were realized. Mr. Queed was staring at her, as one scarcely able to
credit his own senses, icy rebuke piercing through and overflowing his
great round spectacles.
"I beg your pardon!--Mr. Queed. It--it slipped out, really--"
But the young man thought that the time had come when this question of
noise in his dining-room must be settled once and for all.
"Indeed? Be kind enough to explain the occasion of it."
"Why," said Fifi, too truthful to prevaricate and completely cowed,
"it--it was only the meaning of a word here. 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. Queed said in a dry tone: "I am engaged upon a
work of great importance to the public, I may say to posterity. Perhaps
you can appreciate that such a work is entitled to the most favorable
conditions in which to pursue it."
"Of course. Indeed I understand perfectly, Mr. Queed," said Fifi,
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