Suddenly she sat erect. It was growing late. She remembered that her father was to bring Mr. Shelden home with him to tea.
“I hate him!” she thought. “I hate everybody, but I shall have to see him and be agreeable, and I suppose I look like a perfect fright with my eyes all red. Of course while he is here, I shall have to pretend that I am enjoying myself, and my head hurts and I am miserable. I want Philip, and no one else!”
And so for an hour or more she lay curled up in the chair, a doleful little heap. XI
I told them they must have a doctor,” Perkins explained to Franz, “and in spite of my mother's objections I called one in. Mother has been dosing her for a week now.”
Young Perkins and his mother practically lived with Margaret, now that Geoff was gone, and it was on the second day of their installment as members of her household, when Perkins, asserting himself in defiance of the paternal mandate, announced his intention of summoning a physician—“Right off, and with no more dependence on luck,” by which it is to be inferred that his mother's remedies did not inspire him with much confidence.
“He is with her?” Franz inquired, having just come in.
“Yes, if it hadn't been for my interference, I am certain my mother would have kept on dosing Margaret with her nasty home-made concoctions until doomsday. Poor Margaret would never have rebelled: she would have swallowed the stuff until it killed her rather than wound my mother by showing lack of faith.”
At this juncture they were joined by the doctor, a gray puffy man, reeking of stale tobacco smoke and staler drugs, who took the ills flesh is heir to as a personal grievance.
The doctor emitted a sound that could have been either a grunt or groan: “It won't do,” he said gloomily; “she must be sent South. She has not the stamina for this climate. It's using her up. Unless something is done she will not live through the winter, I'll stake my reputation.”
“Then she should go to Florida?” Perkins questioned.
“I said she must be sent South,—if you are interested in keeping her alive—and I suppose you are.”
“I don't say her illness is critical at its present stage, but if you are going to do what I recommend, don't put it off. I don't want to be blamed. Good night.”