"You have a fundamental lack of acquaintance with Latin grammar, Miss—Miss Fifi. You badly need—"
"Why don't you call me Fifi, Mr. Queed? That's what all my friends call me."
He stared at her startled; she thought his eyes looked almost terrified. "My dear young lady! I'm not your friend."
A rare color sprang into Fifi's pallid cheeks: "I—I thought you liked me—from your being so good about helping me with my lessons—and everything."
Queed cleared his throat. "I do like you—in a way. Yes—in that way—I like you very well. I will call you F—Fifi, if you wish. But—friends! Oh, no! They take up more time than such a man as I can afford."
"I don't think I would take up one bit more time as your friend than I do now," said Fifi, in a plaintive voice.
Queed, uncomfortably aware of the flying minutes, felt like saying that that was impossible.
"Oh, I know what I'm talking about, I assure you," said the possessor of two friends in New York. "I have threshed the whole question out in a practical way."
"Suppose," said Fifi, "your book came out and you were very famous, but all alone in the world, without a friend. And you died and there was not one single person to cry and miss you—would you think that was a—a successful life?"
"Oh, I suppose so! Yes, yes!"