There was a slight pause.  Professor Spence was wondering if he had really heard this.

“W—­what was that you said?” he asked cautiously.

Desire laughed.  He had observed with wonder, amounting almost to awe, that she never giggled.

“Score one for me!” She turned grey, mirthful eyes on his.  Amn’t I learned?  I read it in an article in an old Sociological Review—­a copy left here by a man whom father—­well, we needn’t bother about that part of it.  But the article was wonderful.  I can’t remember who wrote it.”

“Trotter, perhaps,—­yes, it would be Trotter,” murmured the professor.

Desire swung round upon her heels, regarding him a trifle wistfully.

“I should like to know all that you know,” she said.  “All the strange things inside our minds.”

“Would you?  But if you knew what I know you would only know that you knew nothing at all.”

“Yes, it’s all very well to say that,” shrewdly, “but you don’t mean it.  Besides, even if you don’t know anything, you have glimpses of all sorts of wonderful things which might be known.  You can go on, and it’s the going on that matters.”

“But I can’t carry wood.”

A little smile curled the corners of Desire’s lips.  He did not see it because she had turned to the fire again and, with that deliberate unself-consciousness which characterized her, was proceeding to unpin and dry her hair.  Spence had not seen it undone before and was astonished at its length and lustre.  The girl shook it as a young colt shakes its mane, spreading it out to the blaze upon her hands.

“I know what you mean, though,” admitted Spence, “there is nothing like the fascination of the unknown.  It very nearly did for me.”

Desire looked up long enough to allow her slanting brows to ask their eternal question.

“Too much inside, not enough outside,” he answered.  “I ought to have made myself a man first and a student afterward.  Then I might have been out in the rain you.”

She considered this, as she considered most things, gravely.  Then met it in her downright way.

“There’s nothing very wrong with you, is there?  Nothing but what can be put right.”

“No.”

“Well then, you can begin again.  And begin properly.”

“I am thirty-five.”

“In that case you have no time to waste.”

It was a thoroughly sensible remark.  But somehow the professor did not like it.  After all, thirty-five is not so terribly old.  He decided to change the subject.  But there was no immediate hurry.  It was pleasant to lie there in the firelight watching this enigma of girl-hood dry her hair.  Perhaps she would notice his silence and ask him what he was thinking about.

“You really ought to offer me a penny for my thoughts,” he observed plaintively.

“Oh, were you thinking?  So was I.”

“I’ll give you a penny for yours!”