivacious manner. She keenly felt the dramatic situation and was already visualizing herself in the role of raconteuse.
"You know perfectly well. Why this funeral? Where are they all? Why did they stay away? I have a right to know."
"I'm sure there's nothing I can think of!" replied Sally artificially. "The idea!"
But Mrs. Scattergood, with all the relish of performing a noble and disagreeable duty, broke in:
"You know, dear," she said in her didactic, slow voice, "as well as we do, what the world is. Of course we understand, but people will talk!"
"In heaven's name what are you driving at? What are they talking about?" demanded Nan, as Mrs. Scattergood apparently came to a full stop.
A pause ensued while Sally and Mrs. Scattergood exchanged glances with
Mrs. Morrell.