"Considering he's the best player we've got," said Milly flushing, "it's not at all likely that you didn't know who I meant."
"Oh, shut up!" Joan exclaimed, growing suddenly impatient. "I don't care what Mr. Thompson thinks of you. I think you're a beast!"
Joan tried clumsily to make it up to her father; she tore herself away from her books to walk beside his bath chair, but all to no avail, he was silent and depressed. He wanted Milly, with her fair curls and doll's eyes, not this gawky elder daughter with her shorn black locks. He fretted for Milly; they all saw how it was with him. Milly saw too, but continued to treat him with open dislike. In the midst of this welter of illness and misery Mrs. Ogden flapped like a bird with a broken wing; she reproached Milly, but not as one having authority. All day long the sounds of a violin could be heard all over the house; it was almost as though Milly played loudest when the colonel went upstairs to rest; he would doze, and start up suddenly, wide awake.
"What's that? What's that?" And then, "Oh, it's Milly; will the child never think of anyone but herself!"
The doctor came more often. "I'm not satisfied," he told Mrs. Ogden. "I think you must take him to London for the Nauheim cure. It's too late to go to the place itself, but he can do the cure in a nursing home."
Mrs. Ogden looked worried. "He'll never go," she said.
"He must, I'm afraid," the doctor replied firmly. "But before moving him we must have Sir Thomas Robinson down in consultation."
They told the colonel together. "I absolutely refuse!" he began. "There's no money for that sort of nonsense. Good God, man, do you think I'm a millionaire!"
The doctor said soothingly: "I'll speak to Sir Thomas and ask him to reduce his fee, he's a charming fellow."
"I won't have him!" thundered the colonel. "I refuse to be ordered about like a child."