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Mrs. Hilbrough took Phillida and left the table, Mr. Hilbrough rising as the ladies passed out, as he had been instructed. When he and Millard had resumed their seats the cigars were brought, but when Millard saw that his host did not smoke he did not see why he should punish himself with a cigar and a tête-
The doctor relented when he found that his wife would sustain him in it. "I may answer your question if you ask it merely as a friend of the patient, but not as recognizing your standing as a practitioner," he said. Phillida answered with a quick flush of pain and surprise, "I am not a practitioner, Dr. Beswick. You are under some mistake. I know nothing about medicine."
When she awaked in the morning it was with a dull sense that there was something which needed to be righted. She had to rummage her memory awhile to discover just what it was. Having placed it at length in Phillida's affair, she suddenly reflected that perhaps Mrs. Hilbrough could throw light on it, and she would postpone seeing Phillida until after her drive with Mrs. Hilbrough in the afternoon.
Millard paused before putting the next question. "I'm going away, you know, on Saturday. May I get out of that last answer all that I wish to, Phillida?" The parasol trembled in her hand, and perceiving that it betrayed her she ceased to push the ground and let go of the staff, grasping the edge of the seat instead. Millard could see her frame tremble, and in his eagerness he scarcely breathed.
But divining that her words gave pain, she changed the subject, and they talked again on indifferent matters as they passed out of the room together. But when Phillida began her preparations for leaving, Mrs. Hilbrough ventured a practical suggestion. "I suppose you'll forgive an old friend for advising you, Phillida dear, but you and Mr. Millard ought to get married pretty soon.
Phillida had revered the woman before her as a sort of divine messenger, had defended her against Millard's aspersions, had followed her counsel at the most critical moment of her life in opposition to the judgment of her family and of the man she loved. And now, too late, the strenuous exhortation was retracted, not so much in the interest of a breaking heart as in that of a good settlement.
She looked more fit for a nursery than for this business. I could tell from the change in her expression when the man was approaching. I rose, meaning to meet him and turn him aside from our table. But Phillida halted me with one deftly planted question. "You would not leave me alone in this place, Cousin?"
Don't you wish to get well on your own account?" Phillida shook her head despondently. "Now, my child, I am an old man and your doctor. May I ask whether you are engaged to be married?" "No, doctor, I am not," said Phillida, trying to conjecture why he asked this question. "Have you been engaged?" "Yes," said Phillida. "And the engagement was broken off?" "Yes." "Recently?" "Yes, rather recently.
And you listen while I tell Phillida not to be foolish, and while I talk to Corydon about his behavior. I shouldn't mind that so much, Mathilde, if you didn't laugh at the dolls and their troubles. I don't like that." But, notwithstanding the child's imaginative gift, she was intensely practical, in a quick-witted way that often astonished those about her.
When she sallied forth no dawn was perceptible, though the street lamps were most of them already out. Just as the sky above Greenpoint began to glow and the reeking streets took on a little gray, Phillida entered the stairway up which she stumbled in black darkness to the Martin apartment. The Martins were already up, and breakfast was cooking on the stove.
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