"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.