Olive looked up suddenly, holding Gretchen’s gown in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other.
“This is all absurd, Zee Dameron. You can’t put me off as you did Mrs. Carr. I’m going to telephone for the doctor at once.”
“No, no, no! I tell you I have plenty of medicine. I’ll not let a doctor cross the threshold.”
She held up the bottle that Olive had handed her.
“It’s a French doctor’s prescription for just this trouble. It’s fine. I’ve taken quarts of it.”
Olive went to the bed, snatched the bottle and held it to her nose.
“Violet water! A French medicine! You fraud, you awful, shameless fraud!”
“Please don’t abuse me! My chest, oh-h-h!”
“Zelda Dameron, you are no more sick than I am! No person could get as sick as you are pretending to be in a few hours. You were as well as anybody at midnight, and you went through the rehearsal splendidly. Don’t try any tricks on me--”
Zelda sat up again and folded her arms. A smile twitched the corners of her mouth; then she began to speak and fell into another fit of coughing, burying her face in the blankets and seeming unable to recover herself.
“Oh-h-h! it has got me again!” and she shook first with the vigor of her cough and then with laughter. Olive seized her and forced her back on the pillows.
“I’m going away! I’m going home! I don’t intend to have you make a guy of me in such a way as this.” Olive seemed about to cry, and Zelda laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I must say that your hilarity is decidedly unbecoming,” said Olive, with dignity. “Mrs. Carr may forgive you, but I never shall,--never!”
Zelda’s mirth rose again at the mention of Mrs. Carr.
“Theodosia would certainly be consumed with rage. Oh, me!”
She sat up in bed and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Please get me a handkerchief from that bureau,--top drawer on your right. This thing smells vilely of camphor. And please don’t take your doll rags and go home. I’m going to be good. Honestly; I’ll be all right in a minute.”
Olive did as Zelda bade her, and returned to the bedside of the invalid with unrelenting condemnation.
“Please don’t look at me that way, Olive. I didn’t mean to laugh; but it _is_ funny. And when you look so hurt and dignified I can’t help it. But we’ve traded parts, anyhow. Don’t say a word. I have reasons,--of state, as they say in romantic drama,--and nothing can alter my determination. It’s either change parts or I won’t go at all. We’ve had that thing pounded into us for a month--it seems years to me--and every word of Max Schmidt’s opera is beaten into the brains of every one of us. I believe I could sing the tenor’s part; and you could, too. There are only two or three of Gretchen’s songs that you need go over at all,--”