inded him. "I couldn't find you anywhere
and no one knew where you were."

"I was--just around," vaguely.

"Not around here," Desire was uncompromising. "Benis, I think we should
really be more businesslike. We should have talked this thirteenth
chapter over yesterday. I see you have a note here for some opening
paragraphs on The Apprehension of Color in Primitive Minds--"

A cascade of goblin laughter from Yorick interrupted her.

"Yorick is amused," said Benis. "He knows all about the apprehension of
color in primitive minds. He advises us to go fishing."

Desire watched him stroke the bird's bent head with a puzzled frown.

"I wish you wouldn't joke about--this," she said slowly. "You don't
want that habit of mind to affect your serious work."

Spence looked up surprised.

"The whole character of the book is changing," went on Desire
resolutely. "It will all have to be revised and brought into harmony.
I'm sure you've felt it yourself. In a book like this the treatment
must be the same throughout. I've heard you say that a hundred times.
It doesn't matter what the treatment is, the necessary thing is that it
be consistent. Isn't that right?"

"Certainly."

"Well--yours isn't!"

Spence forgot the parrot (who immediately pecked his finger). He almost
forgot that he had suffered an awakening and had passed a bad night.
Desire interested him in the present moment as she always did. She
was--what was she? "Satisfying" was perhaps the best word for it. Just
to be with her seemed to round out life.

"Prove it!" said he with some heat.

For half an hour he listened while she proved it with great energy and
a thorough knowledge of her facts. He listened because he liked to
listen and not because she was telling him anything new. He knew just
where his "treatment" of his material had changed, and he knew, as
Desire did not, what had changed it. For the change was not really in
the treatment at all, but in himself.

This book had been his earliest ambition. It had been the sole
companion of his thoughts for years. It had been the little idol which
must be served. Without a word of it being written, it had grown with
his growth. His notes for it comprised all that he had filched from
life. He had not hurried. He was leisurely by nature. Then had come the
war, lifting him out of all the things he knew. And, after the war, its
great weariness. Not until he had met Desire and found, in her fresh
interest, somethin