Mr. Queed bowed, indignantly. Silently he marched to his chair, the one
just opposite, and sat down in offended majesty. To Fifi it seemed that
to get up at once and leave the room, which she would gladly have done,
would be too crude a thing to do, too gross a rebuke to the little
Doctor's Ego. She was wrong, of course, though her sensibilities were
indubitably right. Therefore she feigned enormous engrossment in her
algebra, and struggled to make herself as small and inoffensive as she
could.
The landlady's daughter wore a Peter Thompson suit of blue serge, which
revealed a few inches of very thin white neck. She was sixteen and
reddish-haired, and it was her last year at the High School. The
reference is to Fifi's completion of the regular curriculum, and not to
any impending promotion to a still Higher School. She was a fond,
uncomplaining little thing, who had never hurt anybody's feelings in her
life, and her eyes, which were light blue, had just that look of
ethereal sweetness you see in Burne-Jones's women and for just that same
reason. Her syrup she took with commendable faithfulness; the doctor,
in rare visits, spoke cheerily of the time when she was to be quite
strong and well again; but there were moments when Sharlee Weyland,
looking at her little cousin's face in repose, felt her heart stop
still.
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