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." Dora raised skeptical eyebrows. "In _her_ condition?" After that, Dora went around with a great air of virtue condescending to help the wayward. It must be a burden, Helen felt, to have to feel superior because of other people's faults. Such a negative sort of superiority. * * * * * During the next few weeks, Dora had plenty of chance to feel superior. Other unmarried girls and women besides Patricia became pregnant and, like Patricia, they insisted no man was responsible. But they were not complacent about it the way Patricia was; to them it was an indignity they did not deserve. "What's this town coming to, anyway?" Dora demanded. "Parthenogenetic births, maybe?" Helen ventured. "No one would have believed that we'd turn green, but we did. Honestly, Dora, I'm getting so I'd believe almost anything in this nightmare existence of ours, even that _you_ were about to have a baby!" "That," Dora rejoined acidly, "is not at all likely. But are you trying to imply that our turning green could have something to do with these shameful births?" "I didn't say that, but you could be right." "Hmmph!" Dora snorted. "A lot of nonsense!" The four girls were in the Raymonds' living room one afternoon, a week later, talking with Helen, when Dora, who had been feeling ill and had gone to the doctor's, walked in. She glared at the four girls. "I'm going to have a baby," she accused them. Helen drew her breath in sharply. "Oh, no! Not you, too!" "Of course," Clara Ford said complacently. "Every one have babies. Except Robert and Bobby and the ones like them. Jack and Mary and I have ours before we leave Venus. Have only one each, of course." "But why am _I_ like this? How can _I_ have a baby this way?" Dora's voice was shrill with anger and panic. "How else?" Jack asked calmly.