"I wish I understood more of biology," said Manning.

"I'm ready," said Ann Veronica, closing her microscope-box with a click,
and looking for one brief instant up the laboratory. "We have no airs
and graces here, and my hat hangs from a peg in the passage."

She led the way to the door, and Manning passed behind her and round her
and opened the door for her. When Capes glanced up at them for a moment,
Manning seemed to be holding his arms all about her, and there was
nothing but quiet acquiescence in her bearing.

After Capes had finished the Scotchman's troubles he went back into the
preparation-room. He sat down on the sill of the open window, folded his
arms, and stared straight before him for a long time over the wilderness
of tiles and chimney-pots into a sky that was blue and empty. He was not
addicted to monologue, and the only audible comment he permitted himself
at first upon a universe that was evidently anything but satisfactory to
him that afternoon, was one compact and entirely unassigned "Damn!"

The word must have had some gratifying quality, because he repeated
it. Then he stood up and repeated it again. "The fool I have been!" he
cried; and now speech was coming to him. He tried this sentence with
expletives. "Ass!" he went on, still warming. "Muck-headed moral ass! I
ought to have done anything.

"I ought to have done anything!

"What's a man for?