The next day was rainy and cold. Aggie sneezed all day and Tish had
neuralgia. Being unable to go out for anything to eat and the exaltation
of the night before having passed, she was in a bad humor. When I got
there she was sitting in her room holding a hot-water bottle to her
face, and staring bitterly at the plate containing a piece of burned
toast and Tufik's specialty--a Syrian cake crusted with sugar.
"I wish he had drowned!" she said. "My stomach's gone, Lizzie! I ate one
of those cakes for breakfast. You've got to eat this one."
"I'll do nothing of the sort! This is your doing, Tish Carberry. If it
hadn't been for you and your habit of picking up stray cats and dogs and
Orientals and imposing them on your friends we'd be on the ocean to-day,
on our way to a decent climate. The next time your duty to your brother
man overwhelms you, you'd better lock yourself in your room and throw
the key out the window."
Tish was not listening, however. Her eye and her mind both were on the
cake.
"If you would eat it and then take some essence of pepsin--" she
hazarded. But I looked her full in the eye and she had the grace to
color. "He loves to make them," she said--"he positively beamed when he
brought it. He has another kind he is making now--of pounded beans, or
something like that. Listen!" I listened.
From back in the kitchen came a sound of hammering and Tufik's voice
lifted in a low, plaintive chant. "He says that song is about the
valleys of Lebanon," said Tish miserably. "Lizzie, if you'll eat half of
it, I'll eat the rest."
My answer was to pick up the plate and carry it into the bathroom.
Heroic measures were necessary: Tish was not her resolute self; and,
indeed, through all the episode of Tufik, and the shocking denouement
that followed, Tish was a spineless individual who swayed to and fro
with every breeze.
She divined my purpose and followed me to the bathroom door.
"Leave some crumbs on the plate!" she whispered. "It will look more
natural. Get rid of the toast too."