"Just a mere trifle worse. And truly, doctor—I didn't mean to. But don't you know it's hard to stop when you feel just right for a thing? Why, one can't always do things at the proper time," she expostulated.
"No, and one can't always keep an abused nervous system from going to pieces either. Did you ever stop to think of that?"
"But you'll look after the nervous system," she replied ingenuously.
"Now that's where a lot of you make the mistake. I can't do anything at all without the cooperation of common-sense."
"Well I'm intending to be real good from this on," she laughed. "But it is so important that I know everything!"
He laughed then too. "A very destructive notion."
"Tell me," he said, when he had settled himself in his chair in the particular way of settling himself when he intended having a talk with her, "have you been rewarded in all this by any pleasure in it whatsoever? I don't mean," he made clear, anticipating her, "just the pleasure of doing something for Karl. But has your work given you any enthusiasm for the thing in itself?"
"Doctor—it has. And that was something I was afraid of. But you should have heard me talking to Mr. Ross the other day when he made one of his patronising remarks about mere science. I believe that when you work hard at almost anything you develop some enthusiasm for it."
"Um—a rather doubtful compliment for science."
"It was rather Beasonish," she laughed. "But you see in the beginning my face was turned the other way."