"_He!_" Robert corrected, and then added sarcastically, "Papa works to
buy baby shoes. Now, does that answer your question?"
Helen sighed. There was just no use trying to explain anything to those
four girls.
* * * * *
Fall and winter passed. The dull monotony of being green was accented
now and then by articles and pictures in newspapers and magazines, and
by rumors, always proved false, that a remedy had been found, though
chemists, biologists and doctors continued hunting for the cause of
the catastrophe. Autopsies provided no clue. Women protested that the
doctors were looking at them with a wishful drop-dead expression, as if
the _next_ autopsy might be the one that would supply the answer.
The greenness was still confined to Mimosa Beach. Other communities
kept up their quarantine. The four girls next door to the Raymonds were
as zany as ever, and Dora Hastings stayed on, of necessity.
And then the monotony was broken by greater calamities.
First, there was the matter of Patricia Pontiac's approaching
motherhood. While this, of course, made no difference as far as the
town was concerned, Dora was greatly perturbed, and, ever being one to
insist on others keeping within the limits of her own narrow paths, she
took the girl to task.
"Patricia," she insisted sternly, "there simply _must_ be a man to
blame for your condition! You _must_ marry him. Think of the baby! You
want him to be fatherless?"
"Fatherless? Him?" Patricia repeated, frowning in perplexity. "What you
talking about? My little baby girl all mine. This man business I don't
understand."
"Nonsense! You're just trying to pretend innocence."
"Oh, give it up, Dora," Helen urged wearily. "She doesn't know what
you're talking about."