Harmony's immaculate room and radiant person put her in good humor immediately. She borrowed a thimble—not because she cared whether she had one or not, but because she knew a thimble was a part of the game—and settled herself in a corner, her ragged pieces in her lap. For an hour she plodded along and Harmony played. Then the girl put down her bow and turned to the corner. The little doctor was jerking at a knot in her thread.
“It's in the most damnable knot!” she said, and Harmony was suddenly aware that she was crying, and heartily ashamed of it.
“Please don't pay any attention to me,” she implored. “I hate to sew. That's the trouble. Or perhaps it's not all the trouble. I'm a fool about music.”
“Perhaps, if you hate to sew—”
“I hate a good many things, my dear, when you play like that. I hate being over here in this place, and I hate fleas and German cooking and clinics, and I hate being forty years old and as poor as a church-mouse and as ugly as sin, and I hate never having had any children!”
Harmony was very uncomfortable and just a little shocked. But the next moment Dr. Gates had wiped her eyes with a scrap of the flannel and was smiling up through her glasses.
“The plain truth really is that I have indigestion. I dare say I'm really weeping in anticipation over the Sunday dinner! The food's bad and I can't afford to live anywhere else. I'd take a room and do my own cooking, but what time have I?” She spread out the pieces of flannel on her knee. “Does this look like anything to you?”
“A petticoat, isn't it?”
“I didn't intend it as a petticoat.”
“I thought, on account of the scallops—”