A light flashes and is gone--but meanwhile one has seen.
The professor's pause was hardly noticeable. He walked on at once.
But years could not have instructed him more thoroughly than that
one second. He had received a revelation. Like all revelations, he
received it in its entirety and realized it piecemeal. His thoughts
stumbled over each other in confusion. . . . Desire at John's office
at this unusual hour? . . . Desire in her prettiest frock and
smiling . . . smiling, and so lost in her own thoughts that she saw
no one . . . Desire . . . John? . . . What the devil!
Spence had a finicky dislike of strong language. He thought it
savored of weakness, yet he found himself swearing heartily as he
hurried on--meaningless swears which by their very childishness
brought him back to common sense. His step slowed, he forced himself
to be reasonable. He took a brief against his own unwarranted
disturbance of mind and reduced it to argument. There was nothing at
all strange, he pointed out, in Desire having called at old Bones'
office at this, or any other, time of day (but what under heaven did
she do it for?). She might easily have forgotten to tell the doctor
some-thing. (What in thunder would she have to tell him?) She might
have dropped in, in passing (at that hour of the morning?) merely to
ask him over for some tennis (was the dashed telephone out of
order?). Or she might have felt a trifle seedy (pshaw! her health
was perfect--idiot!).
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