Despite all warnings, she walked out into the dining-room and took her accustomed seat with set and stern face, while her daughter went to the table where the doctor sat, and explained her inability to manage her mother.
“That’s your problem,” he replied, coolly. Then rapidly, succinctly, and clearly he went over the case, and laid out a course of treatment. Out of it all Lee deduced that her mother was very ill indeed, though not in danger of sudden death.
“She’s on the chute,” said Fessenden, “and everything depends upon her own action whether she takes the plunge this winter or twenty years from now. She’s a strong woman—or has been—but she has presumed upon her strength. She used to live out-of-doors, she tells me, during all her early life, and now, shut in by these walls, working sixteen hours a day, she is killing herself. Get her out if you can, and cut out stimulants.”
As he rose and approached the counter, Lize shoved a couple of gold pieces across the board. “That wipes you off my map,” she grimly declared. “I hope you enjoyed your ride.”
“It’s up to you, madam,” he replied, pocketing the gold. “Good-day!”
Lee followed him out to the car, eager to secure all she could of his wisdom. He repeated his instructions. “Medicine can’t help her much,” he said, “but diet can do a great deal. Get her out of that rut she’s in. Good-bye.”
“I’ll be down again in a day or two!” called Redfield.
The machine began to purr and spit and the wheels to spin, and Lee Virginia was left to face her mother’s obstinate resistance alone. She felt suddenly very desolate, very weak, and very poor. “What if mother should die?” she asked herself.
Gregg was standing before the counter talking with Lize as Lee returned, and he said, with a broad smile: “I’ve just been saying I’d take this hotel off your mother’s hands provided you went with it.”
In the mouths of some men these words would have been harmless enough, but coming from the tongue of one whose life could only be obscurely hinted at the jest was an insult. The girl shuddered with repulsion, and Lize spoke out: