"Have you kept them, Fräulein Landau?" he asked, perfectly returned to himself, and again become the doctor.
"No," she replied, with a shrug of the shoulders. "I thought it was useless."
"It was not useless."
"Another time I will not fail," she murmured, in a slightly ironical tone; "I seem to have had fever again for two or three days."
"Did you use the thermometer?"
"No," she replied, "I did not use it. I have thrown away my thermometer; it tortured me too much. It is an odious instrument. When I have fever I recognise it from the palms of my hands."
"Still, it should have been necessary to know the degree."
"What does it matter, Doctor?" she said, a little more lively. "To sadden my mother? She has too much sorrow, the poor dear!"
"But did you follow out my instructions?" the doctor asked her patiently.
"I take all your medicines, Doctor, because my mother makes me take them: I eat what you tell me because she makes me eat it," she declared, again smiling a little sarcastically.