Carr shoved a paper toward him, and immediately started working on the next sheet.
"You've found the underlying equation?"
Carr seemed almost annoyed at the interruption. "Surely ... of course." His pencil was once more darting about.
"Sorry to be making all this work for you," said Norman, wondering just what was the meaning of the brief ultimate equation. He could not tell without his code.
Carr spared him a glance. "Not at all. I'm enjoying it. I always did have a knack for these things, though it's not exactly my field." And then he was busy again.
The afternoon shadows deepened. Norman switched on the overhead light, and Carr thanked him with a quick, preoccupied nod. The pencil flew. Three more sheets had been shoved across to Norman, and Carr was finishing the last one, when the door opened.
"Linthicum!" came the sweet voice, with hardly a trace of reproachfulness. "Whatever's keeping you? I've waited downstairs fifteen minutes."
"I'm sorry, dear," said the old man, looking at his watch and his wife. "But I had become so absorbed—"
She saw Norman. "Oh, I didn't know you had a visitor," she said. "Whatever will Professor Saylor think! I'm afraid that I've given him the impression that I tyrannize over you."