It was accompanied with a vague smile,
intended to be cheering and just the thing for a sick-room. But the
dominant note in this smile was bewildered and depressed helplessness,
and at it the maternal instinct sprang full-grown in Fifi's thin little
bosom. A passionate wish to mother the little Doctor tugged at her
heart.
"You know what you need, Mr. Queed? Friends--lots of good friends--"
He winced as from a blow. "I assure you--"
"Yes--you--DO!" said Fifi, with surprising emphasis for so weak a little
voice. "You need first a good girl friend, one lots older and better
than me--one just like Sharlee. O if only you and she _would_ be
friends!--she'd be the very best in the world! And then you need men
friends, plenty of them, and to go around with them, and everything. You
ought to like _men_ more, Mr. Queed! You ought to learn to _be_ like
them, and--"
"Be like them!" he interrupted, "I am like them. Why," he conceded
generously, "I am one of them."
Fifi dismissed this with a smile, but he immediately added: "Has it
occurred to you that, apart from my greater concentration on my work, I
am different from other men?"
"Why, Mr.
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