He put out a hand to stop her. "I don't expect he'd like me to see them," he said.
"Oh! but I want you to. I can trust you."
"You think I mightn't be tempted to get revenge by cribbing his ideas?"
"No. I know you. Besides yours is finished."
He was very serious. "That's so, but I'm full of ideas for improvements and other things, and it is most difficult, when one sees a thing that is appropriate, not to assimilate it consciously or unconsciously into one's own ideas."
"Still, I'll get them," she answered. She went out and came back in a minute or two with a drawing board and a roll of tracings.
Carstairs glanced over the drawing, and allowed just a slight smile to pucker up the corners of his eyes.
"Ah! I knew," she said, "that's your engine."
"Oh, no!" he answered. "It's not my engine."
She looked at him and saw he was speaking the truth. She spread out the tracing. "That girl from your lodgings in Southville brought that round one day when he was out; he never gets angry, but I know he was annoyed because she'd left it."