The professor, who had been nursing his knee on the corner of the desk, straightened up so suddenly that he heard his spine click.
"What's this?" he said. (Good heavens—the girl was as full of surprises as a grab-bag!)
"It was for the book you needed me, was it not? That was my share of our partnership."
("Now you've done it!" shouted an exultant voice in the professor's brain. "Oh, you are an ass!")
"Shut up!" said Spence irritably. "I wasn't talking to you," he explained apologetically. "It's just a horrid little devil I converse with sometimes. What I meant was—" He did not seem to know what he meant and looked rather helplessly out of the window. "Oh, I say," he said presently, "you are not going to—to act like that, are you? Agitation's so frightfully bad for me. Ask old Bones."
"You are not agitated," said Desire coldly. "Please be serious."
"I am. Deuced serious. And agitated too. You ought to think twice before you startle me like that—just when everything was going along so nicely."
"I am only reminding you of your own agreement," stubbornly. "I want to be of use."
"Very selfish of you. Can't you think of someone else once in a while?"
"Selfish? Because I want to help?"