Fifi drew off and surveyed her work sympathetically yet professionally.
The effect of the white cloth riding aslant over the round glasses and
academic countenance was wonderfully rakish and devil-may-care.
"Do you feel the sting much so far?"
"A trifle," said the Doctor.
"It works up fast to a kind of--climax, as I remember, and then slowly
dies away. The climax will be pretty bad--I'm so sorry! But when it's at
its worst just say to yourself, 'This is doing me lots and lots of
good,' and then you won't mind so much."
"I will follow the directions," said he, squirming in his chair.
"Thank you for letting me do it, and for the algebra, and--good-night."
"Good-night."
He immediately abandoned all pretense of working. To him it seemed that
the climax of the turpentine had come instantly; there was no more
working up about it than there was about a live red coal. The mordant
tooth bit into his blood; he rose and tramped the floor, muttering
savagely to himself. But he would not pluck the hateful thing off, no,
no--for that would have been an admission that he was wrong in putting
it on; and he was never wrong.
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