"Nonsense! You'll do as the doctor tells you," Mrs. Ogden retorted.
"I will not take cod liver oil; it makes me sick!"
Joan left them arguing, and followed Doctor Thomas to the front door. "Look here," she said in a low voice, "surely you'll examine for tubercle?"
He looked at her whimsically through his spectacles. "My dear young lady, you've been stuffing your head up with a lot of half-digested medical knowledge," and he patted her shoulder as though to soften his words. "Be assured," he told her, "that I shall do everything I think necessary for your sister, and nothing that I think unnecessary."
2
Joan went back to the drawing-room. The argument about the cod liver oil had ceased, and Milly was crying quietly, all by herself, in the window. She looked up with tearful eyes as her sister took her hand and pressed it.
"Cheer up, old girl!" Joan whispered, her own heart heavy with forebodings.
Mrs. Ogden said nothing; her face seemed expressionless when Joan glanced at her. Ethel's successor brought in the tea and Milly dried her eyes. It was a silent meal; from time to time Milly's gaze dwelt despairingly on her violin case where it lay on the sofa, and Joan knew that she was grieving as a lover for a lost beloved.
"It's only for so short a time," she said, answering the unspoken thought.
Milly shook her head and her eyes overflowed again, the tears dripped into the tea-cup that she held tremulously to her lips.