him out....
"Complimented you a little too far, I see. I shall be sure to remember
after this," she said with such a sweet smile, "that, after all your
talk, you are just the average man, and want to hear only what flatters
your little vanity. _Good_-night. So nice to have seen you."

She nodded brightly, with faint amusement, and turning away, moved off
toward the door at the back. Queed, of course, had no means of knowing
that she was thinking, almost jubilantly: "I _knew_ that mouth meant
spirit!" He only knew that, whereas he had meant to terminate the
interview with a grave yet stinging rebuke to her, she had given the
effect of terminating the interview with a graceful yet stinging rebuke
to him. This was not what he wanted in the least. Come to think of it,
he doubted if he wanted the interview to end at all.

"Miss Weyland ..."

She turned on the threshold of the farther door. "I beg your pardon! I
thought you'd gone! Your hat?--I think you left it in the hall, didn't
you?"

"It is not my hat."

"Oh--what is it?"

"God knows," said the little Doctor, hoarsely.

He was standing in the middle of the floor, his hands jammed into his
trousers pockets, his hair tousled over a troubled brow, his breast torn
by emotions which were entirely new in his experience and which he
didn't even know the names of. All the accumulation of his disruptive
day was upon him. He felt both terrifically upset inside, and interested
to the degree of physical pain in something or other, he had no idea
what. Presently he started walking up and down the room, nervous as a
caged lion, eyes fixed on space or on something within, while Sharlee
stood in the doorway watching him casually and unsurprised, as though
just this sort of thing took place in her little parlor regularly, seven
nights a week.

"Go ahead! Go ahead!" he broke out abruptly, coming to a halt. "Pitch
into me. Do it for all you're worth. I suppose you think it's what I
need."

"Certainly," said Sharlee, pleasantly.

She stood beside her chair again, flushed with a secret sense of
victory, liking him more for his temper and his control than she ever
could have liked him for his learning. But it was not her idea that the
little Doctor had got it anywhere near hard enough as yet.

"Won't you sit down, Mr. Queed?"

It appeared that Mr. Queed would.

"I am paying you the extraordinary compliment," said Sharlee, "of
talking to you as others might talk about you be