for Doctor, I suppose
she can't help it. Some people think her husband handsome but I don't.
He's too thin and he has the oddest little smile. It slips out and
slips in like a mouse. When Dr. John smiles, he smiles all over.

"Well, I'll wait a week or so to make sure. Although I'm sure now. If I
ever see Doctor look at her, I'll know. You see, I know how he'd look
if he looked that way. I've kept hoping--but I guess I'd better take my
ticket, Yours,

"MARY."

This letter satisfactorily explains the loss, some weeks later, of Dr.
Rogers' capable nurse--a matter which he, himself, could never
understand.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Desire was smiling as she left Dr. Rogers' office. It was a smile
compounded of derision and relief--a shamefaced smile which admitted an
opinion of herself very far from flattering.

So occupied was she with her mental reactions that she had no attention
to spare for the opposite side of the street and therefore missed the
slightly peculiar action of her husband-by-courtesy. Professor Spence,
when he had first caught sight of his wife had automatically paused, as
if to call or cross over. It had become their friendly habit to inform
each other of their daily plans and a cheery "whither away?" had risen
naturally to the professor's lips. It rose to them, but did not leave
them, for, in the intervening instant, he had grasped the fact of
Desire's smiling abstraction and had sought its explanation in the
place from which she had come. Desire calling at old Bones' office at
this hour of the morning? Before he had recovered from the surprise of
it, she had passed.

Time, which seems so mighty, is sometimes quite negligible. The most
amazing mental illuminations may occupy only the fraction of a second.
A light flashes and is gone--but meanwhile one has seen.

The professor's pause was hardly noticeable. He walked on at once. But
years could not have instructed him more thoroughly than that one
second. He had received a revelation. Like all revelations, he received
it in its entirety and realized it piecemeal. His thoughts stumbled
over each other in confusion.... Desire at John's office at this
unusual hour? ... Desire in her prettiest frock and smiling ...
smiling, and so lost in her own thoughts that she saw no one ...
Desire ... John? ... What the devil!

Spence had a finicky dislike of strong language. He thought it savored
of weakness, yet he found himself swearing heartily as he hu