It--was silly of me. I--I
can't explain it--exactly--"
"Suppose you try. Since your merriment interrupts my work, I claim the
privilege of sharing it."
"Well! I--I--happened to see that word at the head of the page you are
writing--"
"Proceed."
"I--I looked it up in the dictionary. It _says_," she read out with a
gulp and a cough, "it means 'self-sacrificing devotion to the interests
of others.'"
The poor child thought her point must now be indelicately plain, but the
lips of Doctor Queed merely emitted another close-clipped: "Proceed."
At a desperate loss as she was, Fifi was suddenly visited by an idea.
"Oh! I see. You're--you're writing _against_ altruism, aren't you?"
"What leads you to that conclusion, if I may ask?"
"Why--I--I suppose it's the--way you--you do. Of course I oughtn't to
have said it--"
"Go on. What way that I do?"
Poor Fifi saw that she was floundering in ever more deeply. With the
boldness of despair she blurted out: "Well--one thing--you sent me out
of the room that night--when I coughed, you know. I--I don't understand
about altruism like you do, but I--should think it was--my interests to
stay here--"
There followed a brief silence, which made Fifi more miserable than any
open rebuke, and then Mr.
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