She nodded brightly, with faint amusement, and turning away, moved off toward the door at the back. Queed, of course, had no means of knowing that she was thinking, almost jubilantly: "I knew that mouth meant spirit!" He only knew that, whereas he had meant to terminate the interview with a grave yet stinging rebuke to her, she had given the effect of terminating the interview with a graceful yet stinging rebuke to him. This was not what he wanted in the least. Come to think of it, he doubted if he wanted the interview to end at all.
"Miss Weyland ..."
She turned on the threshold of the farther door. "I beg your pardon! I thought you'd gone! Your hat?—I think you left it in the hall, didn't you?"
"It is not my hat."
"Oh—what is it?"
"God knows," said the little Doctor, hoarsely.
He was standing in the middle of the floor, his hands jammed into his trousers pockets, his hair tousled over a troubled brow, his breast torn by emotions which were entirely new in his experience and which he didn't even know the names of. All the accumulation of his disruptive day was upon him. He felt both terrifically upset inside, and interested to the degree of physical pain in something or other, he had no idea what. Presently he started walking up and down the room, nervous as a caged lion, eyes fixed on space or on something within, while Sharlee stood in the doorway watching him casually and unsurprised, as though just this sort of thing took place in her little parlor regularly, seven nights a week.
"Go ahead! Go ahead!" he broke out abruptly, coming to a halt. "Pitch into me. Do it for all you're worth. I suppose you think it's what I need."
"Certainly," said Sharlee, pleasantly.
She stood beside her chair again, flushed with a secret sense of victory, liking him more for his temper and his control than she ever could have liked him for his learning. But it was not her idea that the little Doctor had got it anywhere near hard enough as yet.