"Yes?" The slight smile on Desire's lips was sufficient comment on the explanation. The professor began to feel injured.
"Then I gather, further, that you do not accept the explanation?"
"Don't be cross! How could I? I have eyes. And my point is simply that there is no need for any concealment between us. You promised that we should be friends. Friends help friends when they are in trouble."
The professor rumpled his hair The pinwheel in his brain was slowing down. Already the marvelous something which accepts and adjusts the unexpected was hard at work restoring order. Mary was not dead. He had to reckon with Mary. Very well, let Mary look to her-self. Let her beware how she harassed a desperate man! Let her—but he was not pushed to extremes yet.
"I thought," he said slowly, "that we had tacitly agreed not to reopen this subject."
Desire looked surprised.
"And I still think that it would be better, much better to ignore it altogether."
"Oh, but it wouldn't," said Desire. "See how dreadfully dumpy you have been since Friday."
"I have not been dumpy. But supposing I have, there may be other reasons. What if I can honorably assure you that I have not been thinking of the past at all?"
"Then I should want to know what you have been thinking of."