His delighted vanity found in it the most insidious of compliments, as she
had intended.

"I feel such an idiot when I am with you," she said. "I wanted to know a
little more about the things you do."

That put their relationship on a new and advanced basis. Thereafter he
occasionally talked surgery instead of sentiment. He found her responsive,
intelligent. His work, a sealed book to his women before, lay open to her.

Now and then their professional discussions ended in something different.
The two lines of their interest converged.

"Gad!" he said one day. "I look forward to these evenings. I can talk
shop with you without either shocking or nauseating you. You are the most
intelligent woman I know--and one of the prettiest."

He had stopped the machine on the crest of a hill for the ostensible
purpose of admiring the view.

"As long as you talk shop," she said, "I feel that there is nothing wrong
in our being together; but when you say the other thing--"

"Is it wrong to tell a pretty woman you admire her?"

"Under our circumstances, yes."

He twisted himself around in the seat and sat looking at her.

"The loveliest mouth in the world!" he said, and kissed her suddenly.

She had expected it for at least a week, but her surprise was well done.
Well done also was her silence during the homeward ride.