"No, I—I didn't think of her at all."
"You mean that you found her insignificant?"
The doctor made a sound which Desire was pleased to interpret as assent.
"I'm not surprised," said she earnestly. "Because, from the description Benis gave, I felt sure he was exaggerating. Not that it makes any difference, because, if he thought she was like that, what she really was like didn't matter. That," with plaintive triumph, "is one of the things I learned today."
The doctor said nothing. It was the only thing which he felt it safe to say.
CHAPTER XXVI
The professor was smoking under the maples by the front steps when the car drove up. He looked very cool, very comfortable and very sure of himself—entirely too sure of himself, in John's opinion. John, who at the moment, felt neither cool nor comfortable, and anything but sure, observed him with envy and pity. Envy for so obvious a content, pity for an ignorance which made content possible.
Spence, on his part, seemed unaware of a certain tenseness in the attitude of both Desire and John, a symptom which might have suggested many things to a reflective mind.
"You look frightfully 'het up,' Bones," he said. "And your collar is wilting. Better pause in your mad career and have some tea."