"But supposing I were to go further and say that my thoughts are my own property?"
"That would be horridly rude, don't you think? And you are not at all a rude person. If you'll risk it, I will."
Her smile was insufferably secure.
"You are willing to risk a great deal," snapped Spence. "But if it's truth you want—"
He almost confessed then. The temptation to slay Mary with a few well chosen words almost overpowered him. But he looked at the expectant face beside him and faltered. Mary would not die alone. With her would die this newborn comradeship. And Desire's smile, though insufferable, was sweet. How would it feel to see that bright look change and pale to cold dislike? Already in imagination he shivered under the frozen anger of that frank glance.
He could not risk it!
Should he then, ignoring Mary, ascribe his symptoms to their true cause? By dragging out the horror of that moonlit night, he could account for any vagary of nerves. But that way of escape was equally impossible. He could not let that shadow fall across her path of new-found freedom. Nor would he, in any case, gain much by such postponement. The wretched professor began to realize that the devil is indeed the father of lies and that he who sups with him needs a long spoon.
Meanwhile, Desire was waiting.
He felt that he would like to shake her—sitting there with untroubled air and face like an inquiring sphinx—to shake her and kiss her and tell her that there wasn't any Mary and—he brought himself up with a start. What nonsense was this!
"Look here," he said irritably, "you are all wrong. You really are. It's perfectly true I've been feeling groggy. But there doesn't have to be a reason for that, unfortunately. Old Bones warned me that I might expect all kinds of come-backs. But I'm almost right again now. Another day or two of this heavenly place and I shan't know that I have a nerve."