"Because he hates to be interrupted in his working hours. But I suppose you have been to see him?"
"Yes," she answered, smiling. "But not in the way you think I have. I've been to one of his lectures, that's all."
And then she told me details. She laughed over it in a way that seemed to betray an inward nervousness. She had begun a course in bacteriology. It was interesting. One ought to have something serious in one's life, oughtn't one?
"Terry says so, I daresay," I replied.
"You call him Terry?"
"I do. Have you any objection?"
She laughed again. "Of course not. I think the less formal we all are the better. That's what's the trouble with him—he's too formal—he doesn't seem to believe in any pleasure, or amusement, or—or——" She couldn't, apparently, think of any third commodity that he didn't believe in. "But I think I'm managing to convert him gradually," she added.
"And he's managing to convert you a little at the same time, eh?"
She laughed again in the same curious, muffled-up manner. No, she said; Terry was not converting her. Not really. He was only just showing her things that she had already felt or guessed. Bacteriology was a symbol rather than the thing itself.
I asked her whose idea it had been first of all, and she answered: "Not his, you can be sure." He, in fact, had been anything but keen about it. Perhaps he thought that her presence would make him nervous during his lectures. (Again the curious laugh.) But of course he hadn't any power to prevent her from paying the fee and joining.