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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Window-Gazer, by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Window-Gazer
+
+Author: Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
+
+Posting Date: July 23, 2009 [EBook #4284]
+Release Date: July, 2003
+First Posted: December 30, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WINDOW-GAZER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WINDOW-GAZER
+
+
+ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY
+
+
+
+
+
+     So in ye matere of Life's goodlie showe
+       Some buy what doth them plese.
+     While others stand withoute and gaze thereinne--
+       Your eare, good folk, for these!
+                              --OLD ENGLISH RHYME.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+WINDOW-GAZER
+
+BY
+
+ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY
+
+  AUTHOR OF "MIST OF MORNING," "UP THE HILL AND OVER,"
+  "THE SHINING SHIP," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WINDOW-GAZER
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Professor Spence sat upon an upturned keg--and shivered. No one had
+told him that there might be fog and he had not happened to think of it
+for himself. Still, fog in a coast city at that time of the year was
+not an unreasonable happening and the professor was a reasonable man.
+It wasn't the fog he blamed so much as the swiftness of its arrival.
+Fifteen minutes ago the world had been an ordinary world. He had walked
+about in it freely, if somewhat irritably, following certain vague
+directions of the hotel clerk as to the finding of Johnston's wharf. He
+had found Johnston's wharf; extracted it neatly from a very wilderness
+of wharves, a feat upon which Mr. Johnston, making boats in a shed at
+the end of it, had complimented him highly.
+
+"There's terrible few as finds me just off," said Mr. Johnston. "Hours
+it takes 'em sometimes, sometimes days." It was clear that he was
+restrained from adding "weeks" only by a natural modesty.
+
+At the time, this emphasizing of the wharf's seclusion had seemed
+extravagant, but now the professor wasn't so sure. For the wharf had
+again mysteriously lost itself. And Mr. Johnston had lost himself, and
+the city and the streets of it, and the sea and its ships were all
+lost--there was nothing left anywhere save a keg (of nails) and
+Professor Benis Hamilton Spence sitting upon it. Around him was nothing
+but a living, pulsing whiteness, which pushed momentarily nearer.
+
+It was interesting. But it was really very cold. The professor, who had
+suffered much from sciatica owing to an injury of the left leg,
+remembered that he had been told by his medical man never to allow
+himself to shiver; and here he was, shivering violently without so much
+as asking his own leave. And the fog crept closer. He put out his hands
+to push it back--and immediately his hands were lost too. "Really,"
+murmured the professor, "this is most interesting!" Nevertheless, he
+reclaimed his hands and placed them firmly in his coat pockets.
+
+He began to wish that he had stayed with Mr. Johnston in the boat shed,
+pending the arrival of the launch which, so certain letters in his
+pocket informed him, would leave Johnston's wharf at 5 o'clock, or
+there-abouts, Mondays and Fridays. Mr. Johnston had felt very uncertain
+about this. "Though she does happen along off and on," he said
+optimistically, "and she might come today. Not," he added with
+commendable caution, "that I'd call old Doc. Farr's boat a 'launch'
+myself."
+
+"What," asked Professor Spence, "would you call her yourself?"
+
+"Don't know as I can just hit on a name," said Mr. Johnston. "Doesn't
+come natural to me to be free with language."
+
+It had been pleasant enough on the wharf at first and certainly it had
+been worth something to see the fog come in. Its incredible advance,
+wave upon wave of massed and silent whiteness, had held him spellbound.
+While he had thought it still far off, it was upon him--around him,
+behind him, everywhere!
+
+But perhaps it would go as quickly as it had come.
+
+He had heard that this is sometimes a characteristic of fog.
+Fortunately he had already selected a keg upon which to sit, so with a
+patient fatalism, product of a brief but lurid career in Flemish
+trenches, he resigned himself to wait. The keg was dry, that was
+something, and if he spread the newspaper in his pocket over the most
+sciatic part of the shrapneled leg he might escape with nothing more
+than twinges.
+
+How beautiful it was--this salt shroud from the sea! How it eddied and
+funneled and whorled, now massing thick like frosted glass, now
+thinning to a web of tissue. Suddenly, while he watched, a lane broke
+through. He saw clearly the piles at the wharf's end, a glimpse of dark
+water, and, between him and it, a figure huddled in a cloak--a female
+figure, also sitting upon an upturned keg. Then the magic mist closed
+in again.
+
+"How the deuce did she get there?" the professor asked himself crossly.
+"She wasn't there before the fog came." He remembered having noticed
+that keg while choosing his own and there had been no woman sitting on
+it then. "Anyway," he reflected, "I don't know her and I won't have to
+speak to her." The thought warmed him so that he almost forgot to
+shiver. From which you may gather that Professor Spence was a bachelor,
+comparatively young; that he was of a retiring disposition and the
+object of considerable unsolicited attention in his own home town.
+
+He arose cautiously from the keg of nails. It might be well to return
+to the boatshed, even at the risk of falling into the Inlet. But he had
+not proceeded very far before, suddenly, as he had hoped it would, the
+mist began to lift. Swiftly, before the puff of a warmer breeze, it
+eddied and thinned. Its soundless, impalpable pressure lessened. The
+wharf, the sea, the city began to steal back, sly, expressionless,
+pretending that they had been there all the time. Even Mr. Johnston
+could be clearly seen coming down from the boatshed with a curious
+figure beside him--a figure so odd and unfamiliar that he might have
+been part of the unfamiliar fog itself.
+
+"Well, you've certainly struck it lucky today," called the genial Mr.
+Johnston. "This here is Doc. Farr's boy. He's going right back over
+there now and he'll take you along--if you want to go."
+
+There was a disturbing cadence of doubt in the latter part of his
+speech which affected the professor's always alert curiosity, as did
+also the appearance of the "boy" reputed to belong to Dr. Farr. How old
+he was no one could have guessed. The yellow parchment of his face was
+ageless; ageless also the inscrutable, blank eyes. Only one thing was
+certain--he had never been young. For the rest, he was utterly composed
+and indifferent, and unmistakably Chinese.
+
+"I hope there is no mistake," said Professor Spence hesitatingly. "Dr.
+Farr certainly informed me that this was the wharf at which his launch
+usually--er--tied up. But--there could scarcely be two doctors of that
+name, I suppose? It's somewhat uncommon."
+
+"Oh, it's him you want," assured Mr. Johnston. "Only man of that name
+hereabouts. Lives out across the Narrows somewheres. Used to live here
+in Vancouver years ago but now he don't honor us much. Queer old skate!
+They say he's got some good Indian things, though--if it's them you're
+after?"
+
+The professor ignored the question but pondered the information.
+
+"I think you are right. It must be the same person," he said. "But he
+certainly led me to expect--"
+
+A chuckle from the boat-builder interrupted him. "Ah, he'd do that, all
+right," grinned Mr. Johnston. "They do say he has a special gift that
+way."
+
+"Well, thank you very much anyway." The professor offered his hand
+cordially. "And if we're going, we had better go."
+
+"You'll be a tight fit in the launch," said Mr. Johnston. "Miss Farr's
+down 'ere somewhere. I saw her pass."
+
+"Miss Farr!" The professor's ungallant horror was all too patent. He
+turned haunted eyes toward the second nail keg, now plainly visible and
+unoccupied.
+
+"Missy in boat. She waitee. No likee!" said the Chinaman, speaking for
+the first time.
+
+"But," began the professor, and then, seeing the appreciative grin upon
+Mr. Johnston's speaking countenance, he continued blandly--"Very well,
+let us not keep the lady waiting. Especially as she doesn't like it.
+Take this bag, my man, it's light. I'll carry the other."
+
+With no words, and no apparent effort, the old man picked up both bags
+and shuffled off. The professor followed. At the end of the wharf there
+were steps and beneath the steps a small floating platform to which was
+secured what the professor afterwards described as "a marine vehicle,
+classification unknown." Someone, girl or woman, hidden in a loose,
+green coat, was already seated there. A pair of dark eyes looked up
+impatiently.
+
+"I am afraid you were not expecting me," said the professor. "I am
+Hamilton Spence. Your father--"
+
+"You're getting your feet wet," said the person in the coat. "Please
+jump in."
+
+The professor jumped. He hadn't jumped since the sciatica and he didn't
+do it gracefully. But it landed him in the boat. The Chinaman was
+already in his place. A rattle and a roar arose, the air turned
+suddenly to gasoline and they were off.
+
+"Has it a name?" asked the professor as soon as he could make himself
+heard.
+
+"What?"
+
+The professor was not feeling amiable. "It might be easier to refer to
+it in conversation if one knew its name," he remarked, "'Launch' seems
+a trifle misleading."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Then, "I suppose 'launch' is what father
+called it," said his companion. He could have sworn that there was cool
+amusement in her tone. "I see your difficulty," she went on. "But,
+fortunately, it has a name of its own. It is called the Tillicum.'"
+
+"As such I salute it!" said Spence, gravely.
+
+The other made no attempt to continue the conversation. She retired
+into the fastness of the green cloak, leaving the professor to ponder
+the situation. It seemed on the face of it an absurd situation enough,
+yet there should certainly be nothing absurd in it. Spence felt a
+somewhat bulky package of letters even now in the pocket of his coat.
+These letters were real and sensible enough. They comprised his
+correspondence with one Dr. Herbert Farr, Vancouver, B. C. As letters
+they were quite charming. The earlier ones had dealt with the
+professor's pet subject, primitive psychology. The later ones had been
+more personal. Spence found himself remembering such phrases as "my
+humble but picturesque home," "my Chinese servant, a factotum
+extraordinary," "my young daughter who attends to all my simple wants"
+and "my secretary on whose efficient aid I more and more depend--"
+
+"I suppose there is a secretary?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Oh yes," answered the green cloak, "I'm it."
+
+"And, 'a young daughter who attends'--"
+
+"--'to all my simple wants?' That's me, too."
+
+"But you can't be 'my Chinese servant, a factotum extraordinary?'"
+
+"No, you have already met Li Ho."
+
+"There?" queried the professor, gesturing weakly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Spence pulled himself together. "There must be a home, though," he
+asserted firmly, "'Humble but picturesque'--"
+
+"Well," admitted the voice from the green cloak, "it is rather
+picturesque. And it is certainly humble."
+
+Suddenly she laughed. It was a very young laugh. The professor felt
+relieved. She was a girl, then, not a woman.
+
+"Isn't father too' amusing?" she asked pleasantly.
+
+"Quite too much so," agreed the professor. He was very cold. "I beg
+your pardon," he added stiffly, remembering his manners.
+
+"Oh, I don't mind!" The girl assured him. "Father is a dreadful old
+fraud. I have no illusions. But perhaps it isn't so bad after all. He
+really is quite an authority on the West Coast Indians,--if that is
+what you wish to consult him about."
+
+Professor Spence was in a quandary. But perfect frankness seemed
+indicated.
+
+"I didn't come to consult him about anything," he said slowly. "I am a
+psychologist. I wish to do my own observing, at first hand. I came not
+to question Dr. Farr, but to board with him."
+
+"BOARD WITH HIM!"
+
+In her heartfelt surprise the girl turned to him and he saw her face,
+young, arresting, and excessively indignant.
+
+"Quite so," he said. "Do not excite yourself. I perceive the
+impossibility. I can't have you attending to my wants, however simple.
+Neither can I share the services of a secretary whose post, I gather,
+is an honorary one. But I simply cannot go back to Mr. Johnston's grin:
+so if you can put me up for the night--"
+
+She had turned away again and was silent for so long that Spence became
+uneasy. But at last she spoke.
+
+"This is really too bad of father! He has never done anything quite as
+absurd as this before. I don't quite see what he expected to get out of
+it. He might know that you would not stay. He wouldn't want you to
+stay. I can't understand--unless," her voice became crisp with sudden
+enlightenment, "unless you were foolish enough to pay in advance!
+Surely you did not do that?"
+
+The professor was observing his boots in an abstracted way.
+
+"I am afraid my feet are very wet," he remarked.
+
+"They are. They are resting in at least an inch of water," she said
+coldly. "But that isn't answering my question. Did you pay my father
+anything in advance?"
+
+The professor fidgeted.
+
+"A small payment in advance is not very unusual," he offered.
+"Especially if one's prospective host is anxious to add a few little
+unaccustomed luxuries--"
+
+"Yes, yes," she interrupted rudely. "I recognize the phrase!" Without
+looking up he felt her wrathful gaze upon his face. "It means that
+father has simply done you brown. Oh, well, it's your own fault. You're
+old enough to know your way about. And the luxuries you will enjoy at
+our place will certainly be unaccustomed ones. Didn't you even ask for
+references?"
+
+Her tone irritated the professor unaccountably.
+
+"Are we nearly there?" he asked, disdaining to answer. "I am extremely
+cold."
+
+"You will have a nice climb to warm you," she told him grimly, "all up
+hill!"
+
+"'A verdant slope,'" quoted the professor sweetly, "'rising gently from
+salt water toward snowclad peaks, which, far away,--'" They caught each
+other's eyes and laughed.
+
+"Here is our landing," said the girl quite cheerfully. "And none too
+soon! I suppose you haven't noticed it, but the 'Tillicum' is leaking
+like a sieve!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Salt in the air and the breath of pine and cedar are excellent sleep
+inducers. Professor Spence had not expected to sleep that night; yet he
+did sleep. He awoke to find the sun high. A great beam of it lay across
+the foot of his camp cot, bringing comforting warmth to the toes which
+protruded from the shelter of abbreviated blankets. The professor
+wiggled his toes cautiously. He was accustomed to doing this before
+making more radical movements. They were a valuable index to the state
+of the sciatic nerve. This morning they wiggled somewhat stiffly and
+there were also various twinges. But considering the trying experiences
+of yesterday it was surprising that they could wiggle at all. He lifted
+himself slowly--and sank back with a relieved sigh. It would have been
+embarrassing, he thought, had he not been able to get up.
+
+All men have their secret fears and Professor Spence's secret fear was
+embodied in a story which his friend and medical adviser (otherwise
+"Old Bones") had seen fit to cite as a horrible example. It concerned a
+man who had sciatica and who didn't take proper care of him-self. One
+day this man went for a walk and fell suddenly upon the pavement unable
+to move or even to explain matters satisfactorily to a heartless
+policeman who insisted that he was drunk. The doctor had laughed over
+this story; doctors are notoriously inhuman. The professor had laughed
+also, but the possible picture of him-self squirming helplessly before
+a casually interested public had terrors which no enemies' shrapnel had
+ever been able to inspire.
+
+ Well, thank heaven it hadn't happened yet! The professor confided
+his satisfaction to an inquisitive squirrel which swung, bright eyed,
+from a branch which swept the window, and, sitting up, prepared to take
+stock of the furnishings of his room. A grim smile signalled his
+discovery that there were no furnishings to take stock of. Save for his
+camp bed, an affair of stout canvas stretched between crossed legs, the
+room was beautifully bare. Not a chair, not a wash-stand, not a table
+cumbered it--unless a round, flat tree stump, which looked as if it
+might have grown up through the floor, was intended for both washstand
+and table. It had served the latter purpose at any rate as upon it
+rested the candle-stick containing the solitary candle by which he had
+got himself to bed.
+
+"Single room, without bath," murmured the professor. "Oh, if my Aunt
+Caroline could see me now!"
+
+Oddly enough, something in the thought of Aunt Caroline seemed to have
+a reconciling effect upon Aunt Caroline's nephew. He lay back upon his
+one thin pillow and reviewed his position with surprising fortitude.
+After all, Aunt Caroline couldn't see him--and that was something.
+Besides, it had been an adventure. It was surprising how he had come to
+look for adventures since that day, five years ago, when the grim
+adventure of war had called him from the peace-filled beginnings of
+what he had looked forward to as a life of scholarly leisure. He had
+been thirty, then, and quite done with adventuring. Now he was
+thirty-five and--well, he supposed the war had left him restless.
+Presently he would settle down. He would begin his great book on the
+"Psychology of Primitive Peoples." Everything would be as it had been
+before.
+
+But in the meantime it insisted upon being somewhat different--hence
+this feeling which was not all dissatisfaction with his present absurd
+position. He was, he admitted it, a badly sold man. But did it matter?
+What had he lost except money and self-esteem? The money did not matter
+and he was sure that Aunt Caroline, at least, would say that he could
+spare the self-esteem. Besides, he would recover it in time. His
+opinion of himself as a man of perspicacity in business had recovered
+from harder blows than this. There was that affair of the South
+American mines, for instance,--but anybody may be mistaken about South
+American mines. He had told Aunt Caroline this. "It was," he told Aunt
+Caroline, "a financial accident. I do not blame myself. My father, as
+you know, was a far-sighted man. These aptitudes run in families." Aunt
+Caroline had said, "Humph!"
+
+Nevertheless it was true that the elder Hamilton Spence, now deceased,
+had been a far-sighted man. Benis had always cherished a warm
+admiration for the commercial astuteness which he conceived himself to
+have inherited. He would have been, he thought, exactly like his
+father--if he had cared for the drudgery of business. So it was a habit
+of his, when in a quandary, to consider what his parent would have done
+and then to do likewise--an excellent rule if he had ever succeeded in
+applying it properly. But there were always so many intruding details.
+Take the present predicament, for instance. He could scarcely picture
+his father in these precise circumstances. To do so would be to
+presuppose actions on the part of that astute ancestor quite out of
+keeping with his known character. Would Hamilton Spence, senior, have
+crossed a continent at the word of one of whom he knew nothing, save
+that he wrote an agreeable letter? Would he have engaged (and paid for
+in advance) board and lodging at a place wholly supposititious? Would
+he have neglected to ask for references? Hamilton Spence, junior, was
+forced to admit that he would not.
+
+But those letters of old Farr had been so blamed plausible!
+
+Well, anyhow, he would have the pleasure of meeting and outfacing the
+old rascal. This satisfaction he had expected the night before. But
+upon their arrival at the "picturesque though humble" cottage (after a
+climb at the memory of which his leg still shuddered), it was found
+that Dr. Farr was not at home.
+
+"He has probably gone 'up trail'" Miss Farr had said casually, "and in
+that case he won't be back until morning."
+
+"Did you say up?" The professor's voice held incredulity. Whereupon his
+hostess had most unkindly smiled: "You're not much of a walker, are
+you?" was her untactful comment.
+
+"My leg--" He had actually begun to tell her about his leg! Luckily her
+amused shrug had acted as a period. He felt very glad of this now. To
+have admitted weakness would have been weak indeed. For the girl was so
+splendidly strong! Only a child, of course, but so finely moulded, so
+superbly strung--light and lithe. How she had swung up the trail, a
+heavy packet in either hand, with scarcely a quickened breath to tell
+of the effort! Her face?--he tried to recall her face but found it
+provokingly elusive. It was a young face, but not youthful. The
+distinction seemed strained and yet it was a real distinction. The eyes
+were grey, he thought. The eyebrows very fine, dark and slanted
+slightly, as if left that way by some unanswered question. The nose was
+straight, delightful in profile. The mouth too firm for a face so
+young, the chin too square--perhaps. But even as he catalogued the
+features the face escaped him. He had a changing impression, only, of a
+graceful contour, warm and white, dark careless eyes, and
+hair--quantities of hair lying close and smooth in undulated waves--its
+color like nothing so much as the brown of a crisping autumn leaf. He
+remembered, though, that she was poorly dressed--and utterly
+unconscious, or careless, of being so. And she had been amused,
+undoubtedly amused, at his annoyance. A most unfeminine girl! And that
+at least was fortunate--for he was very, very weary of everything
+feminine!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Yawningly, the professor reached for his watch.
+
+It had run down.
+
+"Evidently they do not wake guests for breakfast," he mused. "Perhaps,"
+with rising dismay, "there isn't any breakfast to wake them for!"
+
+He felt suddenly ravenous and hurried into his clothes. It is really
+wonderful how all kinds of problems give place to the need for a wash
+and breakfast. Somewhere outside he could hear water running, so with a
+towel over his arm and a piece of soap in his pocket he started out to
+find it. His room, as he had noted the night before, was one of two
+small rooms under the eaves. There was a small, dark landing between
+them and a steep, ladderlike stair led directly down into the
+living-room. There was no one there; neither was there anyone in the
+small kitchen at the back. Benis Spence decided that this second room
+was a kitchen because it contained a cooking stove. Otherwise he would
+not have recognized it, Aunt Caroline's idea of a kitchen being quite
+otherwise. Someone had been having breakfast on a corner of the table
+and a fire crackled in the stove. Window and door were open, and leafy,
+ferny odors mingled with the smell of burning cedar. The combined scent
+was very pleasant, but the professor could have wished that the bouquet
+of coffee and fried bacon had been included. He was quite painfully
+hungry.
+
+Through the open door the voice of falling water still called to him
+but of other and more human voices there were none. Well, he could at
+least wash. With a shrug he turned away from the half cleared table
+and, in the doorway, almost ran into the arms of a little, old man in a
+frock coat and a large umbrella. There were other items of attire, but
+they did not seem to matter.
+
+"My dear sir," said the little, old man, in a gentle, gurgling voice.
+"Let me make you welcome--very, very welcome!"
+
+"Thank you," said the professor.
+
+There were other things that he might have said, but they did not seem
+to suggest themselves. All the smooth and biting sentences which his
+mind had held in readiness for this moment faded and died before the
+stunning knowledge of their own inadequacy. Surprise, pure and simple,
+stamped them down.
+
+"Unpardonable, my not being at home to receive you," went on this
+amazing old gentleman. "But the exact time of your coming was somewhat
+indefinite. Still, I am displeased with myself, much displeased. You
+slept well, I trust?"
+
+The professor was understood to say that he had slept well.
+
+Dr. Farr sighed. "Youth!" he murmured, waving his umbrella. "Oh, youth!"
+
+"Quite so," said the professor. There was a dryness in his tone not
+calculated to encourage rhapsody. The old gentleman's gurgle changed to
+a note of practical helpfulness.
+
+"You wish to bathe, I see. I will not detain you. Our sylvan bathroom
+you will find just down the trail and behind those alders. Pray take
+your time. You will be quite undisturbed."
+
+With another dry "Thank you," the professor passed on. He was limping
+slightly, otherwise he would have passed on much faster. His instinct
+was to seek cover before giving vent to the emotion which consumed him.
+
+Behind the alders, and taking the precaution of stuffing his mouth with
+a towel, he could release this rising gust of almost hysterical
+laughter.
+
+That was Dr. Herbert Farr! The fulfilled vision of the learned scholar
+he had come so far to see capped with nicety the climax of this absurd
+adventure. What an utter fool, what an unbelievable idiot he had made
+of himself! For the moment he saw clear and all normal reactions proved
+inadequate. There was left only laughter.
+
+When this was over he felt better. Withdrawing the towel and wiping the
+tears of strangled mirth from his eyes he looked around him. The sylvan
+bathroom was indeed a charming place. Great rocks, all smooth and brown
+with velvet moss, curved gently down to form a basin into which fell
+the water from the tiny stream whose musical flowing had called to him
+through his window. Around, and somewhat back beneath tall sentinel
+trees, crept the bushes and bracken of the mountain; but, above, the
+foliage opened and the sun shone in, turning the brown-green water of
+the pool to gold. With a sigh of pure delight the laughter-weary
+professor stepped into its cool brightness--and with a gasp of
+something very different, stepped quickly out again. But, quick as he
+was, the liquid ice of that green-gold pool was quicker. It ran through
+his tortured nerve like mounting fire--"Oh--oh--damn!" said the
+professor heartily.
+
+The sweat stood out on his forehead before he had rubbed and warmed the
+outraged limb into some semblance of quietude again. The pool seemed no
+longer lovely. Very gingerly he completed such ablutions as were
+strictly necessary and then, very cold, very stiff and very, very empty
+he turned back toward the house.
+
+This time, instead of passing through the small vegetable garden behind
+the kitchen, he skirted the clearing, coming out into the wide, open
+space in front of the cottage. On one side of him, and behind, spread
+the mountain woods but before him and to the right the larger trees
+were down. There was a vista--for the first time since he had sat upon
+a keg in the fog he forgot him-self and his foolishness, his hunger,
+his aching nerves, his smarting pride, everything! The beauty before
+him filled his heart and mind, leaving not a cranny anywhere for lesser
+things. Blue sea, blue sky, blue mountains, blue smoke that rose in
+misty spirals as from a thousand fairy fires and, nearer, the
+sun-warmed, dew-drenched green--green of the earth, green of the trees,
+green of the graceful, sweeping curves of wooded point and bay. Far
+away, on peaks half hidden, snow still lay--a whiteness so ethereal
+that the gazer caught his breath.
+
+And with it all there was the scent of something--something so fresh,
+so penetrating, so infinitely sweet--what could it be?
+
+"Ambrosia!" said Benis Spence, unconscious that he spoke aloud.
+
+"Balm of Gilead," said a practical voice beside him. "It smells like
+that in the bud, you know."
+
+"Does it?" The professor's tone was dreamy. "Honey and wine--that's
+what it's like--honey and wine in the wilderness! You didn't tell me it
+would be like this," he added, turning abruptly to his companion of the
+night before.
+
+"How could I tell what it would be like--to you?" asked the girl. "It's
+different for everyone. I've known people stand here and think of
+nothing but their breakfast."
+
+At the word "breakfast" (which had temporarily slipped from his
+vocabulary) the famished professor wheeled so quickly that his knee
+twisted. Miss Farr smiled, her cool and too-understanding smile.
+
+"There's something to eat," she said. "Come in."
+
+She did not wait for him but walked off quickly. The professor followed
+more slowly. The path, even the front path, was rough (he had noticed
+that last night); but the cottage, seen now with the glamour of its
+outlook still in his eyes, seemed not quite so impossible as he had
+thought. The grace of early spring lay upon it and all around. True, it
+was small and unpainted and in bad repair, but its smallness and its
+brownness seemed not out of keeping with the mountain-side. Its narrow
+veranda was railed by unbarked branches from the cedars. Its walls were
+rough and weather-beaten, its few windows, broad and low. The door was
+open and led directly into the living room whence his hostess had
+preceded him.
+
+The marvellous scent of the morning was everywhere. The room, as he
+went in, seemed full of it. Not such a bad room, either, not nearly so
+comfortless as he had thought last night. There was a fireplace, for
+instance, a real fireplace of cobble-stones, for use, not ornament; a
+long table stood in the middle of the room, an old fashioned sofa
+sprawled beneath one of the windows. There was a dresser at one end
+with open shelves for china and, at the other, a book-case, also open,
+filled with old and miscellaneous books....
+
+And, best and most encouraging of all, there was breakfast on the table.
+
+"I told Li Ho to give you eggs," said Miss Farr. "It is the one thing
+we can be sure of having fresh. Do you like eggs?"
+
+The professor liked eggs. He had never liked eggs so well before,
+except once in Flanders--he looked up to thank his hostess, but she had
+not waited. Nevertheless the breakfast was very good. Not until he had
+finished the last crumb of it did he notice that the comfort of the
+place was more apparent than real. The table tipped whenever you
+touched it. The chair upon which he sat had lost an original leg and
+didn't take kindly to its substitute. The china was thick and chipped.
+The walls were unfinished and draughty, the ceiling obviously leaked.
+There had been some effort to keep the place livable, for the faded
+curtains were at least clean and the floor swept--but the blight of
+decay and poverty lay hopelessly upon it all.
+
+And what was a young girl--a girl with level eyes and lifted
+chin--doing in this galley? ... Undoubtedly the less he bothered
+himself about that question the better. This young person was probably
+just as she wished to appear, careless and content. And in any case it
+was none of his business.
+
+The sensible thing for him to do was to pack his bag and turn his
+back--the absurd old man with the umbrella ... pshaw! ... He
+wouldn't go home, of course. Aunt Caroline would say "I told you so" ...
+no, she wouldn't say it--she would look it, which was worse ...
+he had come away for a rest cure and a rest cure he intended to have
+... with a groan he thought of the pictures he had formed of this
+place, the comfortable seclusion, the congenial old scholar, the
+capable secretary, the--he looked up to find that Miss Farr had
+returned and was regarding him with a cool and pleasantly aloof
+consideration.
+
+"Are you wondering how soon you may decently leave?" she inquired. "We
+are not at all formal here. And, of course--" her shrug and gesture
+disposed of all other matters at issue. "Yours are the only feelings
+that need to be considered. I should like to know, though," she
+continued with some warmth of interest, "if you really came just to
+observe Indians. Father might think of a variety of attractions.
+Health?--any-thing from gout to tuberculosis. Fish?--father can talk
+about fish until you actually see them leaping. Shooting?--according to
+father, all the animals of the ark abound in these mountains.
+Curios?--father has an Indian mound somewhere which he always keeps
+well stocked."
+
+Professor Spence smiled. "So many activities," he said, "should bring
+better results."
+
+"They are too well known. Most people make some inquiry." The faint
+emphasis on the "most" made the professor feel uncomfortable. Was it
+possible that this young girl considered him, Benis Spence, something
+of a fool? He dismissed the idea as unlikely.
+
+"Inquiry in my case would have meant delay," he answered frankly, "and
+I was in a hurry. I wanted to get away from--I wanted to get away for
+rest and study in a congenial environment. Still, I will admit that I
+might not have inquired in any case. I am accustomed to trust to my
+instinct. My father was a very far-sighted man--what are you laughing
+at?"
+
+"Nothing. Only it sounded so much like 'nevertheless, my grandsire drew
+a long bow at the battle of Hastings'--don't you remember, in
+'Ivanhoe?'"
+
+The professor sighed. "I have forgotten 'Ivanhoe,'" he said, "which
+means, I suppose, that I have forgotten youth. Sometimes its ghost
+walks, though. I think it was that which kept me so restless at home. I
+thought that if I could get away--You see, before the war, I was
+gathering material for a book on primitive psychology and when I came
+back I found some of the keenness gone." He smiled grimly. "I came back
+inclined to think that all psychology is primitive. But I wanted to get
+to work again. I had never studied the West Coast Indians and your
+father's letters led me to believe that--er--"
+
+It was not at all polite of her to laugh, but he had to admit that her
+laughter was very pleasant and young.
+
+"It is funny, you know," she murmured apologetically. "For I am sure
+you pictured father as a kind of white patriarch, surrounded by his
+primitive children (father is certain to have called the Indians his
+'children'!). Unfortunately, the Indians detest father. They're half
+afraid of him, too. I don't know why. Years ago, when we lived up
+coast--" she paused, plainly annoyed at her own loquacity, "we knew
+plenty of Indians then," she finished shortly.
+
+"And are there no Indians here at all?"
+
+"There is an Indian reservation at North Vancouver. That is the
+nearest. I do not think they are just what you are looking for. But
+both in Vancouver and Victoria you can get in touch with men who can
+direct you. Your journey need not be entirely wasted."
+
+"But Dr. Farr himself--Is he not something of an authority?"
+
+"Y-es. I suppose he is."
+
+"What information the letters contained seemed to be the real thing."
+
+"Oh, the letters were all right. I wrote them."
+
+"You!"
+
+"Didn't I tell you I was the secretary? My department is the
+'information bureau.' I do not see the actual letters. There are always
+personal bits which father puts in himself."
+
+"Bits regarding boarding accommodation, etc.?"
+
+She did not answer his smile, and her eyes grew hard as she nodded.
+
+"Usually I can keep things from going that far. I can't quite see how
+it happened so suddenly in your case."
+
+"I happen to be a sudden person."
+
+"Evidently. Father was quite dumbfounded when he knew you had actually
+arrived. He certainly expected an interval during which he could invent
+good and sufficient reasons for putting you off."
+
+"Such as?"
+
+"Such as smallpox. An outbreak of smallpox among the Indians is quite a
+favorite with father."
+
+"The old--I beg your pardon!"
+
+"Don't bother. You are certainly entitled to an expression of your
+feelings. It may be the only satisfaction, you will get. But aren't we
+getting away from the question?"
+
+"Question?"
+
+"When do you wish Li Ho to take you back to Vancouver?"
+
+Professor Spence opened his lips to say that any time would suit. It
+was the obvious answer, the only sensible answer, the answer which he
+fully intended to make. But he did not make it.
+
+"Must I really go?" he asked. He was, so he had said himself, a sudden
+person.
+
+His hostess met his deprecating gaze with pure surprise.
+
+"You can't possibly want to stay?"
+
+"I quite possibly can. I like it here. And I'm horribly tired."
+
+The hostility which had begun to gather in her eyes lightened a little.
+
+"Tired? I noticed that you limped this morning. Is there anything the
+matter with you?"
+
+It was certainly an ungracious way of putting it. And her eyes, while
+not exactly hostile, were ungracious, too. They would make anyone with
+a spark of pride want to go away at once. The professor told himself
+this. Besides, his only possible reason for wishing to stay had been
+some unformed idea of being helpful to the girl herself--ungrateful
+minx!
+
+"If there is anything really wrong--" the cold incredulity of her tone
+was the last straw.
+
+"Nothing wrong at all!" said Professor Spence. He arose briskly. Alas!
+He had forgotten his sciatic nerve. He had forgotten, too, the
+crampiness of its temper since that glacial bath, and, most completely
+of all, had he forgotten the fate of the
+man-who-didn't-take-care-of-himself. Therefore it was with something of
+surprise that he found himself crumpled up upon the floor. Only when he
+tried to rise again and felt the sweat upon his forehead did he
+remember the doctor's story.... Spence swore under his breath and
+attempted to pull himself up by the table.
+
+"Wait a moment!"
+
+The cold voice held authority--the authority he had come to respect in
+hospital--and he waited, setting his teeth. Next moment he set them
+still harder, for Li Ho and the girl picked him up without ceremony and
+laid him, whitefaced, upon the sprawling sofa.
+
+"Why didn't you say you had sciatica?" asked Miss Farr, belligerently.
+
+It seemed unnecessary to answer.
+
+"I know it is sciatica," she went on, "because I've seen it before. And
+if you had no more sense than to bathe in that pool you deserve all
+you've got."
+
+"It looked all right."
+
+"Oh--looked! It's melted ice--simply."
+
+"So I realized, afterwards."
+
+"You seem to do most things afterwards. What caused it in the first
+place, cold?"
+
+"The sciatica? No--an injury."
+
+There was a slight pause.
+
+"Was it--in the war?" The new note in her voice did not escape Spence.
+He lied promptly--too promptly. Desire Farr was an observant young
+person, quite capable of drawing conclusions.
+
+"I'm not going to be sympathetic," she said. "That," with sudden
+illumination, "is probably what you ran away from. But you'd better be
+truthfull Was it a bullet?"
+
+"Shrapnel."
+
+"And the treatment?"
+
+"Rest, and the tablets in my bag."
+
+"Right--I'll get them."
+
+It was quite like old hospital times. The sofa was hard and the pillows
+knobby. But he had lain upon worse. Li Ho was not more unhandy than
+many an orderly. And the tablets, quickly and neatly administered by
+Miss Farr, brought something of relief.
+
+Not until she saw the strain within his eyes relax did his
+self-appointed nurse pass sentence.
+
+"You certainly can't move until you are better," she said. "You'll have
+to stay. It can't be helped but--father will have a fit."
+
+"A fit?" murmured Spence. Privately he thought that a fit might do the
+old gentleman good.
+
+"He hates having anyone here," she went on thoughtfully. "It upsets
+him."
+
+"Does it? But why? I can understand it upsetting you. But he--he
+doesn't do the work, does he?"
+
+"Not exactly," the girl smiled. "But--oh well, I don't believe in
+explanations. You'll see things for your-self, perhaps. And now I'll
+get you a book. I won't warn you not to move for I know you can't."
+
+With a glance which, true to her promise, was not overburdened with
+sympathy, his strangely acquired hostess went out and closed the door.
+
+He tried to read the book she had handed him ("Green Mansions"--ho-r
+had it wandered out here?) but his mind could not detach itself. It
+insisted upon listening for sounds outside. And presently a sound
+came--the high, thin sound of a voice shaking with weakness or rage.
+Then the cool tones of his absent nurse, then the voice
+again--certainly a most unpleasant voice--and the crashing sound of
+something being violently thrown to the ground and stamped upon.
+Through the closed door, the professor seemed to see a vision of an
+absurd old man with pale eyes, who shrieked and stamped upon an
+umbrella.
+
+"That," said Hamilton Spence, with resignation, "that must be father
+having a fit!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Letter from Professor Hamilton Spence to his friend, John Rogers, M.D.
+
+DEAR Bones: Chortle if you want to--your worst prognostications have
+come true. The unexpectedness of the sciatic nerve, as set forth in
+your parting discourse, has amply proved itself. The dashed thing is
+all that you said of it--and more. It did not even permit me to
+collapse gracefully--or to choose my public. Your other man had a
+policeman, hadn't he?
+
+Here I am, stranded upon a sofa from which I cannot get up and detained
+indefinitely upon a mountain from which I cannot get down. My nurse (I
+have a nurse) refuses to admit the mountain. She insists upon referring
+to this dizzy height as "just above sea-level" and declares that the
+precipitous ascent thereto is "a slight grade." Otherwise she is quite
+sane.
+
+But sanity is more than I feel justified in claiming for anyone else in
+this household. There is Li Ho, for instance. Well, I'm not certain
+about Li Ho. He may be Chinese-sane. My nurse says he is. But I have no
+doubts at all about my host. He is so queer that I sometimes wonder if
+he is not a figment. Perhaps I imagine him. If so, my imagination is
+going strong. What I seem to see is a little old man in a frock coat so
+long that his legs (like those of the Queen of Spain) are negligible.
+He has a putty colored face (so blurred that I keep expecting him to
+rub it out altogether), white hair, pale blue eyes--and an umbrella.
+
+Yesterday, attempting to establish cordial relations, I asked him why
+the umbrella. He had a fit right on the spot?
+
+Let me explain about the fits. When his daughter just said, "Father
+will have a fit," I thought she spoke in a Pickwickian sense, meaning,
+"Father will experience annoyance." But when I heard him having it, I
+realized that she had probably been quite literal. When father has a
+fit he bangs his umbrella to the floor and jumps on it. Also he tears
+his hair. I have seen the pieces.
+
+I said to my nurse: "The mention of his umbrella seems to agitate your
+father." She turned quite pale. "It does," she said. "I hope you
+haven't mentioned it." I said that I had merely asked for information.
+"And did you get it?" asked she. I said that I had--since it was
+apparent that one has to carry an umbrella if one wishes to have it
+handy to jump upon. She didn't laugh at all, and looked so withdrawn
+that it was quite plain I need expect no elucidation from her.
+
+I had to dismiss the subject altogether. But, later on, Li Ho (who
+appears to partially approve of me) gave a curious side light on the
+matter. At night as he was tucking me up safely (the sofa is slippery),
+he said, "Honorable Boss got hole in head-top. Sun velly bad. Umblella
+keep him off."
+
+"But he carries it at night, too," I objected.
+
+Li Ho wagged his parchment head. "Keep moon off all same. Moon muchy
+more bad. Full moon find urn hole. Make Honorable Boss much klasy."
+
+Remarkably lucid explanation--don't you think so? The "hole in head
+top" is evidently Li Ho's picturesque figure for "mental vacuum."
+Therefore I gather that our yellow brother suspects his honorable boss
+of being weak-headed, a condition aggravated by the direct rays of the
+sun and especially by the full moon. He may be right--though the old
+man seems harmless enough. "Childlike and bland" describes him usually.
+Though there are times when he looks at me with those pale eyes--and I
+wish that I were not quite so helpless! He dislikes me. But I have
+known quite sane people do that.
+
+I am writing nonsense. One has to, with sciatica. I hope this
+confounded leg lets me get some sleep tonight.
+
+Yours,
+
+B.
+
+P.S.: Not exactly an ideal home for a young girl--is it?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+It had rained all night. It had rained all yesterday. It had rained all
+the day before. It was raining still. Apparently it could go on raining
+indefinitely.
+
+Miss Farr said not. She said that it would be certain to clear up in a
+day or two. "And then," she said, "you will forget that it ever rained."
+
+Professor Spence doubted it. He had a good memory.
+
+"You look much better this morning," his nurse went on. "Have you tried
+to move your leg yet?"
+
+"I am thinking of trying it."
+
+This was not exactly a fib on the part of the professor because he was
+thinking of it. But it did not include the whole truth, because he had
+already tried it, tried it very successfully only a few moments before.
+First he had made sure that he was alone in the room and then he had
+proceeded with the trial. Very cautiously he had drawn his lame leg up,
+and tenderly stretched it out. He had turned over and back again. He
+had wiggled his toes to see how many of them were present--only the
+littlest toe was still numb. He had realized that he was much better.
+If the improvement kept on, he knew that in a day or so he would be
+able to walk with the aid of a cane. And he also knew that, with his
+walking, his status as an invalid guest would vanish. Luckily, no one
+but himself could say when the walking stage was reached--hence the
+strict privacy of his experiments.
+
+"Father thinks that you should be able to walk in about three days,"
+said Miss Farr cheerfully.
+
+Spence said he hoped that Dr. Farr was right. But the rain, he feared,
+might keep him back a bit, "I am really sorry," he added, "that my
+presence is so distasteful to the doctor. I have been here almost two
+weeks and I have seen so little of him that I'm afraid I am keeping him
+out of his own house."
+
+"No, you are not doing that," the girl's reassurance was cordial
+enough, "Father is having an outside spell just now. He quite often
+does. Sometimes for weeks together he spends most of his time out of
+doors. Then, quite suddenly, he will settle down and be more
+like--other people."
+
+It was her way, the professor noticed, to state facts, not to explain
+them.
+
+"Then he has what I call an 'inside spell,'" she went on. "That is when
+he does most of his writing. He does some quite good things, you know.
+And a few of them get published."
+
+"Scientific articles?" asked Spence.
+
+"Well--articles. You might not call them scientific. Science is very
+exact, isn't it? Father would rather be interesting than exact any day."
+
+Her hearer found no difficulty in believing this.
+
+"His folk-lore stories are the best--and the least exact," continued
+she, heedless of the shock inflicted upon the professorial mind. "He
+knows exactly the kind of things Indians tell, and tells it very much
+better."
+
+"You mean he--he fakes it?"
+
+"Well--he calls it 'editing.'"
+
+"But, my dear girl, you can't edit folk-lore!"
+
+"Father can."
+
+"But--but it isn't done! Such material loses all value if not
+authentic."
+
+"Does it?"
+
+The question was indifferent. So indifferent, in the face of a matter
+of such moment, that Hamilton Spence writhed upon his couch. Here at
+least there was room for genuine missionary work. He cleared his throat.
+
+"I will tell you just how much it matters," he began firmly. But the
+fates were not with him, neither was his audience. Attracted by some
+movement which he had missed she, the audience, had slipped to the
+door, and was opening it cautiously.
+
+"What is it?" asked the baffled lecturer crossly.
+
+"S-ssh! I think it's Sami."
+
+"A tame bear?"
+
+"No. Wait. I'll prop you up so you can see him. Look, behind the
+veranda post."
+
+The professor looked and forgot about the value of authenticity; for
+from behind the veranda post a most curious face was peeping--a round,
+solemn baby face of cafe au lait with squat, wide nose and flat-set
+eyes.
+
+"A Jap?" exclaimed Spence in surprise.
+
+"No. He's Indian. Some of the babies are so Japaneesy that it's hard to
+tell the difference. Father says it's a strain of the same blood. But
+they are not all as pretty as Sami. Isn't he a duck?"
+
+"He is at home in the rain, anyway. Why doesn't he come in?"
+
+"He's afraid of you."
+
+"That's unusual--until one has seen me."
+
+"Sami doesn't need to see a stranger."
+
+"Well, that's primitive enough, surely! Let's call him in."
+
+"I'd like to, but Sami won't come for calling."
+
+"Oh, won't he? Leave the door open and watch him."
+
+As absorbed now as the girl herself, the professor put his finger to
+his lips and whistled--a low, clear whistle, rather like the calling of
+a meditative bird. Several times he whistled so, on different notes;
+and then, to her surprise, the watching girl saw the little wild thing
+outside stir in answer to the call. Sami came out from behind the post
+and stood listening, for all the world like an inquiring squirrel. The
+whistle sounded again, a plaintive, seeking sound, infinitely alluring.
+It seemed to draw the heart like a living thing. Slowly at first and
+then with the swift, gliding motion of the woods, the wide-eyed
+youngster approached the open door and stood there waiting, poised and
+ready for advance or flight. Again the whistle came, and to it came
+Sami, straight as a bird to its calling mate.
+
+"Tamed!" said the professor softly. "See, he is not a bit afraid."
+
+"How on earth did you do it?" asked Miss Farr when the shy, brown baby
+had been duly welcomed. The whistler was visibly vain.
+
+"Oh, it's quite simple. I merely talked to him in his own language."
+
+"I see that. But where did you learn the language?"
+
+"Well, a fellow taught me that--man I met at Ypres. He could have
+whistled back the dodo, I think. He knew all kinds of calls--said all
+the wild things answered to them."
+
+"Was he a great naturalist?"
+
+The cheerful vanity faded from Spence's face, leaving it sombre.
+
+"He--would have been," he said briefly.
+
+Miss Farr asked no more questions. It was a restful way she had. And
+perhaps because she did not ask, the professor felt an unaccustomed
+impulse. "He was a wonderful chap," he volunteered. "There are few like
+him in a generation. It seemed--rather a waste."
+
+The girl nodded. "Used or wasted--it's as it happens," she said. "There
+is no plan."
+
+"That's a heathen sentiment!" The professor recovered his cheerfulness.
+"A sentiment not at all suited for the contemplation of extreme youth."
+
+"I am not extremely young."
+
+"You? I was referring to our brown brother. He is becoming uneasy
+again. What's the matter with him?"
+
+Whatever was the matter, it reached, at that moment, an acute stage and
+Sami disappeared through the door into the kitchen. Perhaps his ears
+were sharper than theirs and his eyes keener. He may have seen a large
+umbrella coming across the clearing.
+
+Miss Farr frowned. "Sami is afraid of father," she explained briefly.
+The door opened as she added, "I wonder why?"
+
+"A caprice of childhood, my daughter," said the old doctor mildly. "Who
+indeed can account for the vagaries of the young?"
+
+"They are usually quite easy to account for," replied his daughter
+coldly. "You must have frightened the child some time."
+
+"Tut, tut, my dear. How could an old fogey like myself frighten anyone?"
+
+"I don't know. But I should like to."
+
+Father and daughter looked at each other for a moment. And again the
+captive on the sofa found himself disliking intensely the glance of the
+old man's pale blue eyes. He was glad to see that they fell before the
+grey eyes of the girl.
+
+"Well, well!" murmured Dr. Farr vaguely, looking away. "It doesn't
+matter. It doesn't matter. Tut, tut, a trifle!"
+
+"I don't think so," said she. And abruptly she went out after the child.
+
+"Fanciful, very fanciful," murmured the old man, looking after her.
+"And stubborn, very stubborn. A bad fault in one so young. But,"
+beaming benevolently upon his guest, "we must not trouble you with our
+small domestic discords. You are much better, I see, much better. That
+is good."
+
+"Getting along very nicely, thanks," said Spence. "I was able to change
+position this morning without assistance."
+
+"Only that?" The doctor's disappointment was patent. "Come, we should
+progress better than that. If you will allow me to prescribe--"
+
+"Thank you--no. I feel quite satisfied with the treatment prescribed by
+old Bones--I mean by my friend, Dr. Rogers. He understands the case
+thoroughly. One must be patient."
+
+"Quite so, quite so." The curiously blurred face of the doctor seemed
+for a moment to take on sharper lines. Spence had observed it do this
+before under stress of feeling. But as the exact feeling which caused
+the change was usually obscure, it seemed safest to ignore it
+altogether. He was growing quite expert at ignoring things. For, quite
+contrary to the usual trend of his character, he was reacting to the
+urge of a growing desire to stay where he wasn't wanted. He didn't
+reason about it. He did not even admit it. But it moved in his mind.
+
+"I'm not fretting at all about being tied up here," he went on
+cheerfully. "I find the air quite stimulating. I believe I could work
+here. In fact, I have some notes with me which I may elaborate. I fancy
+that, as you said in your letters, Miss Farr will prove a most capable
+secretary. I am going to ask her to help me."
+
+"Are you indeed?" The doctor's tone was polite but absent.
+
+"You do not object, I hope?"
+
+"Object--why should I object? But Desire is busy, very busy. I doubt if
+her duties will spare her. I doubt it very much."
+
+"Naturally, I should wish to offer her ample remuneration."
+
+Again the loose lines of the strange old face seemed to sharpen. There
+was a growing eagerness in the pale eyes ... but it died.
+
+"Even in that case," said Dr. Farr regretfully, "I fear it will be
+impossible."
+
+Spence pressed this particular point no further. He had found out what
+he wanted to know, namely, that his host's desire to see the last of
+him was stronger even than his desire for money. His own desire to see
+more of his host strengthened in proportion.
+
+"Supposing we leave it to Miss Farr herself," he suggested smoothly.
+"Since you have personally no objection. If she is unwilling to oblige
+me, of course--"
+
+"I will speak to her," promised the doctor.
+
+Spence smiled.
+
+"What surprises me, doctor," he went on, pushing a little further, "is
+how you have managed to keep so very intelligent a secretary in so
+restricted an environment. The stronger one's wings, the stronger the
+temptation to use them."
+
+He had expected to strike fire with this, but the pale eyes looked
+placidly past him.
+
+"Desire has left me, at times, but--she has always come back." The old
+man's voice was very gentle, almost caressing, and should certainly
+have provided no reason for the chill that crept up his hearer's spine.
+
+"She has never found work suited to her, perhaps," suggested Spence.
+"If you will allow me,--"
+
+"You are very kind," the velvet was off the doctor's voice now. He rose
+with a certain travesty of dignity. "But I may say that I desire--that
+I will tolerate--no interference. My daughter's future shall be her
+father's care."
+
+Spence laughed. It was an insulting laugh, and he knew it. But the
+contrast between the grandiloquent words and the ridiculous figure
+which uttered them was too much for him. Besides, though the most
+courteous of men, he deliberately wished to be insulting. He couldn't
+help it. There rose up in him, suddenly, a wild and unreasoning anger
+that mere paternity could place anyone (and especially a young girl
+with cool, grey eyes) in the power of such a caricature of manhood.
+
+"Really?" said Spence. There was everything in the word that tone could
+utter of challenge and derision. He raised himself upon his elbow. The
+doctor, who had been closely contemplating his umbrella, looked up
+slowly. The eyes of the two men met.... Spence had never seen eyes
+like that ... they dazzled him like sudden sunlight on a blade of
+steel ... they clung to his mind and bewildered it ... he forgot
+the question at issue ... he forgot--
+
+Just then Li Ho opened the kitchen door.
+
+"Get 'um lunch now," said Li Ho, in his toneless drawl. "Like 'um egg
+flied? Like 'um boiled?"
+
+Spence sank back upon his pillow.
+
+"Like um any old way!" he said. His voice sounded a little breathless.
+
+The doctor, once again absorbed in the contemplation of his umbrella,
+went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Luncheon, for which Li Ho had provided eggs both boiled and fried, was
+eaten alone. His hostess did not honor him with her company, nor did
+her father return. Li Ho was attentive but silent And outside the rain
+still rained.
+
+Professor Spence lay and counted the drops as they fell from a knot
+hole in the veranda roof--one small drop--two medium-sized drops--one
+big drop--as if some unseen djinn were measuring them out in ruthless
+monotony. He counted the drops until his brain felt soggy and he began
+to speculate upon what Aunt Caroline would think of fried eggs for
+luncheon. He wondered why there were no special dishes for special
+meals in Li Ho's domestic calendar; why all things, to Li Ho, were good
+(or bad) at all times? Would he give them porridge and bacon for
+dinner? Spence decided that he didn't mind. He was ready to like
+anything which was strikingly different from Aunt Caroline....
+
+One small drop--two medium-sized drops--one big drop.... He wondered
+when he would know his young nurse well enough to call her by her first
+name? (Prefixed by "miss," perhaps.) "Desire"--it was a rather charming
+name. How old would she be, he wondered; twenty? There were times when
+she looked even younger than twenty. But he had to confess that she
+never acted like it. At least she did not act as he had believed girls
+of twenty are accustomed to act. Very differently indeed.... One
+small drop--two medium-sized--oh, bother the drops! Where was she,
+anyway? Did she intend to stay out all afternoon? Was that the way she
+treated an invalid? ... He couldn't see why people go out in the
+rain, anyway. People are apt to take their deaths of cold. People may
+get pneumonia. It would serve people right--almost.... One drop--oh,
+confound the drops!
+
+The professor tried to read. The book he opened had been a famous
+novel, a best-seller, some five years ago. It had been thought
+"advanced." Advanced!--but now how inconceivably flat and stale! How on
+earth had anyone ever praised it, called it "epoch-marking," bought it
+by the thousand thousand? Why, the thing was dead--a dead book, than
+which there is nothing deader. This reflection gave him something to
+think of for a while. Instead of counting drops he amused himself by
+strolling back through the years, a critical stretcher-bearer, picking
+up literary corpses by the wayside. They were thickly strewn. He was
+appalled to find how faintly beat the pulse of life even in the living.
+Would not another generation see the burial of them all? Was there no
+new Immortal anywhere?
+
+"When I write a novel," thought the professor solemnly, "which, please
+God, I shall never do, I will write about people and not about things.
+Things change always; people never." It was a wise conclusion but it
+did not help the afternoon to pass.
+
+Desire, that is to say Miss Farr, had passed the window twice already.
+He might have called her. But he hadn't. If people forget one's very
+existence it is not prideful to call them. And the Spences are a
+prideful race. Desire (he decided it didn't matter if he called her
+Desire to himself, she was such a child) was wearing--an old tweed coat
+and was carrying wood. She wore no hat and her hair was glossy with
+rain.... People take such silly risks--And where was Li Ho? Why
+wasn't he carrying the wood? Not that the wood seemed to bother Desire
+in the least.
+
+The captive on the sofa sighed. It was no use trying to hide from
+himself his longing to be out there with her in that heavenly
+Spring-pierced air, revelling in its bloomy wetness; strong and fit in
+muscle and nerve, carrying wood, getting his head soaked, doing all the
+foolish things which youth does with impunity and careless joy. The new
+restlessness, which he had come so far to quiet, broke over him in
+miserable, taunting waves.
+
+Why was he here on the sofa instead of out there in the rain? The war?
+But he was too inherently honest to blame the war. It was, perhaps,
+responsible for the present state of his sciatic nerve but not for the
+selling of his birthright of sturdy youth. The causes of that lay far
+behind the war. Had he not refused himself to youth when youth had
+called? Had he not shut himself behind study doors while Spring crept
+in at the window? The war had come and dragged him out. Across his
+quiet, ordered path its red trail had stretched and to go forward it
+had been necessary to go through. The Spences always went through. But
+Nature, every inch a woman, had made him pay for scorning her. She had
+killed no fatted calf for her prodigal.
+
+So here he was, at thirty-five, envying a girl who could carry wood
+without weariness. The envy had become acute irritation by the time the
+wood was stacked and the wood-carrier brought her shining hair and
+rain-tinted cheeks into the living-room.
+
+"Leg bad again?" asked Desire casually.
+
+"No--temper."
+
+"It's time for tea. I'll see about it."
+
+"You'll take your wet things off first. You must be wet through. Do you
+want to come down with pneumonia?"
+
+ The girl's eyebrows lifted. "That's silly," she said. And indeed
+the remark was absurd enough addressed to one on whom the wonder and
+mystery of budding life rested so visibly. "I'm not wet at all," she
+went on. "Only my coat." She slipped out of the old tweed ulster,
+scattering bright drops about the room. "And my hair," she added as if
+by an afterthought. "I'll dry it presently. But I don't wonder you're
+cross. The fire is almost out. We'll have something to eat when the
+kettle boils. Father's gone up trail. He probably won't be back." For
+an instant she stood with a considering air as if intending to add
+something. Then turned and went into the kitchen without doing it. She
+came back with a handful of pine-knots with which she deftly mended the
+fire.
+
+The professor moved restlessly.
+
+"I'll be around soon now," he said, "and then you shan't do that."
+
+"Shan't do what?"
+
+"Carry wood."
+
+"That's funny." Desire placed a crackling pine-knot on the apex of her
+pyramid and sat back on her heels to watch it blaze. Her tone was
+ruminative. "There's no real sense in that, you know. Why shouldn't I
+carry wood when I am perfectly able to do it? Your objection is purely
+an acquired one--a manifestation of the herd instinct."
+
+There was a slight pause. Professor Spence was wondering if he had
+really heard this.
+
+"W--what was that you said?" he asked cautiously.
+
+Desire laughed. He had observed with wonder, amounting almost to awe,
+that she never giggled.
+
+"Score one for me!" She turned grey, mirthful eyes  on his. "Amn't I
+learned? I read it in an article in an old Sociological Review--a copy
+left here by a man whom father--well, we needn't bother about that part
+of it. But the article was wonderful. I can't remember who wrote it."
+
+"Trotter, perhaps,--yes, it would be Trotter," murmured the professor.
+
+Desire swung round upon her heels, regarding him a trifle wistfully.
+
+"I should like to know all that you know," she said. "All the strange
+things inside our minds."
+
+"Would you? But if you knew what I know you would only know that you
+knew nothing at all."
+
+"Yes, it's all very well to say that," shrewdly, "but you don't mean
+it. Besides, even if you don't know anything, you have glimpses of all
+sorts of wonderful things which might be known. You can go on, and it's
+the going on that matters."
+
+"But I can't carry wood."
+
+A little smile curled the corners of Desire's lips. He did not see it
+because she had turned to the fire again and, with that deliberate
+unself-consciousness which characterized her, was proceeding to unpin
+and dry her hair. Spence had not seen it undone before and was
+astonished at its length and lustre. The girl shook it as a young colt
+shakes its mane, spreading it out to the blaze upon her hands.
+
+"I know what you mean, though," admitted Spence, "there is nothing like
+the fascination of the unknown. It very nearly did for me."
+
+Desire looked up long enough to allow her slanting brows to ask their
+eternal question.
+
+"Too much inside, not enough outside," he answered. "I ought to have
+made myself a man first and a student afterward. Then I might have been
+out in the rain you."
+
+ She considered this, as she considered most things, gravely. Then
+met it in her downright way.
+
+"There's nothing very wrong with you, is there? Nothing but what can be
+put right."
+
+"No."
+
+"Well then, you can begin again. And begin properly."
+
+"I am thirty-five."
+
+"In that case you have no time to waste."
+
+It was a thoroughly sensible remark. But somehow the professor did not
+like it. After all, thirty-five is not so terribly old. He decided to
+change the subject. But there was no immediate hurry. It was pleasant
+to lie there in the firelight watching this enigma of girl-hood dry her
+hair. Perhaps she would notice his silence and ask him what he was
+thinking about.
+
+"You really ought to offer me a penny for my thoughts," he observed
+plaintively.
+
+"Oh, were you thinking? So was I."
+
+"I'll give you a penny for yours!"
+
+Desire shook her head.
+
+"No? Then I'll give you mine for nothing. I was thinking what a pity it
+is that you are only an amateur nurse."
+
+"I hate nursing."
+
+"How unwomanly! Lots of women hate it--but few admit it. However, it
+wasn't a nurse's duties I was thinking of, but a patient's privileges.
+You see, if you were a professional nurse I could call you 'Nurse
+Desire.'"
+
+"Do you mean that you want to call me by my first name?"
+
+"Since you put it more bluntly than I should dare to,--yes. It is a
+charming name. But perhaps--"
+
+"Oh, you may use it if you like," said the owner of the name
+indifferently. "It sounds more natural. I am not accustomed to 'Miss
+Fair.'"
+
+This ought to have been satisfactory. But it wasn't. And after he had
+led up to it so tactfully, too! Not for the first time did it occur to
+our psychologist that tact was wasted upon this downright young person.
+He decided not to be tactful any longer.
+
+"I'm getting well so rapidly," he said, "that I shall have to admit it
+soon."
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"Are you glad?"
+
+"Of course I am glad."
+
+"I shall walk with a cane almost in no time. And when I can walk, I
+shall have to go away."
+
+"Yes." There was no hesitation in her prompt agreement. Neither did she
+add any polite regrets. The professor felt unduly irritated. He had
+never become used to her ungirlish taciturnity. It always excited him.
+The women he had known, especially the younger women, had all been
+chatterers. They had talked and he had not listened. This girl said
+little and her silences seemed to clamour in his ears. Well, she would
+have to answer this time.
+
+"Do you want me to go?" he asked plainly.
+
+"I don't want you to go." Her tone was thoughtful. "But I know you
+can't stay. One has to accept things."
+
+"One doesn't. One can make things happen."
+
+"How?"
+
+"By willing."
+
+"Do you honestly believe that?" He was astonished at the depth of
+mockery in her tone.
+
+"I certainly do believe it. I'll prove it if you like."
+
+"How?"
+
+"By staying."
+
+Again she was silent.
+
+He went on eagerly. "Why shouldn't I stay--for a time at least? I have
+plenty of work to go on with. Indeed it was with the definite intention
+of doing this work that I came. If you want me, I'll stay right enough.
+The bargain that was made with your father was a straight, fair
+business arrangement. I have no scruples about requiring him to carry
+out his part of it The trouble was that it seemed as if insistence
+would be unfair to you. But if you and I can arrange that--if you will
+agree to let me do what I can to help, chores, you know, carrying wood
+and so on, then I should not need to feel myself a burden."
+
+"You have not been a burden."
+
+"Thanks. You have been extraordinarily kind. As for the rest of it--I
+mentioned the matter to Dr. Farr this morning."
+
+She was interested now. He could see her eyes, intent, through the
+falling shadow of her hair.
+
+"I reminded him that he had offered me the services of a secretary and
+explained that I was ready to avail myself of his offer."
+
+"And what did he say to that?"
+
+"Well--er--we agreed to leave the decision to you."
+
+"Was that all?"
+
+"Practically all."
+
+"Practically, but not quite. You quarreled, didn't you? Frankly, I do
+not understand father's attitude but I know what his attitude is. He
+does not want you here. Neither you nor anyone else. The secretarial
+work you offer would be--I can't tell you exactly what it would be to
+me. It would teach me something--and I am so hungry to know! But he
+will find some way to make it impossible. You will have to go."
+
+"Nonsense! He cannot go back on his agreement."
+
+"You mean he has accepted money? That," bitterly, "means nothing to
+him."
+
+"Nevertheless it gives me ground to stand on. And you, too. You have
+done secretarial work before?"
+
+"Yes. I have certain qualifications. At intervals I have tried to make
+myself independent. Several times I have secured office positions in
+Vancouver. But father has always made the holding of them impossible."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I would rather not go into it." There was weary disgust in her voice.
+
+"But what reason does he give?"
+
+"That his daughter's place is in her father's house--funny, isn't it?"
+
+"You do not think that affection has anything to do with it?"
+
+"Not even remotely. Whatever his reason may be for keeping me with him,
+it is not that. Affection is something of which one knows by instinct,
+don't you think? Even Li Ho--I know instinctively that Li Ho is fond of
+me. I am absolutely certain that my father is not."
+
+"It is no life for a young girl."
+
+"It has been my life."
+
+The professor felt uncomfortable. There was that in her tone which
+forbade all comment. She had given him this tiny glimpse and quite
+evidently intended to give no more. But Spence, upon occasion, could be
+a persistent man.
+
+"Miss Desire," he said gravely, "do you absolutely decline my
+friendship?" If she wanted directness, she was getting it now.
+
+"How can I do otherwise?" Her face was turned from him and her low
+voice was muffled by her hair. But for the first time she had cast away
+her guard of light indifference. "Friendship is impossible for me. I
+thought you would see--and go away. Nothing that you can do would be
+any real help. I have tried before to free myself. But I could not.
+Nor, in the little flights of freedom which I had, did I find anything
+that I wanted. I am as well here as anywhere. Unless--"
+
+She was silent, looking into the fire.
+
+"Unless I were really free," she added softly.
+
+He could not see her face. But she looked very young sitting there with
+her unbound hair and hands clasped childishly about her knees.
+
+"You have wondered about me--in a psychological way--ever since you
+came." She went on, her voice taking on a harsher note. "You have been
+trying to 'place' me. Well, since you are curious I will tell you what
+I am. When I was younger and we lived in towns I used to wander off by
+myself down the main streets to gaze in the windows. I never went into
+any of the stores. The things I wanted were inside and for sale--but I
+could not buy them. I was just a window-gazer. That's what I am still.
+Life is for sale somewhere. But I cannot buy it."
+
+The throb of her voice was like the beating of caged wings through the
+quiet room.
+
+"But--" began Spence, and then he paused. It wasn't at all easy to know
+what to say. "You are mistaken," he went on finally. "Life isn't for
+sale anywhere. Life is inside, not outside. And no one ever really
+wants the things they see in other people's windows."
+
+"I do," said Desire coldly.
+
+She was certainty very young! Spence felt suddenly indulgent.
+
+"What, then--for instance?" he asked.
+
+The girl shook back her hair and arose.
+
+"Freedom, money, leisure, books, travel, people!"
+
+"I thought you were going to leave out people altogether," said Spence,
+whimsically. "But otherwise your wants are fairly comprehensive. You
+have neglected only two important things--health and love."
+
+"I have health--and I don't want love."
+
+"Not yet--of course--" began the professor, still fatherly indulgent.
+But she turned on him with a white face.
+
+"Never!" she said. "That one thing I envy no one. You are wondering why
+I have never considered marriage as a possible way out? Well, it isn't
+a possible way--for me. Marriage is a hideous thing--hideous!"
+
+She wasn't young now, that was certain. It was no child who stood there
+with a face of sick distaste. The professor's mood of indulgent
+maturity melted into dismay before the half-seen horror in her eyes.
+
+But the moment of revelation passed as quickly as it had come. The
+girl's face settled again into its grave placidity.
+
+"I'll get the tea," she said. "The kettle will be boiling dry."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+In the form of a letter from Professor Spence to his friend, Dr. John
+Rogers.
+
+No letter yet from you, Bones; Bainbridge must be having the measles.
+Or perhaps I am not allowing for the fact that it takes almost a
+fortnight to go and come across this little bit of Empire. Also Li Ho
+hasn't been across the Inlet for a week. He says "Tillicum too muchy
+hole. Li Ho long time patch um."
+
+On still days, I can hear him doing it. Perhaps my hostess is right and
+we are not so far away from the beach as I fancied on the night of my
+arrival. I'll test this detail, and many others, soon. For today I am
+sitting up. I'm sure I could walk a little, if I were to try. But I am
+not in a hurry. Hurry is a vice of youth.
+
+And I am actually getting some work done. Bones, old thing, I have made
+a discovery for the lack of which many famous men have died too soon. I
+have discovered the perfect secretary!
+
+These blank lines represent all the things which I might say but which,
+with great moral effort, I suppress. I know what a frightful bore is
+the man who insists upon talking about a new discovery. Therefore I
+shall not indulge my natural inclination to tell you just how perfect
+this secretary is. I shall merely note that she is quick, accurate,
+silent, interested, appreciative, intelligent to a remarkable
+degree--Good Heavens! I'm doing it! I blush now when I remember that I
+engaged Miss Farr's services in the first place from motives of
+philanthropy. Is it possible that I was ever fatuous enough to believe
+that I was the party who conferred the benefit? If so, I very soon
+discovered my mistake. In justice to myself I must state that I saw at
+once what a treasure I had come upon. You remember what a quick, sure
+judgment my father had? Somehow I seem to be getting more like him all
+the time. The moment any proposition takes on a purely business aspect,
+I become, as it were, pure intellect. I see the exact value, business
+value, of the thing. Aunt Caroline never agrees with me in this. She
+insists upon referring to that oil property at Green Lake and that
+little matter of South American Mines. But those mistakes were trifles.
+Any man might have made them.
+
+In this case, where I am right on the spot, there can be no possibility
+of a mistake. I see with my own eyes. Miss Farr is a dream of
+secretarial efficiency. She combines, with ease, those widely differing
+qualities which are so difficult to come by in a single individual. It
+is inspiring to work with her. I find that her co-operation actually
+stimulates creative thought. My notes are expanding at a most
+satisfactory rate. My introductory chapter already assumes form.
+And--by Jove! I seem to be doing it again.
+
+But one simply does not make these discoveries every day.
+
+The other aspects of the situation here, the non-business aspects, are
+not so satisfactory. The menage is certainly peculiar. I had what
+amounted to a bloodless duel with mine host the other day. Perhaps I
+was not as tactful as I might have been. But he is an irritating
+person. One of those people who seem to file your nerves. In fact there
+is something almost upsetting' about that mild old scoundrel. He gives
+me what the Scots call a "scunner." (You have to hear a true Scot
+pronounce it before you get its inner meaning.) And when, that day, he
+began talking about his daughter's future being her father's care, I
+said--I forget exactly what I said but he seemed to get the idea all
+right. It annoyed him. We were both annoyed. He did not put his
+feelings into words. He put them into his eyes instead. And horrid,
+nasty feelings they were. Quite murderous.
+
+The duel was interrupted by Li Ho. Li Ho never listens but he always
+hears. Seems to have some quieting influence over his "honorable Boss,"
+too.
+
+But I wish you could have seen the old fellow's eyes, Bones. I think
+they might have told some tale to a medical mind. Normally, his eyes
+are blurry like the rest of his fatherly face. And their color, I
+think, is blue. But just then they looked like no eyes I have ever
+seen. A cold light on burnished steel is the only simile I can think
+of--perfect hardness, perfect coldness, lustre without depth! The
+description is poor, but you may get the idea better if I describe the
+effect of the look rather than the look itself. The warm spot in my
+heart froze. And it takes something fairly eerie to freeze the heart at
+its core.
+
+From this, as a budding psychologist, I draw a conclusion--there was
+something abnormal, something not quite human in that flashing look.
+The conclusion seems somewhat strained now. But at the time I was
+undoubtedly glad to see Li Ho. Li Ho may be a Chink, but he is human.
+
+You may gather that our "battle of the Glances" did not smooth my
+pillow here. If the old chap didn't want me to stay before, he is even
+less anxious for my company now. But I am going to stay. Aunt Caroline
+would call this stubbornness. But of course it isn't. It is merely a
+certain strength of character and a business determination to carry out
+a business bargain. Dr. Farr allowed me to engage board here and to pay
+for it. I am under no obligation to take cognizance of his deeper
+feelings.
+
+The only feelings which concern me in this matter are the feelings of
+his daughter. If my staying were to prove a burden for her I could not,
+of course, stay. But I see many ways in which I may be helpful, and I
+know that she needs and wants the secretarial work which I have given
+her. Usually she holds her head high and one isn't even allowed to
+guess. But one does guess. Her meagre ration of life is plain beyond
+all artifice of pride.
+
+John, she interests me intensely. She is a strange child. She is a
+strange woman. For both child and woman she seems to be, in fascinating
+combination. But, lest you should mistake me, good old bone-head, let
+me make it plain that there is absolutely no danger of my falling in
+love with her. My interest is not that kind of interest. I am far too
+hard headed to be susceptible. I can appreciate the tragedy of a
+charming girl placed in such unsavory environment, and feel impelled to
+seek some way of escape for her without being for one moment disturbed
+by that unreasoning madness called love. Every student of psychology
+understands the nature and the danger of loving. 'Every sensible
+student profits by what he understands. You and I have had this out
+before and you know my unalterable determination never to allow myself
+to become the slave of those primitive and passing instincts. Nature,
+the old hussy, is welcome to the use of man as a tool for her own
+purposes. But there are enough tools without me. The race will not
+perish because I intend to remain my own man. But I shall have to
+evolve some way of helping Miss Farr. She cannot be left here under
+these conditions.
+
+I am writing to Aunt Caroline, briefly, that I am immersed in study and
+that my return is indefinite. Don't, for heaven's sake, let her suspect
+that I have employed Miss Farr as secretary. You know Aunt Caroline's
+failing. Do be discreet!
+
+Yours,
+
+B. H. S.
+
+P.S.: Any arrangement I may find it necessary to propose in Miss Farr's
+case will be based on business, not sentiment.        B.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Desire was seated upon a moss-covered rock, hugging her knees and
+gazing out to sea. It was her favorite attitude and, according to
+Professor Spence, a very dangerous one, especially in connection with a
+moss-covered rock. He would have liked to point out this obvious fact
+but that would have been fussy--and fussy the professor was firmly
+determined not to be. Aunt Caroline was fussy. The best he could do was
+to select another rock, not so slippery, and to provide an object
+lesson as to the proper way of sitting upon it. Unfortunately, Desire
+was not looking. They had come a little way "up trail"--at least Desire
+had said it was a little way, and her companion was too proud of his
+recovered powers of locomotion to express unkind doubt of the
+adjective. There had been no rainy days for a week. The air was
+sun-soaked, and salt-soaked, and somewhere there was a wind. But not
+here. Here some high rock angle shut it out and left them to the drowsy
+calm of wakening Summer. Below them lay the blue-green gulf,
+white-flecked and gently heaving; above them bent a sky which only
+Italy could rival--and if Miss Farr with her hands clasped round her
+knees were to move ever so little, either way, there was nothing to
+prevent her from falling off the face of the mountain. The professor
+tried not to let this reflection spoil his enjoyment of the view. He
+reminded him-self that she was probably much safer than she looked. And
+he remembered Aunt Caroline. Still--
+
+"Don't you think you might sit a little farther back?" he suggested
+carelessly.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I can't talk to the back of your head."
+
+"Talk!" dreamily, "do you really have to talk?"
+
+Naturally the professor was silent.
+
+"That's rude, I suppose," said Desire, suddenly swinging round (a feat
+which brought Spence's heart into his mouth). "I don't seem to acquire
+the social graces very rapidly, do I?"
+
+"I thought," the professor's tone was somewhat stiff, "that we came up
+here for the express purpose of talking."
+
+"Y-es. You did express some such purpose. But--must we? It won't do any
+good, you know."
+
+"I don't know. And it will do good. One can't get anywhere without
+proper discussion."
+
+The girl sighed. "Very well--let's discuss. You begin."
+
+"My month," said Spence firmly, "is almost up. I shall have to move
+along on Friday."
+
+"On Friday?" If he had intended to startle her, he had certainly
+succeeded. "Was--was the arrangement only for a month?" she asked in a
+lowered voice.
+
+"The arrangement was to continue for as long as I wished. But only one
+month's payment was made in advance. With Friday, Dr. Farr's obligation
+toward me ends. He is not likely to extend it."
+
+She sat so still that he forgot how slippery the moss was and thought
+only of the growing shadow on her face.
+
+"But, the work!" she murmured. "We are only just beginning. I wish--oh,
+I shall miss it dreadfully."
+
+"'It,'" said Spence, "is not a personal pronoun."
+
+"I shall miss you, too, of course."
+
+"Well, be careful not to overemphasize it."
+
+Her grey eyes looked frankly and straightly into his. Their clear
+depths held a rueful smile. "You are conceited enough already," she
+said, "but if it will make you feel any better, I don't mind admitting
+that I shall miss you far, far more than you deserve."
+
+"Spoken like a lady!" said Spence warmly. "And now let us consider my
+side of it. After the month that I have spent here--do you really think
+that I intend to go away--like that?"
+
+"There is only one way of going, isn't there?"
+
+"Not at all. There are various ways. Ways which are quite, quite
+different."
+
+"You have thought of some other--some quite different way?"
+
+"Yes. But I daren't tell it to you while you sit on that slippery rock.
+It is a somewhat startling way and you might--er--manifest emotion. I
+should prefer to have you manifest it in a less dangerous place."
+
+Desire's very young laugh rippled out. "Fussy!" she said. But
+nevertheless she climbed down and sat demurely upon stones in the
+hollow. There was an unfamiliar light in her waiting eyes, the light of
+interest and of hope.
+
+Spence, rather to his consternation, realized that it was up to him to
+justify that hope. And he wasn't at all sure ... however, he had to
+go through with it, ... There was a fighting chance, anyway.
+
+"Let's think about the work for a moment," he began nervously. "That
+work, my book, you know, is simply going all to pot if you can't keep
+on with it. You can see yourself what it means to have a competent
+secretary. And you like the work. You've just admitted that you like
+it."
+
+He saw the light begin to fade from her eyes. She shook her head.
+
+"If you are going to suggest that I go with you as your secretary," she
+said with her old bluntness, "it is useless. I have tried that way out.
+I won't try it again." Her lips grew stern and her eyes dark with some
+too bitter memory.
+
+"I honestly don't see what Dr. Farr could do," said Spence tentatively.
+
+"You would," said Dr. Farr's daughter with decision.
+
+"And anyway," proceeding hastily, "that wasn't what I was thinking of.
+I knew that you would refuse to go as my secretary. I ask you to go as
+my wife."
+
+Desire rose.
+
+"Is this where I am expected to manifest emotion?" she asked dryly.
+
+"Yes. And you're doing it! I knew you would. Women are utterly
+unreasoning. You won't even listen to what I have to say."
+
+The girl moved slowly away.
+
+"And I can't get up without help," he added querulously.
+
+Desire stopped. "You can," she said.
+
+"I can't. Not after that dreadful climb."
+
+"Then I shall wait until you are ready. But we do not need to continue
+this conversation."
+
+The professor sighed. "This," he said, "is what comes of taking a woman
+at her word."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I might have known," he went on guilefully, "that you didn't really
+mean it. No young girl would."
+
+"Mean what?"
+
+"That you had no room in your scheme of things for ordinary marriage.
+Of course you were talking nonsense. I beg your pardon."
+
+"Will you kindly explain what you mean!"
+
+"I will if you will sit down so that I may talk to you on my own level.
+You see, your determination not to marry struck me very much at the
+time because it voiced my own--er--determination also. I said to
+myself, 'Here are two people sufficiently original to wish to escape
+the common lot.' I thought about it a great deal. And then an idea
+came. It was, I admit, the inspiration of a moment. But it grew. It
+certainly grew."
+
+Desire sat down again and folded her hands over her knees.
+
+"I will listen."
+
+"It is very simple," he hastened to explain. "Simplicity is, I think,
+the keynote of all true inspiration. An idea comes, and we are filled
+with amazement that we have so long ignored the obvious. Take our case.
+Here are we two, strongly of one mind and wanting the same thing. A
+perfectly feasible way of getting that thing occurs to me. Yet when I
+suggest this way you jump up and rush away."
+
+"I haven't rushed yet."
+
+"No. But you were going to. And all because you cannot be logical. No
+woman can."
+
+His listener brushed this away with a gesture of impatience.
+
+"I can prove it," went on the wily one. "You object to marriage, yet
+you covet the freedom marriage gives. Now what is the logical result of
+that? The logical result is fear--fear that some day you may want
+freedom so badly that you will marry in order to get it."
+
+"It is not--I won't."
+
+"I knew you would not admit it. But it is true all the same. The other
+night when you said 'marriage is hideous,' I saw fear in your eyes.
+There is fear in your eyes now."
+
+The girl dropped her eyes and raised them again instantly. Her slanting
+eyebrows frowned.
+
+"Nevertheless," she said, "I shall not marry."
+
+"But you will, as an honest person, admit the other part of the
+proposition--that you want something at least of what marriage can
+give?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well then--that states your case. Now let me state mine. I, too, have
+an insuperable objection to marriage. My--er--disinclination is
+probably more soundly based than yours, since it is built upon a wider
+view of life. But I, too, want certain things which marriage might
+bring. I want a home. Not too homey a home, in the strictly domestic
+sense (Aunt Caroline is strictly domestic) but a--a congenial home. I
+want the advice and help of a clever woman together with the sense of
+permanence and security which, in our imperfect state of civilization,
+is made possible only by marriage. And I, too, have my secret fear. I
+am afraid that some day I may be driven--in short, I am afraid of Aunt
+Caroline."
+
+Desire's inquiring eyebrows lifted.
+
+"A man--afraid of his aunt?"
+
+"Yes," gloomily, "it is men who are afraid of aunts. It is not at all
+funny," he added as her eyes relaxed, "if you knew Aunt Caroline you
+wouldn't think so. She is determined to have me married and she has a
+long life of successful effort behind her. One failure is nothing to an
+aunt. She is always quite certain that the next venture will turn out
+well. And it usually does. In brief, I am thirty-five and I go in
+terror of the unknown. If I do not marry soon to please myself, I shall
+end by marrying to please someone else. Do you follow me?"
+
+"Make it plainer," ordered Desire soberly. "Make it absolutely plain."
+
+"I will. My proposition is, in its truest and strictest sense, a
+marriage of convenience. Marriage, it appears, can give us both what we
+want, a formal ceremony will legalize your position as my secretary and
+free you entirely from the interference of your father. It will permit
+you to accept freely my protection and everything else which I have.
+Your way will be open to the things you spoke of the other night,
+freedom, leisure, money, travel, books. The only thing we are shutting
+out is the thing you say you have no use for--love. But perhaps you did
+not mean--"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Then, logically, my proposal is sound."
+
+"Am I to take all these things, and give nothing?"
+
+"Not at all. You give me the things I want most, freedom, security, the
+grace of companionship, and collaboration in my work, so long as your
+interest in it continues. I will be a safely married man and you--you
+will be a window-gazer no longer. There is only one point"--the
+speaker's gaze turned from her and wandered out to sea--"I can be sure
+of what I can bring into your life," his voice was almost stern, "but I
+warn you to be very sure of what you will be shutting out."
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"Children," said Spence crisply.
+
+"I do not care for children."
+
+The professor's soberness vanished. "Oh--what a whopper!" he exclaimed.
+
+"I mean, I do not want children of my own."
+
+"But supposing you were to develop a desire for them later on?"
+
+She nodded thoughtfully.
+
+"I might," she acknowledged. "But in my case it would be merely the
+outcropping of a feminine instinct, easily suppressed. I am not at all
+afraid of it. Look at all the women who are perfectly happy without
+children."
+
+"Hum!" said the professor. "I am looking at them. But I find them
+unconvincing. There are a few, however, of whom what you say is true.
+You may be one of them. How about Sami?"
+
+"Sami? Oh, Sami is different. He is more like a mountain imp than a
+child. I don't think Sami would seem real anywhere but here. If anyone
+were to try to transplant him he might vanish altogether. Poor little
+chap--how terribly he would miss me!" finished Desire artlessly.
+
+She had accepted the possibility, then! Spence's heart gave a leap and
+was promptly reproved for leaping. This was not, he reminded himself,
+an affair of the heart at all. It was a coldly-thought-out, hard-headed
+business proposition. Such a proposition as his father's son might
+fittingly conceive. The thing to do now was to stride on briskly and
+avoid sentiment.
+
+"Then as we seem to agree upon the essentials," he said, "there remains
+only one concrete difficulty, your father. He would object to marriage
+as to other things, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, but we should have to ignore that."
+
+"You wouldn't mind?" somewhat doubtfully.
+
+"No. I have always known that a break would come some day. It isn't as
+if he really cared. Or as if I cared. I don't. If I should decide that
+there is an honest chance for freedom, a chance which I can take and
+keep my self-respect, I am conscious of no duty that need restrain me."
+
+Spence said nothing, and after a moment she went on.
+
+"Why should I pretend--as he pretends? I loath it! Day after day, even
+when there is no one to see, he keeps up that horrible semblance of
+affection. And all the time he hates me. I see it in his eyes. And once
+or twice--" She hesitated and then went rapidly on without finishing
+her sentence. "There is some reason why it is to his advantage to keep
+me with him. But it imposes no obligation upon me. I do not even know
+what it is."
+
+"Perhaps Li Ho may know?"
+
+"Li Ho does know. Li Ho knows everything. But when I asked him he said,
+'Honorable boss much lonely--heap scared of devil maybe.' Li Ho always
+refers to devils when he doesn't wish to tell anything."
+
+"I've noticed that. He's a queer devil himself. Would he stay on, do
+you think?"
+
+"Yes. And that's odd, too. In some way Li Ho is father's man. It's as
+if he owned him. There must be a story which explains it. But no one
+will ever hear it. Li Ho keeps his secrets."
+
+Spence nodded. "Yes. Li Ho and his kind are the product of forces we
+only guess at. I asked a man who had spent twenty years in China if he
+had learned to understand the Oriental mind. He said he had learned
+more than that, he had learned that the Oriental mind is beyond
+understanding. But--aren't we getting away from our subject? Let's
+begin all over again. Miss Farr, I have the honor to ask your hand in
+marriage."
+
+She was silent for so long a time that the professor had opportunity to
+think of many things. And, as he thought, his heart went down--and
+down. She would refuse. He knew it. The clean edge of her mind would
+cut through all his tangle of words right to the core of the real
+issue, And the core of the real issue was not as sound as it would need
+to be to satisfy her demands. For in that core still lay a possibility,
+the possibility of love. He had not eliminated love. Many a man has
+loved after thirty-five. Many a girl who has sworn--but no, she would
+not admit this possibility in her own case. It was only in his case
+that she would recognize it. She would see the weak spot there.... She
+would refuse. He could feel refusal gathering in her heart. And his own
+heart beat hotly in his throat. For if this failed, what other way was
+left? Yet to go and leave her here, alone in that rotting cottage on
+the hill.... the prey of any ghastly fate.... no, it couldn't be done.
+He must convince her. He must.
+
+"My friend," said Desire (he loved her odd, old-fashioned way of
+calling him "my friend"), "I admit that you have tempted me. But--I
+can't. It wouldn't be fair. It is easy to feel sure for one's self but
+it's another thing to be sure for others. A marriage of that kind would
+not satisfy you. You say your outlook is wider than mine and of course
+it is. But I have seen more than you think. Even men who are
+tremendously interested in their work, like you, want--other things.
+They want what they call love, even if to them it always sinks to
+second place, if indeed it means nothing more than distraction. And
+love would mean more than that to you. I have an instinct which tells
+me that, in your case, love will come. You must be free to take it."
+
+It was final. He felt its finality, and more than ever he swore that it
+should not be so. There must be an argument somewhere--wait!
+
+"Supposing," said Spence haltingly, "Supposing.... supposing I am not
+free now? Supposing love has come--and gone?"
+
+He was not a good liar. But his very ineptitude helped him here. It
+tangled the words on his tongue, it brought a convincing dew upon his
+forehead. "I'd rather not talk about it," he finished. "But you see
+what I mean."
+
+"Yes. I hadn't thought of that. It might make a difference. I should
+want to be very sure. If there were any chance--"
+
+"There is no chance. Positively none. That experience, which you say
+you feel was a necessary experience in my case, is over and done with.
+It cannot recur. I am not the man to--to--" he was really unable to go
+on. But she finished it for him.
+
+"To love twice," said Desire, looking out over the sea. "Yes I can
+understand that--what did you say?"
+
+"I think I may be able to walk now," said the professor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+With the recovery of a leg sufficiently workable in the matter of
+climbing stairs, Dr. Farr's boarder had resigned the family couch in
+the sitting-room and had retired to his spartan chamber under the
+eaves. From its open window that night he watched the moon. Let nothing
+happen to the universe in the meantime, and there would be a full moon
+on Friday night. The professor hoped that nothing would happen.
+
+She had not exactly said "Yes" yet. He must not forget that. But it
+could do no harm to feel reasonably sure that she was going to. He did
+not conceal from himself that he had brought things off remarkably
+well. That last argument of his had been a masterpiece of strategy.
+There were other, shorter, words which might have described it. But
+they were not such pleasant words. And when a thing is necessary it is
+just as well to be pleasant about it. No harm had been done. Quite the
+opposite. Desire's one valid objection had been neatly and effectually
+disposed of. And now the matter could be dropped. It would be
+forgotten.... What did it amount to in any case? Other men lied
+every day saying they had never loved. He had lied only once in saying
+that he had.... At the same time it might be very embarrassing to....
+yes, certainly, the matter must be dropped!
+
+They would, he supposed, find it necessary to elope.... No sense in
+looking for trouble! The old gentleman had been odder than ever the
+last day or so. He had ceased even to pretend that his guest's presence
+was anything but an annoyance. He had refused utterly to enter into any
+connected conversation and had been restless and erratic to a degree.
+"Too muchy moon-devil," according to Li Ho. That very afternoon he had
+met them coming down from their talk upon the rocks and the ironic
+courtesy of his greeting had been little less than baleful. At supper
+he had remarked sentimentally upon the flight of time, referring to the
+nearness of Friday in a way eminently calculated to speed the parting
+guest.
+
+Friday, at latest, then? If they were to go they would go on
+Friday.--Friday and the full moon.
+
+In the meantime he felt no desire for sleep. The moon, perhaps?
+Certainly there is nothing in the mere business-like prospect of
+engaging a permanent secretary to cause insomnia. The professor
+supposed it was simply his state of health in general. It might be a
+good idea to drop a line to his medical man. He had promised to report
+symptoms. Besides, it was only fair to prepare John. The candle was
+burnt out, but the moon would do--pad on knee, he began to write....
+
+
+"Beloved Bones--I am writing in the hope that the thought of you may
+cause cerebral exhaustion. I find the moon too stimulating. Otherwise I
+rejoice to report myself recovered. I can walk. I can climb hills. I
+can un-climb hills, which is much worse, and I eat so much that I'm
+ashamed to look my board money in the face. You might gently prepare
+Aunt Caroline by some mention of an improved appetite.
+
+I had a letter from Aunt Caroline yesterday. That is to say, three
+letters. When you included (by request) "positively no letter writing"
+in my holiday menu, you did not make it plain who it was that was
+positively not to write. So, although she tells me sadly that she
+expects no answers, Aunt Caroline positively does. I may say at once
+that I know all the news.
+
+On the other hand, there is some news which Aunt Caroline does not
+know. Owing to your embargo on letters, I have not been able to inform
+my Aunt of the progress of my book, nor of my discovery of the perfect
+secretary. I have not, in short, been able to tell her anything.
+
+So you will have to do it for me.
+
+But first, as man to man, I want to ask you a question. Having found,
+by an extraordinary turn of luck, the perfect secretary, would you
+consider me sane if I let her go? Of course you would not. I asked
+myself the same question yesterday and received the same answer.
+
+So I have asked her to marry me.
+
+I put it that way because I know you like to have things broken to you.
+And now, having heard all your objections (oh, yes, I can hear them.
+Distance is only an idea) I shall proceed to answer them.--
+
+No. It is not unwise to marry a young girl whom I scarcely know. Why
+man! That is part of the game. Think of the boredom of having to live
+with some one you know? Someone in whose house of life you need expect
+no odd corners, no unlooked for turnings, no steps up, or down, no
+windows with a view? Only a madman would face such monotony.
+
+No. It is not unfair to the other party. The other party has a mind and
+is quite capable of making it up. She will not marry me unless she
+jolly well wants to. Far more than most people, I think, she has the
+gift of decision. Neither is it as if what I have to offer her were not
+bona fide. Take me on my merits and I'm not a bad chap. My life may
+have been tame but it has been clean. (Only don't tell Aunt Caroline).
+I have a sufficiency of money. What I promise, I shall perform. And as
+for ancestors--Well, I refer everyone to Aunt Caroline for ancestors.
+If Miss Desire marries me she will receive all that is in the bond and
+any little frills which I may be able to slip in. (There will not be
+many frills, though, for my lady is proud.)
+
+Yes. Aunt Caroline will make a fuss. I trust you will bear up under it
+for my sake. I think it will be well for her to learn of my marriage
+sufficiently long before our return to insure resignation, at least,
+upon our arrival. After the storm the calm, and although, with my dear
+Aunt, the calm is almost the more devastating, I trust you will acquit
+yourself with fortitude.
+
+And now we come to the only valid objection, which you have,
+strong-mindedly, left until the last--my prospective father-in-law! He
+is a very objectionable old party, and I do not mind your saying so.
+But one simply can't have everything. And Bainbridge is a long way from
+Vancouver. Also, as a husband I can take precedence, and, by George,
+I'll do it! So you see your objection is really an extra inducement. It
+is only by marrying the daughter of Dr. Farr that I can protect Dr.
+Farr's daughter.
+
+Are you satisfied now? I don't know whether I mentioned it, but she
+hasn't actually said "yes" yet. She had certain objections, or rather a
+certain objection which I found it necessary to meet in a--a somewhat
+regrettable manner. I was compelled to adopt strategy. She thought our
+proposed contract (we do things in a business manner) might not be
+quite fair to me. She was ready to admit that I was getting a good
+thing in secretaries but she feared that, later on, I might wish to
+make a change. I had to meet this scruple somehow and I seemed to know
+by instinct that she would not believe me if I expounded those theories
+of love and marriage which you know I so strongly hold. Pure reason
+would not appeal to her. So I had to fall back upon sentiment. Instead
+of saying, "I shall never love. It is impossible," I said, "I have
+loved. It is over."
+
+Sound tactics, don't you think? ... Well I don't care what you think!
+I have to get this girl safely placed somehow.
+
+We shall have to elope probably. Fancy, an elopement at thirty-five!
+The father seems to consider her continued presence here as vital to
+his interest, though why, neither of us can understand. Well, I'm not
+exactly afraid of the old chap but it will certainly be easier for her
+if there are no wild farewells. Therefore we shall probably fold our
+tent like the Arabs and steal away as silently as the "Tillicum" will
+allow.
+
+Li Ho will have to be told. He will know anyway, so we may as well tell
+him. It appears that whatever may be the reasons for keeping a young
+girl buried here, they do not extend to Li Ho. It will not be the first
+time that his Chinese inscrutability has assisted at a (temporary)
+departure.
+
+I shall let Aunt Caroline know as soon as the act is irrevocable and
+shall inform you at the same time so that you may not be unprepared.
+You realize, I suppose, that you will be accused of being accessory?
+Didn't you tell me that a trip would do me good?
+
+We shall not come home for a few weeks. My secretary has spoken of an
+old Indian whom she knows, a perfect mine of simon-pure folk-lore. He
+lives some-where up the coast, about a day's journey, I think. We may
+visit him. With her to interpret for me, I may get some very valuable
+notes. I may add that we are both very keen on notes. When we have done
+what can be done out here, we shall come home. The fall and winter we
+shall spend upon the book. My secretary will insist upon attending to
+business first. And then--well, then she wants to go shopping. So we
+shall have to go where the good shops are.
+
+What does she wish to buy? Oh, not much--just life, the assorted kind.
+
+B. H. S.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+It was the day before Friday. Friday, so very near, seemed already
+palpably present in the surcharged air of the cottage. No one mentioned
+it, but that made its nearness more potent. At his usual hour for
+dictation, Professor Spence had come out upon the narrow veranda. But,
+although his secretary was there, pencil in hand, he had not dictated.
+Instead he had sat contemplating Friday so long that his secretary
+tapped her foot in impatience.
+
+"Are you really lazy?" she asked, "Or are you just pretending to be?"
+
+"I am really lazy. All truly gifted people are. You know what Wilde
+says, 'Real industry is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to
+do.'"
+
+The prompt, "Who is Wilde?" of the secretary did not disconcert him. He
+had discovered that her ignorance was as unusual as her knowledge.
+
+"Who is Wilde? Oh, just a little bit of English literature. Christian
+name of Oscar. You'll come across him when you go shopping."
+
+A faint pucker appeared between the secretary's eye-brows.
+
+"You are coming shopping, aren't you?" asked Spence, faintly stressing
+the verb.
+
+"I--want to."
+
+"That's settled then."
+
+The pucker grew more pronounced. The secretary resigned all hope of
+dictation and laid down her pencil.
+
+"Tomorrow," reminded Spence gently, "is Friday."
+
+"Yes, I know. And if I go, do I--we--go tomorrow?"
+
+"It would be advisable."
+
+"The time doesn't matter," mused Desire. "But--do you mind if I speak
+quite plainly?"
+
+"Not at all. You have hardened me to plain speaking."
+
+"I have been thinking over what you told me. It does make a difference.
+I see that I need not be afraid of--of what I was afraid of. It's as
+if--as if we had both had the measles."
+
+"You can take--" began Spence, but stopped him-self. It would never do
+to remind her that one may take the measles twice.
+
+"Of course you won't believe it, not for a long time anyway," she went
+on in the tone of an indulgent grand-mother, "but love is only an
+episode. You are fortunate to be well over it."
+
+Spence sighed. He hadn't intended to sigh. It just happened.
+Fortunately it was the correct thing.
+
+"I don't want to distress you," kindly, "but we were rather vague the
+other night. I understood the main fact, but that is about all. You
+didn't tell me what happened after."
+
+The professor's chair, which had been tilted negligently back, came
+down with a thud.
+
+"After?" he murmured meekly. "After--?"
+
+"I mean," prompted Desire gently, "did she marry the other man?"
+
+"The other man? I--I don't know." The professor was willing to be
+truthful while he could. But instantly he saw that it wouldn't do.
+
+"You--don't--know?" If ever incredulity breathed in any voice it
+breathed in hers. It gave our weak-kneed liar the brace that he needed.
+
+"No," he said sadly, "they were to have been married--I have never
+heard."
+
+"Oh! Then, of course, she did not live in your home town."
+
+"Didn't she?" asked Spence, momentarily off guard. "Oh, I see what you
+mean--no, naturally not."
+
+"I thought that perhaps you might have been boy and girl together,"
+dreamily. "It so often happens."
+
+"It does," said Spence. "But it didn't."
+
+"And is there no one--no friend, from whom you could naturally inquire?
+You feel you wouldn't care to ask anyone?"
+
+"Ask? Good heavens, no--certainly not!"
+
+"Men are queer," said Desire naively. "A woman would just simply have
+to ask."
+
+"She would."
+
+"You think me inquisitive?" Her quick brain had not missed the dry
+implication of his tone. "But you see I had to know something. It's all
+right, I'm sure. But it would have been so much--more comfortable if
+she were quite married."
+
+(Oh course it would--why in thunder hadn't he thought of that? The
+professor was much annoyed with himself.)
+
+"She is probably quite, utterly married long ago," he said gloomily.
+"What possible difference can it make?"
+
+"None. Don't look so bitter! Perhaps I should not have asked questions.
+I won't ask any more--except one. Would you mind very much telling me
+her name?"
+
+Her name!
+
+The harassed man looked wildly around. But there was no escape. Not
+even Sami was in sight. Only a jeering crow flapped black wings and
+laughed discordantly.
+
+"Just her first name, you know," added Desire reasonably.
+
+"Oh yes--certainly. No, of course I don't mind. I am quite willing to
+tell you her name. But--do you mean her real name or--or--the name she
+was usually called?" The professor was sparring wildly for time.
+
+"Wasn't she called by her real name?"
+
+"Well--er--not always."
+
+Desire's eyebrows became very slanting. "Any name will do," she said
+coldly.
+
+The professor gathered himself together. "Her name," he said
+triumphantly, "Was--is Mary."
+
+He had done well for himself this time! His questioner was plainly
+satisfied with the name Mary. Perhaps lying gets easier as you go on.
+He hoped so.
+
+"My mother's name was Mary," said Desire. "It is a lovely name."
+
+Spence felt very proud of himself. Not only had he produced a lovely
+name in the space of three seconds and a half, but he had also provided
+a not-to-be-missed opportunity of changing the subject.
+
+"I suppose you do not remember your mother," he said tentatively.
+
+"Oh yes, I do, although I was quite small when she died. Father says I
+fancy some of the things I remember. Perhaps I do. I always dream very
+vividly. And fact and dream are easily confused in a child's mind. My
+most distinct memories are detached, like pictures, without any before
+or after to explain them. There is one, for instance, about waking up
+in the woods at night, wrapped in my mother's shawl and seeing her
+face, all frightened and white, with the moon, like a great, silver
+eye, shining through the trees. But I can't imagine why my mother would
+be hiding in the woods at night."
+
+"Why hiding?"
+
+"There is a sense of hiding that comes with the memory--without
+anything to account for it But, although I do not remember connected
+incidents very well, I remember her--the feeling of having her with me.
+And the terrible emptiness afterwards. If she had gone quite away, all
+at once, I couldn't have borne it."
+
+"Do you mean that she had a long illness?" asked Spence, greatly
+interested.
+
+"No. She died suddenly. It was just--you will call it silly
+imagination--" she broke off uncertainly.
+
+"I might call it imagination without the adjective."
+
+"Yes. But it wasn't. It was real. The sense, I mean, that she hadn't
+gone away. Nothing that wasn't real would have been of the slightest
+use."
+
+"It all depends on how we define reality. What seems real at one time
+may seem unreal at another."
+
+She nodded.
+
+"That is just what has happened. I am not sure, now. The sense of
+nearness left me as I grew up. But at that time, I lived by it. Do you
+find the idea absurd?"
+
+"Why should I? Our knowledge of our own consciousness is the absurdity.
+All we know is that our normal waking consciousness is only one special
+type. Around it lie potential forms of consciousness entirely
+different, and quite as real. Sometimes we, or it, or they, break
+through. I am paraphrasing James. Do you know James?"
+
+"I have read 'Daisy Miller.'"
+
+"This James was the Daisy Miller man's brother."
+
+"Did he believe in the possibility of the dead helping the living?"
+
+"He believed in all kinds of possibilities. But I don't think he
+considered that possibility proven."
+
+"It couldn't be proved, could it?" asked Desire thoughtfully.
+"Experiences like that are so intensely individual. One cannot pass
+them on."
+
+"Can you describe yours at all?"
+
+"Hardly. It was just a feeling of Presence. A sense of her being there.
+It came at all sorts of times and in all sorts of places. We lived in
+Vancouver when mother died. It was a much smaller town then, not like
+the city you have seen. But after her death we moved about a great
+deal, never staying very long anywhere, until we came here. There
+were--experiences." Her eyes hardened. "But, as long as I had that
+sense I am speaking of, I was safe. I used to have long crying fits in
+the dark, a kind of blind terror of everything. And after one of them
+it nearly always came. I never questioned it. Never once did I ask
+myself, 'Is it mother?'. I just knew that it was. There seemed nothing
+unusual about it."
+
+"Was there no one, no woman, to take care of you?"
+
+"There were--women." Desire's lips tightened into a thin red line. "We
+did not travel alone. Once I remember terrifying a--a friend of
+father's who was 'looking after' me. She heard me crying in my little,
+dark room one night, and as soon as she could slip away, came in. She
+was a kindly sort. But when she got there I was quite content and
+happy--which surprised her much more than the crying had done. She
+asked me what had 'shut me up,' and I said 'My mother is here--go
+away.' She turned quite pasty-white and the candle shook so that the
+hot grease fell upon my hands."
+
+"What a life for a child!" exclaimed Spence in sudden rage. "Desire
+dear, you must come with me! I couldn't--couldn't leave you here.
+I--oh, dash it! I mean, it's so evident, isn't it, that we need each
+other?"
+
+"You really and truly need me?" doubtfully.
+
+"Really and truly."
+
+"But if I come, you ought to know something of the life I have lived.
+You must realize that I am not an innocent young girl."
+
+"Aren't you?" The professor found it difficult to say this with the
+proper inflection. It did not sound as business-like as he could have
+wished. But she was too much absorbed to notice.
+
+"No. I've seen things which young girls do not see. I have heard things
+which are never whispered before them. No one cared particularly what I
+saw or heard. When I was smaller there was always someone--some
+'housekeeper.' They were all kinds. None of them ever stayed long.
+Looking back, it seems as if they passed like lurid shadows. Only one
+of them seemed a real person. The others were husks. Her name was Lily.
+She was very stout, her face was red and her voice loud. But there was
+something real about Lily. And she was fond of children. She liked me.
+She went out of her lazy way to teach me wisdom--oh, yes, it was
+wisdom," in answer to Spence's horrified exclamation, "hard, sordid
+wisdom, the only wisdom which would have helped me through the back
+alleys of those days. I am unspeakably grateful to Lily. She spared me
+much, and once she saved me--I can't tell you about that," she finished
+simply.
+
+Spence bit his lip on a word to which the expression of his face gave
+force and meaning. But Desire was not looking at him.
+
+"Do you see why I am different from other girls?" She asked gravely.
+
+The professor restrained himself. "I see that you are different," he
+said. "I don't care why. But I'm glad that you have told me what you
+have. It explains something that has bothered me--" he paused seeking
+words. But she caught up his thought with lightning intuition.
+
+"You mean it explains why marriage isn't beautiful to me, like it may
+be to a sheltered girl? Yes. I wanted you to see that. It may be holy,
+but it isn't holy to me. I want to live my life apart from all that. To
+me it is smirched and sodden and hateful. And now, do you still wish me
+to come and be your secretary?"
+
+"Now more than ever," said Spence. It was only the sealing of a
+business transaction. But greatly to his annoyance he could not
+entirely control a certain warmth and eagerness.
+
+Desire held out a frank hand.
+
+"Then I will marry you when you are ready," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Being a delayed letter from Dr. John Rogers to his friend and patient,
+Benis Hamilton Spence.
+
+DEAR Idiot: I knew you would get it--and you got it. Perhaps after this
+you will learn to treat your sciatic nerve with proper respect. But
+there is a worse complaint than sciatica. It lasts longer. Certain
+symptoms of it are indicated in the things which your letter leaves
+unsaid. Beans, old thing, you alarm me.
+
+Now here is a sporting offer. If you'll drop it and come home at once
+I'll promise never to tell Aunt Caroline. Come the moment you can put
+foot to the ground. And, until then, I recommend strict seclusion and
+no nursing. Nursing might well be fatal. Stick to Li Ho. He is your
+only chance.
+
+Your Aunt Caroline sends her love. (I told her I was writing you
+directions for further treatment). She feels the deprivation of your
+letters keenly. She can't see why the writing of a nice, chatty letter
+to one's only living Aunt should prove an undue drain upon nervous
+energy. Life has taught her not to expect consideration from relatives,
+but it does seem hard that her only sister's boy should treat her as if
+she were the scarlet fever. To allow himself to be ordered away from
+home for a rest cure was certainly less than courteous. To anyone not
+understanding the situation it would almost imply that his home was not
+restful. And after all the trouble she had taken even to the extent of
+strained relations with those Macfarland people who own a rooster. If
+the slight had been aimed entirely at herself she could have taken it
+silently, but when it included the three or four charming girls whom
+she had asked to visit (one at a time) for the purpose of providing
+pleasant company, she felt obliged to protest. Although protest, she
+knew, was useless. All this, however, she could have borne. The thing
+that she could scarcely forgive was the slight offered to his native
+town by a departure three days before the set date, thereby turning his
+"going away" tea into a "gone away"--an action considered by all
+(invited) Bainbridge as a personal insult.
+
+Pause here for breath.
+
+To continue. Your Aunt Caroline does not believe in rest cures anyway.
+She thinks poultices are much more effective. It stands to reason that
+if a thing is in, it ought to come out. Rest cures are just laziness.
+But, thank goodness, she never expected anything from the Spence family
+but laziness. And she had told her sister so before she married into
+it....
+
+Allow an hour here for ancestral history with appropriate comment and
+another hour for a brief review of your own conduct from youth up and
+we come within measurable distance of a few words by me. I took up the
+point of the four or five nice girls who had been invited to visit. I
+put the whole thing down to shock and pointed out that patience is
+required. A return to physical normality, I said, would doubtless bring
+with it a reviving interest in the sex. It was indeed very fortunate, I
+told her, that you were, at present, indifferent. Any question of
+selecting a life partner in your present nervous state would be most
+dangerous. Your power of judgment, I pointed out, was temporarily
+jarred and out of gear. You might marry anybody. The only safe, the
+only humane way, was to give you time to recover yourself.
+
+"Power of judgment!" said Aunt Caroline. "Do you mean to tell me that
+my sister's son is in danger of becoming an idiot?"
+
+I said not exactly an idiot. Yet your strong disinclination toward
+marriage could certainly be traced to a shocked condition of the
+nerves. Certain fixed ideas--
+
+"Fixed ideas!" said your Aunt. She has a particularly annoying habit of
+repeating one's words. "Benis has always had fixed ideas--though when
+he was young," she added with satisfaction, "I knew how to unfix them.
+If this absurd rest cure can do anything to cure chronic stubbornness,
+I've nothing to say. Why, even his father was easier to manage."
+
+"Benis," I said, "considers himself very like his father."
+
+"Does he?" retorted your dear Aunt with withering scorn. "He is just as
+much like his father as a lemon is like a lobster."
+
+This ended our conversation. But the effect of it is still with me.
+Last night I dreamed of lemons and today I prescribed lobster for a man
+with acute dyspepsia. I tell you what, you old shirker, it's up to you
+to come home and bear your own Aunt. I'm through.       Bones.
+
+P.S. The office nurse has been changed since you left. I have now Miss
+Watkins, returned from overseas. I think you knew her--name of Mary?
+Very good looking--almost her only fault.
+
+P.P.S. What you say about your pleasant old gentle-man with the
+umbrella sounds very much like masked epilepsy. Ought to be under
+treatment. I should say dangerous.
+
+S.O.S. Aunt Caroline has just 'phoned to know whether all
+letter-writing is barred or if not, wouldn't it be helpful if you were
+to drop a line to a few of your young-friends? For herself she expects
+nothing, but she does think, etc., etc., etc.!
+
+Come back!          B.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Comprising a lengthy letter from, Benis Spence to John Rogers, M.D.
+
+DEAR and Venerable Bones: Your fatherly letter came too late. What was
+going to happen has happened. But I will be honest and admit that its
+earlier arrival would have made no difference. Calm yourself with the
+thought that our fates are written upon our foreheads. I have been able
+to read mine for some little time now. For there are some things which
+are impossible and leaving Desire here was one of them.
+
+I call her "Desire" to you because it is what you will be calling her
+soon. Strange, how that small fact seems to place her' Fancy my
+marrying someone whom you would naturally call "Mrs. Spence"? There are
+such people. All Aunt Caroline's young friends are like that. You would
+say, "I have looked forward to meeting you, Mrs. Spence," and she would
+giggle and say, "Oh, Dr. Rogers, I have heard my husband speak of you
+so often!" But Desire will say, "So this is John." And then she will
+look at you with that detached yet interested look and you will find
+yourself saying "Desire" before you think of it. You see, she belongs.
+
+But before I bring you up to date with regard to recent events, I had
+better tell you a few facts about my more remote past. I refer to Mary.
+I have already told you that I found a past necessary. At that time I
+hoped that something fairly abstract would do. But Desire does not like
+abstractions. She likes to "know where she is." So I had to tell her
+about Mary. I'll tell you, too, before I forget details and for
+heaven's sake get them right! You never can tell when your knowledge
+may be needed. In the first place there is the name. I'm rather proud
+of that. I had to choose it at a moment's notice and I did not
+hesitate. Desire herself says it is a lovely name. And so safe--amn't I
+right in the impression that every second girl in Bainbridge and
+elsewhere is called Mary? Mary, my Mary, might be anybody.
+
+Here, then, are the main facts. I have had (pre-war) a serious
+attachment. It was an affection tragically misplaced. She did not love
+me. She loved another. She may, or may not, have married him. (It would
+have been better to have had the marriage certain, but I didn't see it
+in time.) I will never care for another woman. Her name was Mary.
+Please tabulate this romance where you can put your hand on it. I may
+need your help at any time. As a doctor your aid would be invaluable
+should it become necessary for Mary to decease.
+
+And now to leave romance for reality. Your long and lucid discourse on
+masked epilepsy was most helpful. It was almost as informing as Li Ho's
+diagnosis of "moon-devil." Both have the merit of leaving the inquirer
+with an open mind. However--let's get on. If you have had my later
+letters you will know that circumstances indicated an elopement. But
+the more I thought of eloping, the more I disliked the idea. My father
+was not a man who would have eloped. And, in spite of Aunt Caroline's
+lobsters and lemons, I am very like my father. "That I have stolen away
+this old man's daughter--" Somehow it seemed very Othelloish. I decided
+to simply tell Dr. Farr, calmly and reasonably, that Desire and I had
+decided to marry. I did tell him. I was calm and reasonable. But he
+wasn't.
+
+There is a bit of sound tactics which says, "Never let the enemy
+surprise you." But how is one to keep him from doing it if he insists?
+The surer you are that the enemy is going to do a certain thing, the
+more surprised you are when he doesn't. Now I felt sure that when Dr.
+Farr heard the news he would have a fit. I expected him to use language
+and even his umbrella. But nothing of this kind happened. He simply sat
+there like a slightly faded and vague old gentleman and said
+"So?"--just like that.
+
+I assured him, as delicately as possible that it was so.
+
+Then, without warning, he began to weep. John, it was horrible! I can't
+describe it. You would have to see his blurred old face and depthless
+eyes before you could understand. Tears are healthy, normal things.
+They were never meant for faces like his. I must have said something,
+in a kind of horror, for he got up suddenly and trotted off into the
+woods, without as much as a whisper.
+
+It looked like an easy victory. But I knew it wasn't. I admit that I
+felt rather sorry we had not eloped. Li Ho made me still sorrier.
+
+"Not much good, you make honorable Boss cly," said Li Ho. "Gettie mad
+heap better."
+
+I felt that, as usual, Li Ho was right. And, just here, let me
+interpose that I am quite sure Li Ho can speak perfectly good English
+if he wishes. He certainly understands it. I have tried to puzzle him
+often by measured and academic speech and never yet has he missed the
+faintest shade of meaning. So I did not waste time with Pigeon English.
+I told him the facts briefly.
+
+"Me no likee," said Li Ho.
+
+"You don't have to," said I.
+
+Li Ho explained that it was not the contemplated marriage which
+received his disapproval but the circumstances surrounding it. "Me
+muchy glad Missy get mallied," said he. "Ladies so do, velly nice! When
+you depart to go?"
+
+"Tomorrow," I said. Since we had given up the elopement it seemed more
+dignified to wait and depart by daylight.
+
+Li Ho shook his head.
+
+"You no wait tomolla," said he, "You go tonight. You go click."
+
+"We can't go too quickly to suit me," I said. "It is for Miss Desire to
+decide."
+
+"Me tell Missy," he said and hurried away.
+
+Somehow, Li Ho always knows where to find Desire. She vanishes from my
+ken often, but never from his. He must have found her quickly this time
+for she came at once. She looked troubled.
+
+"Li Ho says we had better go tonight," she said.
+
+"Can you be ready?"
+
+"Yes. It isn't that. It's just that it would seem more--more sensible
+by daylight. But Li Ho says you have told father, and that father
+was--upset. He said something about tonight being the full moon. But I
+can't see why that should matter. Do you?"
+
+"Only that it will be easy to cross the Inlet."
+
+"It can't be that. Li Ho can take the Tillicum' over on the darkest
+night. It has something to do with father. He seems to think that the
+full moon affects him. And it's true that he often goes off on the
+mountain about that time. But I can't see why that should hurry us."
+
+I did not see it either. And yet I felt that I should like to hurry.
+
+"We certainly will not go unless you wish," I began. But Li Ho
+interrupted me in his colorless way.
+
+"Alice same go this eveling," he said blandly. "No take 'Tillicum'
+tomolla. Velly busy tomolla. Velly busy next day. Velly busy all week."
+
+"Look here," I said, "you'll do exactly what your mistress tells you."
+
+His celestial impudence was making me hot. But Desire stopped me. "It's
+no use," she explained. "I have really no authority. And he means what
+he says. We must go tonight or wait indefinitely."
+
+I was eager to be gone. But it went against the grain to be hustled off
+by a Chinaman. Perhaps my face showed as much, for Desire went on. "You
+needn't feel like that about it. He doesn't intend to be impudent. He
+probably thinks he has a very real reason for getting us away. And Li
+Ho's reasons are liable to be good ones. We had better go."
+
+The rest of the day was uneventful, save for the incident of Sami. I
+think I told you about Sami, didn't I? A kind of brown familiar who
+follows Desire about. He is a baby Indian as much a part of the
+mountain as the leaping squirrels and not nearly so tame. He is the one
+thing here that I think Desire is sorry to leave. And for this reason I
+hoped he wouldn't appear before we were gone. I had done all my
+packing--easy enough since I had scarcely unpacked--and I could hear
+Desire moving about doing hers. The place seemed particularly peaceful.
+I could, have felt almost sorry to leave my cool, bare room with its
+tree-stump for a table and all the forest just outside. But as I sat
+there by the window there came upon me, for the second time that day, a
+mounting hurry to be gone. There was nothing to account for it, but I
+distinctly felt an inward "Hurry! Hurry!" So propelling was it that
+only the knowledge that the "Tillicum" would not float until high tide
+kept me from finding Desire and begging her to come away at once. I did
+go so far as to wander restlessly down into the garden where she had
+gone to feed the chickens. Perhaps I would have gone farther and
+mentioned my misgivings but just then Sami came and I forgot all about
+them. I don't believe I have ever seen any child so frightened as that
+little Indian! He simply fell through the bushes behind the chicken
+house and shot, like a small, brown catapult, into Desire's arms. His
+round face was actually grey with fear. And he huddled in her big apron
+shivering, for all the world like some terrified animal.
+
+Naturally the first thing to do was to get the thing that had
+frightened him. An axe seemed a likely weapon, so, picking it up, I
+slid into the bushes at the point where Sami had come out of them.
+
+Perfect serenity was there! The afternoon light lay golden on the moss
+above the fallen trees. No hidden scurrying in the underbrush told of
+wild, wood things hastening to safety from some half-sensed danger. No
+broken branches or trampled earth told of any past or present struggle.
+There was no trace of any fearsome creature having passed along that
+peaceful trail.
+
+I searched thoroughly and found nothing. On my way back to the clearing
+I met Li Ho.
+
+'"Find anything, Li Ho?" I asked eagerly.
+
+The Celestial grinned.
+
+"Find honorable self," said he. "Missy she send. Missy heap scared
+along of you."
+
+"Nonsense!" I said. "I can take care of myself. Even if it had been a
+bear, I had an axe."
+
+"Bear!" said Li Ho. And then he laughed. Did you ever hear a Chinaman
+laugh? I never had. Not this Chinaman anyway. It was so startling that
+I forgot what I was saying. Next moment I could have sworn that he had
+not laughed at all.
+
+We found Sami, much comforted, sitting upon Desire's lap, a thing he
+could seldom be induced to do. At our entrance he began to shiver again
+but soon quieted. Desire had tried questioning but it was of no use. He
+either couldn't, or wouldn't, say anything about what had frightened
+him. Desire was inclined to think that he did not know. But I was not
+so sure. It's a fairly well established fact that children simply can't
+speak of certain terrors. And the more frightened they are the more
+powerful is the inhibition. In any case it was useless to question Sami
+so we fed him instead and presently he went to sleep.
+
+I suppose we all forgot him. I know I did. One doesn't elope every day.
+And it was never Sami's way to insist upon his presence as ordinary
+children do. Li Ho departed to tinker with the "Tillicum" and
+afterwards returned to give us a late supper. Desire kept out of my
+way. One might almost have thought that she was shy--if so, a most
+perplexing development. For why should she feel shy? It wasn't as if we
+had not put the whole affair on a perfectly business basis. Perhaps
+there is some elemental magic in names, so that, to a woman, the very
+word "marriage" has power to provoke certain nervous reactions?
+
+However that may be, even Desire forgot Sami. We left the house just as
+the clearing began to grow brighter with light from the still hidden
+moon, and we were halfway down to the boat landing before anyone
+thought of him. Oddly enough it was I who remembered. "Sami!" I
+exclaimed, with a little throb of nameless fear. "We have forgotten
+Sami."
+
+Desire, I thought, looked surprised and somewhat vexed at her
+oversight. But displayed no trace of the consternation which had
+suddenly fallen on me.
+
+"He is all right," she said. "He will sleep till morning unless his
+mother comes for him."
+
+"Where you leave um?" asked Li Ho briefly. He had already set down the
+bag he was carrying.
+
+"In my own bed."
+
+"Me go get!" said Li Ho.
+
+But I had not waited. I had started to "go get" myself. The sense of
+breathless hurry was on me again. I did not pause to argue that the
+child was perfectly safe. I forgot that I had ever been lame. Perhaps
+that sciatic nerve is only mortal mind anyway. When I came out into the
+clearing the cottage was turning silver in the first rays of the full
+moon. Very peaceful and secure it looked. And yet I hurried!
+
+I made no noise. To myself I explained this by a desire not to waken
+the youngster. No use frightening him. I stole, as quietly as one of
+his own ancestors, to the foot of the stairs. The door of Desire's room
+was open. I could see a moonlit bar across the dark landing....
+
+I think I went straight up that stair. I hope so. You know that one of
+my worst nervous troubles has been a dread that I might fail in some
+emergency? I dread a sort of nerve paralysis.... But I got up the
+stair. The fear that seemed to push me back wasn't personal, or
+physical--one might call it psychic fear, only that the word explains
+nothing.... I looked in at the open door. There seemed to be nothing
+there but the moonlight. The room must have been almost as bare as my
+own. But over on the far side, beyond the zone of the window, was the
+dim whiteness of a bed. I could see nothing clearly--but the Fear was
+there. I dragged, actually dragged, my feet across the floor--my sight
+growing clearer, until at last--I saw!
+
+I think I shouted, but it was so like a nightmare that I may not have
+made a sound.... The dragging weight must have left my feet as I
+sprang forward ... but it is all confused! And the whole thing lasted
+only a minute.
+
+In that minute I had seen what I would have sworn was not human. Even
+while I knew It for the little old man with the umbrella, I had no
+sense of its humanness. Something bent above the bed--the old man's
+face was there, the thin figure, the white hair, and yet it seemed the
+wildest absurdity to call the Fury who wore them by any human name.
+
+The eyes looked at me--eyes without depth or meaning--eyes like bits of
+blue steel reflecting the light of Tophet--, incarnate evil, blazing,
+peering ... I caught a glimpse of long, thin hands, like claws,
+around the folded umbrella, a flash of something bright at the ferrule
+... and then the picture dissolved like an image passing from a dimly
+lighted screen. Before I could skirt the bed, whatever had been upon
+the other side of it had melted into the darkness beyond the moon. I
+bent over the bed. Sami was there--Sami, rolled shapelessly in the
+concealing bedclothes, his round face hidden in the pillow, his black
+hair just a blot of darkness on the white.... It might have been
+Desire lying there! ...
+
+I found the door through which the Thing had slipped. But it was
+useless to try to follow. There was no one in the house nor in the
+moonlit clearing. And Desire and Li Ho were waiting on the trail. I
+picked up the still sleeping child and blundered down to them.
+
+It seemed incredible to hear Desire's laugh.
+
+"Good gracious!" she said. "You're carrying him upside down."
+
+She had had no hint of danger. But with Li Ho it was different. He fell
+back beside me when Desire had relieved me of the child. I could feel
+his inscrutable eyes upon my face.
+
+"You see um," said Li Ho. It was an assertion, not a question.
+
+I nodded.
+
+"No be scare," muttered he. "Missy all safe. Everything all safe now.
+Li Ho go catch um. Li Ho catch um good. All light--tomolla."
+
+"You mean you can manage him and he'll be all right tomorrow?" I said.
+"But--what is it!"
+
+The Celestial shrugged.
+
+"Muchy devil maybe. Muchy moon-devil, plaps. Velly bad."
+
+"There's a knife in that umbrella, Li Ho."
+
+But though his eyes looked blandly into mine, I couldn't tell whether
+this was news to Li Ho or not....
+
+Well, that's the story. I've written it down while it's fresh, sparing
+comment. Desire sang as we crossed the Inlet; little, low snatches of
+song with a hint of freedom in them. She had made her choice and it is
+never her way to look back. The old "Tillicum" rattled and chugged and
+the damp crept in around our feet. But the water was a path of gold and
+the sky a bowl of silver--and as an example of present day elopements
+it had certainly been fairly exciting.
+
+Yours, Benis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Desire Spence bent earnestly over the writing pad which lay open upon
+her knee.
+
+"Mrs. Benis Hamilton Spence," she wrote. And then:
+
+"Mrs. B. Hamilton Spence."
+
+And then:
+
+"Mrs. Benis H. Spence."
+
+Over this last she sucked her pencil thoughtfully.
+
+"One more!" prompted her husband encouragingly. "Don't decide before
+you inspect our full line of goods."
+
+"Initials, only, lack character," objected Desire. "There is nothing
+distinctive about 'Mrs. B. H. Spence'. It doesn't balance well, either.
+I think I'll decide upon the 'Benis H.' I like it--although I have
+never heard of 'Benis' as a name before."
+
+"You are not supposed to have heard of it," explained its owner
+complacently. "It is a very exclusive name, a family name. My mother's
+paternal grandmother was a Benis."
+
+Desire was not attending. "Your nickname, too, is odd," she mused. "How
+on earth could anyone make 'Beans' out of 'Benis Hamilton?'"
+
+"Very easily--but how did you know that anyone had?"
+
+"Oh, from a touching inscription on one of your books, 'To Beans--from
+Bones.'"
+
+"Well--there's a whole history in that. It happened by a well defined
+process of evolution. When I went to school I had to have a name. A
+school boy's proper name is no good to him. Proper names are simply not
+done. But the christening party found my combination rather a handful.
+No one could do anything with Benis and the obvious shortening of
+Hamilton was considered too Biblical. 'Ham', however, suggested
+'Piggy'. This might have done had there not already existed a 'Piggy'
+with a prior right. 'Piggy' suggested 'Pork', but 'Pork' isn't a name.
+'Pork' suggested 'Beans'. And once more behold the survival of the
+fittest."
+
+Desire laughed.
+
+The professor listened to her laugh with a strained expression which
+relaxed when no words followed it.
+
+"I was afraid," he admitted penitently, "that you might want to know
+why 'Pork' is not as much a name as 'Beans'."
+
+"But--it isn't."
+
+"Quite so. Only you are the first member of your delightful sex who has
+ever perceived it. You are a perceptive person, Mrs. Spence."
+
+It was the fourth day of their Business Honeymoon. Four days ago they
+had landed from the cheerful little coast steamer whose chattering load
+of summer campers they had left behind on the route. For four
+sun-bright days and dew-sweet nights they had found themselves sole
+possessors of a bay so lovely that it seemed to have emerged bodily
+from a green and opal dream.
+
+"'Friendly Bay,' they calls it," a genial deckhand told them, grinning.
+"But you folks will be the only friends anywheres about. There's a sort
+of farm across the point, though, and maybe you could hit the trail by
+climbing, if you get too fed up with the scenery."
+
+"Oh, we shan't want any company," said the new Mrs. Spence
+innocently--a remark so disappointing in its unembarrassed frankness
+that the deck-hand lost interest and decided that they were "just
+relations" after all.
+
+They had carried their camp with them, and, from where they now sat,
+they could see its canvas gleaming ivory white against its background
+of green. Desire's eyes, as she raised them from her name-building,
+lingered upon it proudly. It was such a wonderful camp!--her first
+experience of what money, unconsidered save as a purchasing agent, can
+do. Even her personal outfit was something of a revelation. How
+deliciously keen and new was this consciousness of clothes--the smart
+high-laced boots, the soft, sand-colored coat and skirt, the knickers
+which felt so easy and so trim, the cool, silk shirt with its wide
+collar, the dainty, intimate things beneath! She would have been less
+than woman, had the possession of these things failed to meet some
+need,--some instinct, deep within, which her old, bare life had daily
+mortified.
+
+And it had all been so easy, so natural! How could she ever have
+hesitated to make the change? Even her pride was left to her, intact.
+He, her friend, had given and she had taken, but in this there had been
+no spoiling sense of obligation, for, presently, she too was to give
+and to give unstintedly: new strength and skill seemed already tingling
+in her firm, quick hands; new vigor and inspiration stirred in her
+eager brain--and both hands and brain were to be her share of
+giving--her partnership offering in this pact of theirs. She was eager,
+eager to begin.
+
+But already they had been four days in camp without a beginning. So far
+they had not even looked for the trail which was to lead them to the
+cabin of Hawk-Eye Charlie whose store of Indian lore had been the
+reason for their upcoast journey. This delay of the expeditionary party
+was due to no fault of its secretary. During the past four days she had
+proposed the search for the trail four times, one proposal per day. And
+each day the chief expeditioner had voted a postponement. The chief
+expeditioner was lazy. At least that was the excuse he made. And
+Desire, who was not lazy, might have fretted at the inaction had she
+believed him. But she knew it was not laziness which had drawn certain
+new lines about the expeditioner's mouth and deepened the old ones on
+his forehead. It was not laziness which lay behind the strained look in
+his eyes and the sudden return of his almost vanished limp. These
+things are not symptoms of indolence. They are symptoms of nerves. And
+Desire knew something of nerves. What she did not know, in the present
+case, was their exciting cause. Neither could she understand this new
+reticence on the part of their victim nor his reluctance to admit the
+obvious. She puzzled much about these problems while the lazy one
+rested in the sun and the quiet, golden days wrought the magic of their
+cure.
+
+And Spence, mere man that he was, fancied that she noticed nothing. The
+pleasant illusion hastened his recovery. It tended to restore a
+complacency, rudely disturbed by an enforced realization of his own
+back-sliding. He had been quite furious upon discovering that the
+"little episode" of the moonlit cottage had filched from him all his
+new won strength and nervous stamina, leaving him sleepless and
+unstrung, ready to jump at the rattling of a stone. More and more,
+there grew in him a fierce disdain of weakness and a cold determination
+to beat Nature at her own game. Let him once again be "fit" and wily
+indeed would be the trick which would steal his fitness from him.
+
+Meanwhile, laziness was as good a camouflage as anything and lying on
+the grass while Desire chose her name was pleasant in the extreme.
+
+"Names," murmured the lazy one dreamily, "are things. When a thing is
+'named true' its name and itself become inseparable and identical. That
+is why all magic is wrought by names. It becomes simply a matter of
+knowing the right ones."
+
+"Is that a very new idea, or a very old one?"
+
+"All ideas are ageless, so it must be both."
+
+"I wonder how they named things in the very, very first?" mused Desire.
+"Did they just sit in the sun, as we are sitting, and think and think,
+until suddenly--they knew?"
+
+"Very likely. There is a legend that, in the beginning, everything was
+named true--fire, water, earth, air--so that the souls of everything
+knew their names and were ruled by those who could speak them. But, as
+the race grew less simple and more corrupt, the true names were
+obscured and then lost altogether. Only once or twice in all the ages
+has come some master who has known their secret--such, perhaps, as He
+who could speak peace to the wind and walk upon the sea and change the
+water into wine."
+
+Desire nodded. "Yes," she said. "It feels like that--as if one had
+forgotten. Sometimes when I have been in the woods alone or drifting
+far out on the water, where there was no sound but its own voice, it
+has seemed as if I had only to think--hard--hard--in order to remember!
+Only one never does."
+
+"But one may--there is always the chance. I fancied I was near it
+once--in a shell hole. The stars were big and close and the earth
+seemed light and ready to float away. I almost had it then--my lips
+were just moving upon some mighty word--but someone came. They found me
+and carried me in ... I say, the sun is climbing up, let's follow it."
+
+Hand in hand they followed the line of the sinking sun up the slippery
+slope. They both knew where they were going, for every evening of their
+stay they had wandered there to sit awhile in the little deserted
+Indian burying-ground which lay, white fenced and peaceful, facing the
+flaming west. When they had found it first it had seemed to give the
+last touch of beauty to that beautiful place.
+
+"It is so different," said Desire, searching carefully, as was her way,
+for the proper word. "It is so--so beautifully dead. It ought to be
+like that," she went on thoughtfully. "I never realized before why our
+cemeteries are so sad--it is because we will not let them really
+die--we dress them up with flowers--a kind of ghastly life in death.
+But this--"
+
+They looked around them at the little white-fenced spot with its great
+centre cross, grey and weather-beaten, and all its smaller crosses
+clustering round. There was warmth here, the warmth of sun upon a
+western slope. There was life, too, the natural life of grass and vine,
+the cheerful noise of birds and squirrels and bees. And, for color,
+there were harmonies in all the browns and greens and yellows of the
+rocky soil.
+
+"Let us sit here. They won't mind. They are all sleeping so happily,"
+Desire had declared. "And the crosses make it seem like one large
+family--see how that wild rose vine has spread itself over a whole
+group of graves! It is so friendly."
+
+Spence had fallen in with her humor, and had come indeed to love this
+place where even the sun paused lingeringly before the mountains
+swallowed it up.
+
+This afternoon he flung himself down beside their favorite rose-vine
+with the comfortable sense of well-being which comes with returning
+health. Even more than Desire, he wondered that he had ever hesitated
+before an arrangement so eminently satisfying. If ever events had
+justified an impulse, his impulse, he felt, had been justified. He
+stole a glance at Desire as she sat in pleasant silence gazing into the
+sunset. She was happier already, and younger. Something of that hard
+maturity was fading from her eyes--the tiny dented corners of her lips
+were softer.... Oh, undoubtedly he had done the right thing! And
+everything had run so smoothly. There had been no trouble. No unlocked
+for Nemesis had dogged his steps even in the matter of that small
+strategy concerning his unhappy past. He had been unduly worried about
+that, owing probably to early copy-book aphorisms. Honesty is the best
+policy. Yes, but--nothing had happened. Mary, bless her, was already
+only a memory. She had played her part and slipped back into the void
+from whence she came. He could forget her very name with impunity. A
+faint smile testified to a conscience lulled to warm security.
+
+But security is a dangerous thing. It tempts the fates. Even while our
+strategist smiled, the girl who sat so silently beside him was
+wondering about that smile--and other things. He was much better, she
+reflected, if he could find his passing thoughts amusing. Amusement at
+one's own fancies is a healthy sign. And today she had noticed, also,
+that his laziness was almost natural. Perhaps it might be safe now to
+say what she had made up her mind should be said. But not too abruptly.
+When next she spoke it was merely to continue their previous discussion.
+
+"Do you think people may have 'true' names, too?" she asked presently.
+"Just ordinary people, like you and me?"
+
+Spence nodded. "Always noting," he added, "that you and I are not
+ordinary people."
+
+"Then if anyone knew another's true name, and used it, the other could
+not help responding?"
+
+"Um-m. I suppose not."
+
+"Perhaps that is what love is," said Desire.
+
+Even then no presentiment of coming trouble stirred beneath Spence's
+dangerous serenity. Perhaps it was because the air had made him
+comfortably drowsy. He merely nodded, deftly swallowing a yawn. Desire
+went on:
+
+"Then love is only complete understanding?"
+
+"Always thought it might be some trifle like that," murmured the drowsy
+one. "But don't ask me. How should I know? That is," rousing hastily,
+"I do know, of course. And it is. There's a squirrel eating your hat."
+
+Desire changed the position of the hat. But the subject remained and
+she resumed it dreamily.
+
+"Then in order that it might be quite complete, the understanding would
+have to be mutual. If only one loved, there would always be a lack."
+
+"Not a doubt of it!" said Spence firmly.
+
+"Well, then--don't you see?"
+
+"See? See what? That squirrel's eating your hat again."
+
+"Go away!" said Desire to the squirrel. And, when it had gone, "Don't
+you see?" she repeatedly gravely.
+
+The professor always loved her gravity. And he had not seen. He was, in
+fact, almost asleep. "You tell me," he said, rushing upon destruction.
+
+Then Desire said what she had made up her mind to say. He never knew
+exactly what it was because before she actually said the word "Mary,"
+he was too sleepy, and afterwards he was too dazed.
+
+Mary! The word went through him like an electric shock. It tingled to
+his criminal toes. It whirled through his cringing brain like a
+pinwheel suddenly lighted. It exploded like a bomb in the recesses of
+his false content.
+
+Desire was talking about Mary! Talking about her in that frank and
+unembarrassed way which he had always admired. But good heavens! didn't
+she realize that Mary was dead and buried? No. She evidently did not.
+Far from it. When he was able to listen intelligently once more, Desire
+was saying:
+
+"... and, to a man like you, philosophy should be such a help. I feel
+you will be far, far less unhappy if you do not shut yourself up with
+your memories. Do you suppose I have not noticed how nervous and worn
+out you have been since the night we came away? Why have you tried to
+hide it?"
+
+"I haven't--"
+
+"Yes you have. Please, please don't quibble. And hidden things are so
+dangerous. It isn't as if I would not understand. You ought to give me
+credit for a little knowledge of human nature. I knew perfectly well
+that when you married me--you would think of Mary. You could hardly
+help it."
+
+The professor sat up. He was not at all sleepy now. Mary had "murdered
+sleep." But he was still dazed.
+
+"Wait a moment." He raised a restraining hand. "Let me get this right.
+You say you have noticed a certain lack of energy in my manner of late?"
+
+"Anyone must have noticed it."
+
+"But I explained it, didn't I?"
+
+"Yes?" The slight smile on Desire's lips was sufficient comment on the
+explanation. The professor began to feel injured.
+
+"Then I gather, further, that you do not accept the explanation?"
+
+"Don't be cross! How could I? I have eyes. And my point is simply that
+there is no need for any concealment between us. You promised that we
+should be friends. Friends help friends when they are in trouble."
+
+The professor rumpled his hair The pinwheel in his brain was slowing
+down. Already the marvelous something which accepts and adjusts the
+unexpected was hard at work restoring order. Mary was not dead. He had
+to reckon with Mary. Very well, let Mary look to her-self. Let her
+beware how she harassed a desperate man! Let her--but he was not pushed
+to extremes yet.
+
+"I thought," he said slowly, "that we had tacitly agreed not to reopen
+this subject."
+
+Desire looked surprised.
+
+"And I still think that it would be better, much better to ignore it
+altogether."
+
+"Oh, but it wouldn't," said Desire. "See how dreadfully dumpy you have
+been since Friday."
+
+"I have not been dumpy. But supposing I have, there may be other
+reasons. What if I can honorably assure you that I have not been
+thinking of the past at all?"
+
+"Then I should want to know what you have been thinking of."
+
+"But supposing I were to go further and say that my thoughts are my own
+property?"
+
+"That would be horridly rude, don't you think? And you are not at all a
+rude person. If you'll risk it, I will."
+
+Her smile was insufferably secure.
+
+"You are willing to risk a great deal," snapped Spence. "But if it's
+truth you want--"
+
+He almost confessed then. The temptation to slay Mary with a few well
+chosen words almost overpowered him. But he looked at the expectant
+face beside him and faltered. Mary would not die alone. With her would
+die this newborn comradeship. And Desire's smile, though insufferable,
+was sweet. How would it feel to see that bright look change and pale to
+cold dislike? Already in imagination he shivered under the frozen anger
+of that frank glance.
+
+He could not risk it!
+
+Should he then, ignoring Mary, ascribe his symptoms to their true
+cause? By dragging out the horror of that moonlit night, he could
+account for any vagary of nerves. But that way of escape was equally
+impossible. He could not let that shadow fall across her path of
+new-found freedom. Nor would he, in any case, gain much by such
+postponement. The wretched professor began to realize that the devil is
+indeed the father of lies and that he who sups with him needs a long
+spoon.
+
+Meanwhile, Desire was waiting.
+
+He felt that he would like to shake her--sitting there with untroubled
+air and face like an inquiring sphinx--to shake her and kiss her and
+tell her that there wasn't any Mary and--he brought himself up with a
+start. What nonsense was this!
+
+"Look here," he said irritably, "you are all wrong. You really are.
+It's perfectly true I've been feeling groggy. But there doesn't have to
+be a reason for that, unfortunately. Old Bones warned me that I might
+expect all kinds of come-backs. But I'm almost right again now. Another
+day or two of this heavenly place and I shan't know that I have a
+nerve."
+
+"Yes," critically. "You are better. I should say that the worst was
+over."
+
+"I'm sure it is. Supposing we leave it at that."
+
+Desire smiled her shadowy smile. "Very well. But I wanted you to know
+that I understand. It's so silly to go on pretending not to see, when
+one does see. And it's only natural that things should seem more
+poignant for a time. Only you will recover much more quickly if you
+adopt a sensible attitude. I do not say, 'do not think of Mary,' I say
+'think of her openly.'"
+
+"How," said Spence, "does one think openly?"
+
+"One talks."
+
+"You wish me to talk of Mary?"
+
+"It will be so good for you!" warmly.
+
+They looked for a moment into each other's eyes. And Spence was
+conscious of a second shock. Was there, was there the faintest glint of
+something which was not all sympathy in those grey depths of hers?
+Before his conscious mind had even formulated the question, his other
+mind had asked and answered it, and, with the lightning speed of the
+subconscious, had acted. The professor became aware of a complete
+change of outlook. His remorse and timidity left him. His brain worked
+clearly.
+
+"Very well," said the professor.
+
+The worm had turned!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Mornings are beautiful all over the earth but Nature keeps a special
+kind of morning for early summer use at Friendly Bay. In sudden
+clearness, in chill sweetness, in almost awful purity there is no other
+morning like it. It wrings the human soul quite clear of everything
+save wonder at its loveliness.
+
+Desire never bathed until the sun was up, not because she feared the
+dawn-cold water but because she would not stir the unbroken beauty of
+its opal tide. With the first rays of the sun, the spell would break,
+the waves would dance again, the gulls would soar and dip, the crabs
+would scuttle across the shining sand, the round wet head of a friendly
+seal would pop up here and there to say good-morning. Then, Desire
+would swim--far out--so far that Spence, watching her, would feel his
+heart contract. He could not follow her--yet. But he never begged her
+not to take the risk, if risk there were. Why should she lose one happy
+thrill in her own joyous strength because he feared? Better that she
+should never come back from these long, glorious swims than that he
+should have held her from them by so much as a gesture.
+
+And she always did come back, glowing, dripping, laughing, her head as
+sleek as a young seal's, salt upon her lips and on her wave-whipped
+cheek. Spence, whose swims were shorter and more sedate, would usually
+have breakfast ready.
+
+But upon this particular morning Desire loitered. Though the smell of
+bacon was in the air, she sat pensively in the shallows of an outgoing
+tide and flung shells at the crabs. She would have told you that she
+was thinking. But had she used the word "feeling" she would have been
+nearer the truth. And the thing which she obscurely felt was that
+something had mysteriously altered for the worse in a world which, of
+late, had shown remarkable promise. It was a small thing. She hardly
+knew what it was. Merely a sense of dissonance somewhere.
+
+Whatever it was, it had not been there yesterday. Yesterday morning she
+had felt no desire to sit in the shallows and throw shells at crabs.
+Yesterday morning her mind had been full of that happy inconsequence
+which feels no need of thought. Today was different. Mentally she shook
+herself with some irritation. "What is the matter with you?" she asked.
+But the self she addressed seemed oddly reluctant. "Come now," said
+Desire, hitting an especially big crab, "out with it! There's no use
+pretending that you don't know." Thus adjured, the self offered one
+single and sulky word. The word was "Mary." "Oh, nonsense!" said Desire
+hastily.
+
+But there it was. She had forced the answer and had to make the best of
+it. Her memory trailed back. Once started, it had small difficulty in
+tracking her dissatisfaction to its real beginning. Everything, it
+reminded her, had been perfect until she and Benis had sat upon the
+hill in the sunset and talked about Mary. Something had happened then.
+Like a certain ancestress she had coveted the fruit of knowledge and
+knowledge had been given her. Not at once--Benis had at first been
+distinctly reluctant--but by gentle persistence she had won through his
+cool reserve. Abruptly and without visible reason, his attitude had
+changed. He had said in that drawling voice of his, "You wish me to
+talk about Mary?" And then, suddenly, he had talked.
+
+He had told her several things. The color of Mary's hair, for instance.
+Her hair was yellow. Benis had been insistent in pointing out that when
+he said "yellow" he did not mean goldish or bronze, or fawn-colored or
+tow-colored or Titian, but just yellow. "Do you see that patch of sky
+over there where the mountain dips?" he had said. "Mary's hair was
+yellow, like that."
+
+That patch of sky, as Desire remembered it, was very beautiful. Quite
+too beautiful to be compared to any-one's hair. No doubt it was only in
+Benis's imagination that Mary's hair was anything like it.
+
+But nevertheless it was there that the world had gone wrong. It was
+while Benis had sat gazing into that patch of amber sky that Desire,
+gazing too, had, for the first time, realized the Other. Up until then,
+Mary had been an abstraction--thenceforth she was a personality. That
+made all the difference. Desire, throwing shells at crabs, admitted
+that, for her, there had been no Mary until she had heard that her hair
+was yellow.
+
+It was ridiculous but it was true. Mary without hair had been a gentle
+and retiring shade. A phantom in whom it had been possible to take an
+academic interest. But no shade has a right to hair like an amber
+sunset. Desire threw a shell viciously. Very little more, she felt, and
+she would positively dislike Mary!
+
+She jumped up and stamped in the shallow water. The crabs, big and
+little, scuttled away.
+
+"Hurr-ee!" called the professor waving a frying-pan.
+
+"Com-ing!" Desire's voice rose gaily. For the present, her small
+dissatisfaction vanished with the crabs.
+
+"This coffee has been made ten minutes," grumbled the
+getter-of-breakfast with a properly martyred air. "Whatever were you
+doing?"
+
+"Thinking."
+
+"It isn't done. Not before breakfast."
+
+"I was thinking," fibbed Desire, "that I have never been so spoiled in
+my life and that it can't go on. My domestic conscience is beginning to
+murmur. As soon as we are at home, you will be expected to stay in bed
+until you smell the coffee coming up the stairs."
+
+"Aunt Caroline," said the professor, "does not believe in coffee for
+breakfast, except on Sunday."
+
+"I do."
+
+"Eh? Oh--I see. Well, I'll put my money on you. Only I hope you aren't
+really set on making it yourself. Because the cook would leave.'"
+
+"Good gracious! Do we have a cook?"
+
+"We do. At least, we did. Also a maid. But maids, I understand, are
+greatly diminished. There appear to have been tragedies in Bainbridge.
+Have you eaten sufficient bacon to listen calmly to an extract from
+Aunt Caroline's last? Sit tight, then--
+
+"'As to what the world is coming to in the matter of domestic
+service,'" writes Aunt Caroline, "I do not know. I do not wish to worry
+you, Benis, but as you will be marrying some day, in spite of that
+silly doctor of yours who insists that it's not to be thought of, you
+may as well be conversant with the situation. To put it briefly--I have
+been without competent help for two weeks. You know, dear boy, that I
+am easily satisfied. I expect very little from anyone. But I think that
+I am entitled to prompt and willing service. That, at the very least!
+Yet I must tell you that Mabel, my cook, has left me most ungratefully
+after only three months' notice! She is to be married to Bob Summers,
+the plumber. (Lieutenant Robert Summers, since the war, if you please!)
+Well, she can never say I did not warn her. I did not mince matters. I
+told her exactly what married life is, and why I have never tried it.
+But the foolish girl is beyond advice. I have had two cooks since
+Mabel, but one insisted upon whistling in the kitchen and the other
+served omelette made with one egg. My wants are trifling, as you know,
+but one cannot abrogate all personal dignity--'
+
+"Do you get the subtle connection between the one egg and Aunt
+Caroline's personal dignity?" asked Spence with anxiety. "Because if
+you don't, I'll never be able to ask you to live in Bainbridge. I may
+as well confess now that it was only my serene confidence in your sense
+of humor which permitted me to marry you at all. I should never have
+dared to offer Aunt Caroline as an 'in-law' to anyone who couldn't see
+a joke."
+
+"You are very fond of her all the same," said Desire shrewdly. "And
+though she expects very little from anyone, she evidently adores you.
+She can't be all funny. There must be an Aunt Caroline, deep down, that
+is not funny at all. I think I'm rather afraid of her. Only you have so
+often said that she wished you to get married--"
+
+"Excuse me, my dear. What I said was, 'Aunt Caroline wished to get me
+married.' The position of the infinitive is the important thing. Aunt
+Caroline never intended me to do it all by myself."
+
+"Oh. Then, in that case, she may resent your having done it."
+
+"Resent," cheerfully, "is a feeble word. It doesn't express Aunt
+Caroline at all."
+
+"You take it calmly."
+
+"Well, you see I've got you to fight for me now."
+
+They looked at each other over the empty coffee cups and laughed.
+
+It is easy to laugh on a fine morning. But if they had known where Aunt
+Caroline was at that moment--how-ever, they didn't.
+
+"Once," said Spence "my Aunt read a book upon Eugenics. I don't know
+how it happened. It was one of those inexplicable events for which no
+one can account. It made a deep impression. She has studied me ever
+since with a view to scientific matrimony. Alas, my poor relative!"
+
+"I once read a book upon Eugenics, too," said Desire with a reminiscent
+smile. "It seemed sensible. Of course I was not personally interested
+and that always makes a difference. One thing occurred to me,
+though--it didn't seem to give Nature credit for much judgment."
+
+Benis chuckled. "No, it wouldn't. Terrible old blunderer, Nature!
+Always working for the average. Never seems to have heard the word
+'specialize.' We've got her there."
+
+"Then you think--"
+
+"Oh no," hastily, "I don't. I observe results with interest, that is
+all."
+
+Desire began to collect the breakfast dishes. "That was where the book
+seemed weak," she said thoughtfully. "It hadn't much to say about
+results. It dealt mostly with consequences. They," she added after a
+pause, "were rather frightening."
+
+The professor glanced at her sharply. Had she been worrying over this?
+Had she connected it with that dreadful old man whom she called father?
+But her face was quite untroubled as she went on.
+
+"I think they've missed something, though," she said. "There must be
+something more than the things they tabulate. Some subtle force of life
+which isn't physical at all. Something that uses physical things as
+tools. If its tools are fine, it will do finer work, but if its tools
+are blunt it will work with them anyway. And it gets things done."
+
+"By Jove!" said Spence. This was one of Desire's "windows with a view."
+He was always stumbling upon them. But he knew she was shy of comment.
+"We'll tell Aunt Caroline that," he murmured hopefully. "It may
+distract her mind." ...
+
+That day they found and followed the trail to the shack of Hawk-Eye
+Charlie. It proved to be neither long nor arduous. The professor
+managed it with ease. But he would have been quite unable to manage the
+hawk-eyed one without the expert aid of his secretary. To his
+unaccustomed mind their quarry was almost witless and exceedingly
+dirty. But Desire knew her Indian.
+
+"It isn't what he is, but what he knows," she explained. "And he has a
+retiring nature."
+
+So very retiring was it that only fair words, aided by tactful displays
+of tea and tobacco, could penetrate its reservations. Desire was quite
+unhurried. But presently she began to extract bits of carefully hidden
+knowledge. It had to be slow work, for, witless as he of the hawk-eye
+seemed, he was well aware of the value (in tobacco) of a wise
+conservation. He who babbles all he knows upon first asking is a fool.
+But he who withholds beyond patience is a fool also. Was it not so?
+Desire agreed that a middle course is undoubtedly the path of wisdom.
+She added, carelessly, that the white-man-who-wished-stories was in no
+hurry. Neither had he come seeking much for little. Payment would be
+made strictly on account of value received. The tea was good. And the
+tobacco exceptionally strong, as anyone could tell from a distance. Why
+then should the hawk-eyed one delay his own felicity?
+
+This hastened matters considerably and the secretary's note-book was
+soon busy. Spence felt his oldtime keenness revive. And Desire was
+happy for was not this her work at last? It was a profitable day.
+Should anyone care to know its results, and the results of others like
+it, they may look up chapter six, section two, of Spence's Primitive
+Psychology, unabridged edition. Here they will find that the fables of
+Hawk-Eye Charlie, properly classified and commented upon, have added
+considerably to our knowledge of a fascinating subject. But far be it
+from us to steal the professor's thunder. We are not writing a book
+upon primitive psychology. We are interested only in the sigh of
+pleasurable satisfaction with which the professor's secretary closed
+her fat note-book and called it a day.
+
+From that point our interest leads us back to camp along the trail
+through the warm June woods with the late sunlight hanging like golden
+gauze behind the fretted screens of green. We are interested in sunsets
+and in basket suppers eaten in the dim coolness of a miniature canyon
+through which rushed and tumbled an icy stream from, the snow peaks far
+above. We are interested in a breathless race with a chattering
+squirrel during which Desire's hair came down--a bit of glorious autumn
+in the deep green wood--and the tying of it up again (a lengthy
+process) by the professor with cleverly plaited stems of tender
+bracken. All these trifles interest us because, to those two who knew
+them, they remained fresh and living memories when the note-book and
+its contents were buried in the dust of yesterday.
+
+It was twilight when they came out of the wood. The sun had gone and
+taken its golden trappings with it. A clear, still light was everywhere
+and, in the brilliant green of the far sky, a pale star shone. They
+watched it brighten as the green grew dark. A wonderful purple blueness
+spread upon the distant hills.
+
+Desire sighed happily.
+
+"It is the end of the first day of real work," she said. "The end and
+the beginning."
+
+Her companion, usually like wax to her moods, made no answer. He did
+not seem to hear. His gaze seemed drowned in that wonderful blue.
+Desire, who had been unaccountably content, felt suddenly lonely and
+disturbed.
+
+"What is it?" she asked. Her voice had fallen from its glad note. She
+put out her hand, touching his coat sleeve timidly. It was the first
+time she had ever touched him save in service. But if her touch brought
+a thrill there was no> sign of it. Her voice dropped still lower, "What
+are you thinking of?" she almost whispered.
+
+The professor did not answer. Instead he turned to her with a sad
+smile. (Very well done, too!)
+
+Desire dropped her hand with a sharp exclamation. "Oh," she said, "I
+forgot! You were thinking--"
+
+The professor's smile smote her.
+
+"Her eyes were blue like that!" he said.
+
+Desire tripped over a fallen branch. And, when she recovered herself,
+"Purple, do you mean?" she asked. "I have always thought purple eyes
+were a myth."
+
+"Now you are making fun," said the professor after a reproachful pause.
+
+"How do you mean--making fun?"
+
+"'I never saw a purple cow,'" quoted he patiently.
+
+"Oh, I wasn't!" cried Desire in distress.
+
+Spence begged her pardon. But he did it abstractedly. His eyes were
+still upon the sky.
+
+"You'll fall over that root," prophesied she grimly. "Do look where you
+are going!"
+
+The professor returned to earth with difficulty. "Sorry!" he murmured.
+"I doubt if I should allow these moods to bother you. But you told me
+it might do me good to talk."
+
+"Not all the time!" said Desire a trifle tartly.
+
+He looked surprised. "But--" he began.
+
+"Oh, I'm so hungry!" said Desire. "Do let's hurry."
+
+She hastened ahead down the slope towards the camp. The tents lay in
+the shadow now but, as they neared them, a flickering light shot up as
+if in welcome. Desire paused.
+
+"Someone lighting a fire!" she exclaimed in surprise. "Who can it be?"
+
+Against the glow of the new-lit blaze a tall figure lifted itself and a
+clear whistle cut the silence of the Bay.
+
+Spence's graceful melancholy dropped from him like a forgotten cloak.
+
+"Bones!" he gasped in an agitated whisper. "Oh, my prophetic soul, my
+doctor!"
+
+Another figure rose against the glow--a wider figure who called shrilly
+through a cupped hand.
+
+"Ben--is!"
+
+"My Aunt!" said the professor.
+
+He sat down suddenly behind a boulder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+To understand Aunt Caroline's arrival at Friendly Bay we should have to
+understand Aunt Caroline, and that, as Euclid says, is absurd.
+Therefore we shall have to take the arrival for granted. The only light
+which she herself ever shed upon the matter was a statement that she
+"had a feeling." And feelings, to Aunt Caroline, were the only reliable
+things in a strictly unreliable world. To follow a feeling across a
+continent was a trifle to a determined character such as hers. To
+insist upon Dr. Rogers following it, too, was a matter of course.
+
+"I shall need an escort," said Aunt Caroline to that astonished
+physician, "and you will do very nicely. If Benis is off his head, as
+you suggest, it is my plain duty to look into the matter and your plain
+duty, as his medical adviser, to accompany me. I am a woman who demands
+little from her fellow creatures, knowing perfectly well that she won't
+get it, but I naturally refuse to undertake the undivided
+responsibility of a deranged nephew galavanting, by your own orders,
+Doctor, at the ends of the earth."
+
+"I did not say he was deranged," began the doctor helplessly, "and you
+said you didn't believe me anyway."
+
+"Don't quote me to excuse yourself." Aunt Caroline sailed serenely on.
+"At least preserve the courage of your convictions. There is certainly
+something the matter with Benis. He has answered none of my letters. He
+has completely ignored my lettergrams. To my telegram of Thursday
+telling him that I had been compelled to discharge my third cook since
+Mabel for wiping dishes on a hand towel, he replied only by silence.
+And the telegraph people say that the message was never delivered owing
+to lack of address. Easy as I am to satisfy, things like this cannot be
+allowed to continue. My nephew must be found."
+
+"But we don't know where to look for him," objected her victim weakly.
+
+Aunt Caroline easily rose superior to this.
+
+"We have a map, I hope? And Vancouver, heathenish name! must be marked
+on it somewhere. If not, the railroad people can tell us."
+
+"But he is not in Vancouver."
+
+"There--or thereabouts. When we get there we can ask the policeman,
+or," with a grim twinkle, "we can enquire at the asylums. You forget
+that my nephew is a celebrated man even if he is a fool."
+
+The doctor gave in. He hadn't had a chance from the beginning, for Aunt
+Caroline could answer objections far faster than he could make them.
+They arrived at the terminus just four days after the expeditionary
+party had left for Friendly Bay.
+
+If Aunt Caroline were surprised at finding more than one policeman in
+Vancouver, she did not admit it. Neither did the general atmosphere of
+ignorance as to Benis daunt her in the least. She adhered firmly to her
+campaign of question asking and found it fully justified when inquiry
+at the post-office revealed that all letters for Professor Benis H.
+Spence were to be delivered to the care of the Union Steamship Company.
+From the Union Steamship Company to the professor's place of refuge was
+an easy step. But Dr. Rogers, to whom this last inquiry had been
+intrusted, returned to the hotel with a careful jauntiness of manner
+which ill accorded with a disturbed mind.
+
+"Well, we've found him," he announced cheerfully. "And now, if we are
+wise, I think we'll leave him alone. He is camping up the coast at a
+place called Friendly Bay--no hotels, no accommodation for ladies--he
+is evidently perfectly well and attending to business. You know he came
+out here partly to get material for his book? Well, that's what he's
+doing. Must be, because there are only Indians up there."
+
+"Indians? What do you mean--Indians? Wild ones?"
+
+"Fairly wild."
+
+Aunt Caroline snorted. She is one of the few ladies left who possess
+this Victorian, accomplishment. "And you advise my leaving my sister's
+child in his present precarious state of mind alone among fairly wild
+Indians?"
+
+"Well--er--that's just it, you see. He isn't alone--not exactly."
+
+"What do you mean--not exactly?"
+
+"I mean that his--er--secretary is with him. He has to have a secretary
+on account of never being sure whether receive is 'ie' or 'ei.' They
+are quite all right, though. The captain of the boat says so. And
+naturally on a trip of that kind, research you know, a man doesn't like
+to be interrupted."
+
+Aunt Caroline arose. "When does the next boat leave?" She asked calmly.
+
+"But--dash it all! We're not invited. We can't butt in. I--I won't go."
+
+Aunt Caroline, admirable woman, knew when she was defeated. She had a
+formula for it, a formula which seldom failed to turn defeat into
+victory. When all else failed, Aunt Caroline collapsed. She collapsed
+now. She had borne a great deal, she had not complained, but to be told
+that her presence would be a "butting in" upon the only living child of
+her only dead sister was more than even her fortitude could endure! No,
+she wouldn't take a glass of water, water would choke her. No, she
+wouldn't lie down. No, she wouldn't lower her voice. What did hotel
+people matter to her? What did anything matter? She had come to the
+end. Accustomed to ingratitude as she was, hardened to injustice and
+desertion, there were still limits--
+
+There were. The doctor had reached his. Hastily he explained that she
+had mistaken his meaning. And, to prove it, engaged passage at once,
+for the next upcoast trip, on the same little steamer which a few days
+earlier had carried Mr. and Mrs. Benis H. Spence.
+
+It was a heavenly day. The mountains lifted them-selves out of veils of
+tinted mist, the islands lay like jewels--but Aunt Caroline, impervious
+to mere scenery, turned her thought severely inward.
+
+"I suppose," she said to her now subdued escort, "that we shall have to
+pay the secretary a month's salary. Benis will scarcely wish to take
+him back east with us."
+
+The doctor attempted to answer but seemed to have some trouble with his
+throat.
+
+"It's the damp air," said Aunt Caroline. "Have a troche. If Benis
+really needs a secretary I think I can arrange to get one for him. Do
+you remember Mary Davis? Her mother was an Ashton--a very good family.
+But unfortunate. The girls have had to look out for themselves rather.
+Mary took a course. She could be a secretary, I'm sure. Benis could
+always correct things afterward. And she is not too young. Just about
+the right age, I should think. They used to know each other. But you
+know what Benis is. He simply doesn't--your cold is quite distressing,
+Doctor. Do take a troche."
+
+The doctor took one.
+
+"Of course Benis may object to a lady secretary--"
+
+"By Jove," said Rogers as if struck with a brilliant idea. "Perhaps his
+secretary is a lady!"
+
+"How do you mean--a lady! Don't be absurd, Doctor. You said yourself
+there was no proper hotel. Benis is discreet. I'll say that for him."
+
+The doctor's brilliance deserted him. He twiddled his thumbs. But
+although Aunt Caroline's repudiation of his suggestion had been
+unhesitating there was a gleam of new uneasiness in her eye. She said
+no more. It was indeed quite half an hour before she remarked
+explosively.
+
+"Unless it were an Indian!"
+
+Her companion turned from the scenery in pained surprise.
+
+"An Indian what?" he asked blankly.
+
+"An Indian secretary--a female one."
+
+"Nonsense. Indians aren't secretaries."
+
+But Aunt Caroline had "had a feeling." "It was your-self who suggested
+that she might be a girl," she declared stubbornly, "and if she is a
+girl, she must be an Indian. Indians are different--look at Pullman
+porters."
+
+The doctor gasped.
+
+"Even I don't mind a Pullman porter," finished Aunt Caroline grandly.
+
+"That's very nice," the doctor struggled to adjust him-self. "But
+Pullman porters are not Indians, and even if they were I can't quite
+see how it affects Benis and his lady secretary."
+
+"The principle," said Aunt Caroline, "is the same."
+
+Rogers wondered if his brain were going. At any rate he felt that he
+needed a smoke. Aunt Caroline did not like smoke, so comparative
+privacy was assured. Also, a good smoke might show him a way out of his
+difficulty.
+
+It didn't. At the end of the second cigar the cold fact, imparted by
+the clerk in the steamship office, that Professor Spence and wife had
+preceded them upon this very boat, was still a cold fact and nothing
+more. The long letter from the bridegroom which would have made things
+plain had passed him on his trip across the continent and was even now
+lying, with other unopened mail, in his Bainbridge office.
+
+If Benis were married, then the bride could be no other than the
+nurse-secretary he had written about in that one inconsequent letter to
+which he, Rogers, had replied with unmistakable warning. But the thing
+seemed scarcely credible. If it were a fact, then it might very easily
+be a tragedy also. Marriage in such haste and under such circumstances
+could scarcely be other than a mistake, and considering the quality of
+Benis Spence, a most serious one.
+
+John Rogers was very fond of his eccentric friend and the threatened
+disaster loomed almost personal. He felt himself to blame too, for the
+advice which had thrown Spence directly from the frying-pan of Aunt
+Caroline into the fire of a sterner fate. Add to all this a keen
+feeling of unwarranted intrusion and we have some idea of the state of
+mind with which Dr. John Rogers saw the white tents of the campers as
+the steamer put in at Friendly Bay.
+
+"There are two tents," said Aunt Caroline lowering her lorgnette. "I
+shall be quite comfortable."
+
+The doctor did not smile. His sense of humor was suffering from
+temporary exhaustion and his strongest consciousness was a feeling of
+relief that neither Benis nor anyone else appeared to notice their
+arrival. Even the unique spectacle of a middle-aged lady in
+elastic-sided boots proceeding on tiptoe, and with all the tactics of a
+scouting party, toward the evidently deserted tents provoked no
+demonstration from anyone.
+
+"They're not here!" called the scouting party in a carrying whisper.
+
+"Obviously not." The doctor wiped his heated fore-head. "Probably
+they've gone for the night. Then you'll have to marry me to save my
+reputation."
+
+"Jokes upon serious subjects are in very bad taste, young man," said
+Aunt Caroline. But her rebuke was half-hearted. She looked uneasy.
+"John," she added with sudden suspicion, "you don't suppose they could
+have known we were coming?"
+
+"How could they possibly?"
+
+"If she is an Indian, they might. I've heard of such things. I--oh,
+John! Look!"
+
+"Snake?" asked John callously. Nevertheless he followed Aunt Caroline's
+horrified gaze and saw, with a thrill of more normal interest, a pair
+of dainty moccasins whose beaded toes protruded from the flap of one of
+the tents.
+
+"Indian!" gasped Aunt Caroline. "Oh John!"
+
+"Not a bit of it!" Our much tried physician spoke with salutary
+shortness. "They may be Indian-made but that's all. I'll eat my hat if
+it's an Indian who has worn them. Did you ever see an Indian with a
+foot like that?"
+
+Indignation enabled Aunt Caroline to disclaim acquaintance with any
+Indian feet whatever.
+
+"It's a white girl's moccasin," he assured her. "Lots of girls wear
+them in camp. Or," hastily, "it may be a curiosity. Benis may be making
+a collection."
+
+Aunt Caroline snorted. Her gaze was fixed with almost piteous intensity
+upon the tent.
+
+"D'you think I might go in?" she faltered.
+
+"You might" said John carefully.
+
+Aunt Caroline sighed.
+
+"How dreadful to have traditions!" she murmured. "There's no real
+reason why I shouldn't go in. And," with grim honesty, "if you weren't
+here watching I believe I'd do it. Anyway we may have to, if they don't
+come soon. I can't sit on this grass. I'm sure it's damp."
+
+"I'll get you a chair from Benis's tent," offered John unkindly. "There
+are no traditions to forbid that, are there?"
+
+"No. And, John--you might look around a little? Just to make sure."
+
+The doctor nodded. He had every intention of looking around. He felt,
+in fact, entitled to any knowledge which his closest observation might
+bring him. But the tent was almost empty. That at least proved that the
+tent belonged to Spence. He was a man with an actual talent for
+bareness and spareness in his sleeping quarters. Even his room at
+school had possessed that man-made neatness which one associates with
+sailor's cabins and the cells of monks. The camp-bed was trimly made, a
+dressing-gown lay across a canvas chair, a shaving mug hung from the
+centre pole--there was not so much as a hairpin anywhere.
+
+John crossed thoughtfully to the folding stand which stood with its
+portable reading lamp beside the bed. There was one unusual thing
+there, a photograph. Benis, as his friend knew, was an expert amateur
+photographer--but he never perched his photographs upon stands. This
+one must be an exception, and exceptions are illuminating.
+
+It was still quite light inside the tent and the doctor could see the
+picture clearly. It was an extraordinarily good one, quite in the
+professor's happiest style. Composition, lighting, timing, all were
+perfect. But it is doubtful if John Rogers noticed any of these
+excellencies. He was absorbed at once and utterly in the personality of
+the person photographed. This was a girl, bending over a still pool.
+The pose was one of perfectly arrested grace and the face which was
+lifted, as if at the approach of someone, looked directly out of the
+picture and into Roger's eyes. It was the most living picture he had
+ever seen. The lips were parted as if for speech, there was a smile
+behind the widely opened eyes. And both face and form were beautiful.
+
+The doctor straightened up with a sharply drawn breath. It seemed that
+something had happened. For one flashing instant some inner knowledge
+had linked him with his own unlived experience. It was gone as soon as
+it came. He did not even realize it, save as a sense of strangeness.
+Yet, as a chemist lifts a vial and drops the one drop which changes all
+within his crucible, so some magic philtre tinged John Roger's cup of
+life in that one stolen look.
+
+"Have you found anything?" Aunt Caroline's voice came impatiently.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+But to himself he added "everything" for indeed the mystery of Benis
+seemed a mystery no longer. The photograph made everything clear. And
+yet not so clear, either. The doctor looked around at the ship-shape
+bachelorness of the tent, at the neat pile of newly typed manuscript
+upon the bed, and felt bewildered. Even the eccentricity of Benis, in
+its most extravagant mode, seemed inadequate as a covering explanation.
+
+Giving himself a mental shake, the intruder picked up the largest chair
+and rejoined Aunt Caroline.
+
+"It's Benis right enough," he announced. "He is probably off
+interviewing Indians. I had better light a fire. It may break the news."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+We left the professor somewhat abruptly in the midst of a cryptic
+ejaculation of "My Aunt!"
+
+"How can it be your Aunt?" asked Desire reasonably.
+
+"I don't know how. But, owing to some mysterious combination of the
+forces of nature, it is my Aunt. No one else could wear that hat."
+
+"Then hadn't we better go to meet her? You can't sit here all night."
+
+"I know I can't. It's too near. We didn't see her soon enough!"
+
+"Cowardly custard!" said Desire, stamping her foot.
+
+The professor's mild eyes blinked at her in surprise. "Good!" he said
+with satisfaction. "That is the first remark suitable to your extreme
+youth that I've ever heard you make. But the sentiment it implies is
+all wrong. Physical courage, as such, is mere waste when opposed to my
+Aunt. What is wanted is technique. Technique requires thought. Thought
+requires leisure. That is why I am sitting here behind a boulder--what
+is she doing now?"
+
+Desire investigated.
+
+"She is walking up and down."
+
+"A bad sign. It doesn't leave us much time. The most difficult point is
+the introduction. Now, in an introduction, what counts for most?
+Ancestors, of course. My dear, have you any ancestors?"
+
+"Not one."
+
+"I was afraid of that. In fact I had intended to provide a few. But I
+never dreamed they would be needed so soon. What is she doing now?"
+
+"She has stopped walking. She has turned. She is coming this way."
+
+"Then we must take our chance." The professor rose briskly. "Never
+allow the enemy to attack. Come on. But keep behind me while I draw her
+fire."
+
+Aunt Caroline advanced in full formation.
+
+"Benis. Ben--nis!" she called piercingly. "He can't be very far away,"
+she declared over her shoulder. "I have a feeling--Benis!"
+
+"Who calls so loud?" quoted the professor innocently, appearing with
+startling suddenness from behind the boulder. "Why!" in amazed
+recognition. "It is Aunt Caroline!"
+
+"It is." Aunt Caroline corroborated grimly.
+
+"This is a surprise," exclaimed the professor. As we have noted before,
+he liked to be truthful when possible. "How'd'do, Aunt! However did you
+get here?"
+
+"How I came," replied Aunt Caroline, "is not material. The fact that I
+am here is sufficient."
+
+"Quite," said Benis. "But," he added in a puzzled tone, "you are not
+alone. Surely, my dear Aunt, I see----"
+
+"You see Dr. Rogers who has kindly accompanied me."
+
+"John Rogers here? With you?" In rising amazement.
+
+"It is a detail." Aunt Caroline's voice was somewhat tart. "I could
+scarcely travel unaccompanied."
+
+"Surely not. But really--was there no lady friend--"
+
+"Don't be absurd, Benis!" But she was obscurely conscious of a check.
+Against the disturbed surprise of her nephew's attitude her sharpened
+weapons had already turned an edge. Only one person can talk at a time,
+and, to her intense indignation, she found herself displaced as the
+attacking party. Also the behavior of her auxiliary force was
+distinctly apologetic.
+
+"Hello, Benis!" said Rogers, coming up late and reluctant. "Sorry to
+have dropped in on you like this. But your Aunt thought--"
+
+"Don't say a word, my dear fellow! No apology is necessary. I am quite
+sure she did. But it might be a good idea for you to do a little
+thinking yourself occasionally. Aunt is so rash. How were you to know
+that you would find us at home? Rather a risk, what? Luckily, Aunt,"
+turning to that speechless relative with reassurance, "it is quite all
+right. My wife will be delighted--Desire, my dear, permit me--Aunt, you
+will be glad, I'm sure--this is Desire. Desire, this is your new Aunt."
+
+"How do you do?" said Desire. "I have never had an Aunt before."
+
+It was the one thing which she should have said. Had she known Aunt
+Caroline for years she could not have done better. But, unfortunately,
+that admirable lady did not hear it. She had heard nothing since the
+shattering blow of the word "wife."
+
+"John," she said hoarsely. "Take me away. Take me away at once!"
+
+"Certainly," said John, "Only it's frightfully damp in the woods. And
+there may be bears."
+
+"Bears or not. I can't stay here."
+
+"Oh, but you must," Desire came forward with innocent hospitality. "You
+can sleep on my cot and I'll curl up in a blanket. I am quite used to
+sleeping out."
+
+Aunt Caroline closed her eyes. It was true then. Benis Spence had
+married a squaw! Blindly she groped for the supporting hand of the
+doctor. "John," she moaned, "did you hear that? Sleeping out--oh how
+could he?"
+
+"Very easily, I should think." Under the slight handicap of assisting
+the drooping lady to her chair, John Rogers looked back at Desire,
+standing now within the radius of the camp fire's light--and once again
+he felt the strangeness as of some half-glimpsed prophecy. "She is
+wonderful," he added. "Look!"
+
+Aunt Caroline looked, shuddered, and collapsed again upon a whispered
+"Indian!"
+
+"Nonsense!" Rogers almost shook her. And yet, considering the
+suggestive force of the poor lady's preconceived ideas, the mistake was
+not unpardonable. In those surroundings, against that flickering light,
+standing, straight and silent in her short skirt and moccasins, her
+leaf-brown hair tied with bracken and turned to midnight black by the
+shadows, her grey eyes mysterious under their dark lashes, and her lips
+unsmiling, Desire might well have been some beauty of that vanishing
+race. A princess, perhaps, waiting with grave courtesy for the welcome
+due her from her husband's people.
+
+"And not a bit ashamed of it," murmured Aunt Caroline in what she
+fondly hoped was a whisper. "Utterly callous! Benis," in a wavering
+voice, "I had a feeling--"
+
+"Wait!" interrupted Benis, producing a notebook and pencil. "Let us be
+exact, Aunt. Just when did you notice the feeling first?"
+
+"What difference does that make?" Aunt Caroline's voice was perceptibly
+stronger.
+
+"Why," eagerly, "don't you see? If you had the feeling at the time
+(allowing for difference by the sun) it is a case of actual
+clairvoyance. If the feeling was experienced previous to the fact then
+it is a case of premonition only, and, if after, the whole thing can be
+explained as mere telepathy."
+
+"Oh," said Aunt Caroline. But she said it thoughtfully. Her voice was
+normal.
+
+"Wonderful thing--this psychic sense," went on her nephew. "Fancy
+you're knowing all about it even before you got my letter!"
+
+"Did you send a letter?" asked Aunt Caroline after a pause. "Why Aunt!
+Of course. Two of them. Before and after. But I might have known you
+would hardly need them. If you had only arrived a few days sooner, you
+might have been present at the ceremony."
+
+"Ceremony? There was a ceremony?"
+
+"My dear Aunt!"
+
+"The Church service?"
+
+"My dear Aunt!"
+
+"In a church?"
+
+"Not exactly a church. You see it was rather late in the evening. The
+care-taker had gone to bed. In fact we had to get the Rector out of
+his."
+
+"Bern's!"
+
+"He didn't mind. Said he'd sleep all the better for it. And he wore his
+gown--over his pyjamas--very effective."
+
+"Had the man no conscientious scruples?" sternly.
+
+"Scruples--against pyjamas?"
+
+"Against mixed marriages."
+
+"I don't know. I didn't ask him. We weren't discussing the ethics of
+mixed marriage."
+
+"Don't pretend to misunderstand me, Benis. For a man who has married an
+Indian, your levity is disgraceful."
+
+"How ridiculous, Aunt! If you will listen to an explanation--"
+
+"I need no explanation," Aunt Caroline, once more mistress of herself
+rose majestically. "I hope I know an Indian when I see one. I am not
+blind, I believe. But as there seems to be no question as to the
+marriage, I have nothing further to say. Another woman in my place
+might feel justified in voicing a just resentment, but I have made it a
+rule to expect nothing from any relative, especially if that relative
+be, even partially, a Spence. When my poor, dear sister married your
+father I told her what she was doing. And she lived to say, 'Caroline,
+you were right!' That was my only reward. More I have never asked. All
+that I have ever required of my sister's child has been ordinary
+docility and reliance upon my superior sense and judgment. Now when I
+find that, in a matter so serious as marriage, neither my wishes nor my
+judgment have been considered, I am not surprised. I may be shocked,
+outraged, overwhelmed, but I am not surprised."
+
+"Bravo!" said Benis involuntarily. He couldn't help feeling that Aunt
+Caroline was really going strong. "What I mean to say," he added, "is
+that you are quite right Aunt, except in these particulars, in which
+you are entirely wrong. But before we go further, what about a little
+sustenance. Aren't you horribly hungry?"
+
+"I am sure they are both starved," said Desire. "And I hate to remind
+you that you ate the last sandwich. Will you make Aunt Caroline
+comfortable while I cut some more? Perhaps Dr. John will help
+me--although we haven't shaken hands yet."
+
+She held out her hands to the uneasy doctor with a charming gesture of
+understanding. "Did you expect to see a squaw, too', Doctor?"
+
+"I expected to see, just you." His response was a little too eager. "I
+had seen you before--by a pool, bending over--"
+
+"Oh, the photograph? Benis is terribly proud of it,"
+
+"Best I've ever done," confirmed the professor. "Did you notice the
+curious light effect on that silver birch at the left?"
+
+"Wonderful," said Rogers, but he wasn't thinking of the light effect on
+the silver birch. As he followed Desire to the tent his orderly mind
+was in a tumult. "He doesn't know how wonderful she is!" he thought.
+"And she doesn't care whether he does or not. And that explains--" But
+he saw in a moment that it didn't explain anything. It only made the
+mystery deeper.
+
+"And now, Benis, that we are alone--" began Aunt Caroline....
+
+We may safely leave out several pages here. If you realize Aunt
+Caroline at all, you will see that at least so much self-expression is
+necessary before anyone else can expect a chance. Time enough to pick
+up the thread again when the inevitable has happened and her exhausted
+vocabulary is replaced by tears.
+
+"Not that I care at all for my own feelings," wept Aunt Caroline.
+"There are others to think of. What will Bainbridge say?"
+
+Her nephew roused himself. From long experience he knew that the worst
+was over.
+
+"Bainbridge, my dear Aunt," he said, "will say exactly what you tell it
+to say. It was because we realized this that we decided to leave the
+whole matter in your hands--all the announcing and things. But of
+course," with resignation, "if we have taken too much for granted; if
+you are not equal to it, we had better not come back to Bainbridge at
+all."
+
+"Oh," cried Aunt Caroline with fresh tears. "My poor boy! The very
+idea! To think that I should live to hear you say it! How gladly I
+would have saved you from this had I known in time."
+
+"I am sure you would, Aunt. But the gladness would have been all yours.
+I did not want to be saved, you see, and people who are saved against
+their will are so frightfully ungrateful. Wouldn't you like a dry
+hanky? Just wait till you've had a couple of dozen sandwiches. You'll
+feel quite differently. Think what a relief it will be to have me off
+your mind. You can relax now, and rest. You've been overworking for
+years. Consider how peaceful it will be not to have to ask any more
+silly girls to visit. You know you hated it, really, and only did it
+for my sake."
+
+"I did everything for your sake," moaned Aunt Caroline brokenly. "And
+they were silly. But I hoped you would not notice it. And you will
+never know what I went through trying to get them down for breakfast at
+nine."
+
+"I can imagine it," with ready sympathy. "They always yawned. And there
+must have been many darker secrets which I never guessed. You kept them
+from me. Do you remember that hole in Ada's stocking?"
+
+"Yes, but I--"
+
+"Never mind. The fib wasn't nearly as big as the hole. But how could
+you expect me to help noticing the general lightness and frivolity of
+your visitors, shown up so plainly against the background of your own
+character?"
+
+"Y-es. I didn't think of that"
+
+"Perhaps I should never have married if I had not got away--from the
+comparison, I mean."
+
+"There was a danger, I suppose. But," with renewed grief, "Oh, Benis,
+such a wedding! No cards, no cake--and in pyjamas--oh!"
+
+"Come now, Aunt, don't give way! And do you feel that it is quite right
+to criticise the clergy? I always fancy that it is the first step
+toward free-thinking. And you couldn't see much of them, you know, only
+the legs. Besides, consider what a wedding with cards and cake would
+have meant in Bainbridge at this time. No second maid, no proper cook!
+We should have appeared at a disadvantage in the eyes of the whole
+town. As it is, we can take our time, engage competent help, select a
+favorable date and give a reception which will be the very last word in
+elegance."
+
+"Yes! I could get--what am I talking about? Of course I shan't do
+anything of the kind. How can you ask me to? Oh, Benis--a heathen!"
+
+"Not a bit of it, Aunt. Church of England. But I can see what has
+happened. You have been allowing old Bones to cloud your judgment. I
+never knew a fellow so prone to jump to idiotic conclusions. No doubt
+he heard that I had come in search of Indians and, without a single
+inquiry, decided that I had married one."
+
+"It was hasty of him. I admit that," said Aunt Caroline wiping her eyes.
+
+"But with your knowledge of my personal character you will understand
+that my interest in, and admiration for, our aborigines in their darker
+and wilder state--"
+
+"John said they were only fairly wild."
+
+"Well, even in a fairly wild state. Or indeed in a wholly tame one. My
+interest at any time is purely scientific and would never lead me to
+marry into their family circle. My wife's father, as a matter of fact,
+is English. A professional man, retired, and living upon a
+small--er--estate near Vancouver. Her mother, who died when Desire was
+a child, was English also."
+
+"Who took care of the child?"
+
+"A Chinaman." The professor was listening to Desire's distant laugh and
+answered absently with more truth than wisdom.
+
+"What!" The tone of horror brought him back.
+
+"Oh, you mean who brought her up? Her father, of course."
+
+"You said a Chinaman."
+
+"They had a Chinese cook."
+
+"Scandalous! Had the child no Aunt?"
+
+The professor sighed. "Poor girl," he said. "One of the first things
+she told me about herself was, 'I have no Aunt.'"
+
+Aunt Caroline polished her nose thoughtfully.
+
+"That would account for a great deal," she admitted. "And her being
+English on both sides is something. Now that you speak of it, I did
+notice a slight accent. I never met an English person yet who could say
+"a" properly. But she is young and may learn. In the meantime--"
+
+"The sandwiches are ready," called Desire from the tent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+"And do you mean to tell me that she really believes that lie?"
+
+Benis Spence had taken his medical adviser up the slope to the Indian
+burying-ground. It was the one place within reasonable radius where
+they were not likely to be interrupted by periodic appearances of Aunt
+Caroline. Aunt Caroline never took liberties with burying-grounds. "A
+graveyard is a graveyard," said Aunt Caroline, "and not a place for
+casual conversation." There-fore, amid the graves and the crosses, the
+friends felt fairly safe.
+
+"Why shouldn't she believe it?" countered Spence. "Don't you suppose I
+can tell a lie properly?"
+
+"To be honest--I don't."
+
+"Well," somewhat gloomily, "this one seemed to go over all right. It
+went much farther than I ever expected. It's far too up-and-coming. The
+way it grows frightens me. At first there was nothing--just an
+'experience.' A mild abstraction, buried in the past, a sentimental
+'has-been' without form or substance. Then, without warning, the
+experience acquired a name, and then a history and then, just when I
+had begun to forget about it, hair suddenly popped up, yellow hair,
+and, the day after, eyes--blue eyes, misty. The nose remains
+indeterminate, but noses often do. Only yesterday I felt compelled to
+add a mouth. Small and red, I made it--ugh! How I hate a small red
+mouth. Oh, if it amuses you--all right!"
+
+"Laugh at it yourself, old man! It's all you can do. But what a
+frightful list of blunders. If you had to tell a lie why didn't you
+take Mark Twain's advice and tell a good one? The name, for
+instance--why on earth did you choose 'Mary?' Even 'Marion' would have
+been safer. Don't you know you can't turn a corner in Bainbridge or
+anywhere else without stumbling over a Mary? There's a Mary in my
+office at the present minute and--yes, by Jove, she has golden hair!"
+
+The professor looked stubborn.
+
+"My Mary's hair was not golden. It was yellow, plain yellow. I remember
+I made a point of that."
+
+"Well then, there's Mary Davis. You remember her?"
+
+"The one who visited Aunt Caroline?"
+
+"Yes. Pretty girl. About your own age! 'Twas thought in Bainbridge that
+her thoughts turned youward. Her hair was yellow then, and may be again
+by now. And she had blue eyes, bright blue."
+
+"My Mary's were not bright blue. Hers were misty, like the hills."
+
+"Forget it, old man! You'll find you won't be able to insist on shades.
+Any Mary with golden, yellow, tawny or tow-colored hair, and old blue,
+grey blue, Alice blue or plain blue eyes will come under Mrs. Spence's
+reflective observation. Your progress will be a regular charge of the
+light brigade with Marys on all sides."
+
+"Now you're making yourself unpleasant," said the professor. "And, to
+change the subject, why do you insist upon calling Desire 'Mrs.
+Spence?' She calls you John."
+
+To his questioner's infinite amazement the doctor blushed.
+
+"She has told me I might," he admitted. "But it seemed so dashed
+cheeky."
+
+"Why? You are at least ten years older than she. And a friend of the
+family."
+
+"Ten years is nothing," said the doctor. "And I want to be her friend,
+not a friend of the family. Besides, she, herself, is not at all like
+the girls of twenty whom one usually meets."
+
+"She is simpler, perhaps."
+
+"In manner, but not in character. There is a distance, a poise,
+a--surely you feel what I mean."
+
+"Imagination, John. It is you who create the distance by clinging to
+formality."
+
+"All right. You're sure you don't object?"
+
+"My dear Bones, why should I possibly?"
+
+The doctor looked sulky. Benis smiled.
+
+"Look here, John," he said after a reflective pause. "Desire is as
+direct as a child. If she calls you by your first name you can depend
+that she feels no embarrassment about it. So why should you? And
+there's another thing. She may not find everything quite easy in
+Bainbridge. She will need your frank and unembarrassed friendship--as
+well as mine."
+
+"Yours?"
+
+"Yes. You understand the situation, don't you? At least as far as
+understanding is necessary. And you are the only one who will
+understand. So you will be of more use to her than anyone else, except
+me. I am going to do my best to make her happy. It's my job. I am not
+turning it over to you. But there may be times when I shall fail. There
+may be times when I shan't know that she isn't happy--a lack of
+perspective or something. If ever there comes a time like that and you
+know of it, don't spare me. I have taken the responsibility of her
+youth upon my shoulders and I am not going to shirk. It will be her
+happiness first--at all costs."
+
+"People aren't usually made happy at all costs," said the doctor wisely.
+
+"They may be, if they do not know the price."
+
+"I see."
+
+"You'll know where I stand a bit better when you've read a letter
+you'll find waiting for you at home. But here is the whole point of the
+matter--I had to get Desire away from that devilish old parent of hers.
+And marriage was the only effective way. But Desire did not want
+marriage. She has never told me just why but I have seen and heard
+enough to know that her horror of the idea is deep seated, a spiritual
+nausea, an abnormal twist which may never straighten. I say 'may,'
+because there is a good chance the other way. All one can do is to
+wait. And in the meantime I want her to find life pleasant. She once
+told me that she was a window-gazer. I want to open all the doors."
+
+"Except the one door that; matters," said Rogers gloomily.
+
+"Nonsense! You don't believe that. Life has many things to give besides
+the love of man and woman."
+
+"Has it? You'll know better some day--even a cold-blooded fish like
+you."
+
+"Fish?" said Spence sorrowfully. "And from mine own familiar friend?
+Fish!"
+
+"What will you do," exploded the doctor, "when she wakes up and finds
+how you have cheated her? When she realizes, too late, that she has
+sold her birthright?"
+
+The professor rose slowly and dusted the dry grass from the knees of
+his knickers. "Tut, tut!" he said, "the subject excites you. Let us
+talk about me for a change. Observe me carefully, John, and tell me
+what you think of me. Only not in marine language. Am I an Apollo? Or a
+Greek god? Or even a movie star of the third magnitude? Or am I, not to
+put too fine a point on it, as homely as a hedge fence?"
+
+"Oh, hang it, Benis, stop your fooling."
+
+"I'm not fooling. I want you to understand that I have consulted my
+mirror. And I know just how likely I am to appeal to the imagination of
+a young girl. I take my chance, nevertheless. Your question, divested
+of oratory, means what shall I do if Desire finds her mate and that
+mate is not myself? My answer, also divested of oratory, is that I do
+not keep what does not belong to me. Is that plain?"
+
+The doctor nodded. "Plain enough," he said. "But how will you know?"
+
+"Well, I might guess. You see," resuming his seat and his ordinary
+manner at the same time, "Desire is my secretary. I make a point of
+studying the psychology of those who work with me. And, aside from the
+slight abnormality which I have mentioned, Desire is very true to type,
+her own type--a very womanly one. And a woman in love is hard to
+mistake. But," cheerfully, "she is only a child yet in matters of
+loving. And she may never grow up."
+
+"You seem quite happy about it."
+
+"'Call no man happy till he is dead.' And yet--I am happy. If tears
+must come, why anticipate them?"
+
+"There speaks the hopeless optimist," said Rogers, laughing. "But
+because I called you a fish, I'll give you a bit of valuable advice. I
+can't see you scrap quite all your chances. Kill Mary."
+
+"I can't. Besides, why should I? Desire likes to hear about her. Or
+says she does. It provides her with an interest. And a little perfectly
+human jealousy is very stimulating."
+
+"You think she is jealous?"
+
+"Oh, not in the way you mean. But every woman likes to be first, even
+with her friends. And if she can't be first, she is healthily curious
+about the woman who is. Desire would miss Mary very much."
+
+"You've been a fool, Benis."
+
+"I shall try not to be a bigger one."
+
+The friends looked polite daggers at each other. And suddenly smiled.
+
+"To be continued in our next," said Rogers. "Is it finally settled that
+we turn homeward tomorrow?"
+
+"Yes. We did our last extracting from the hawk-eyed one yesterday. He
+has been a real find, John. Do you know what he calls Aunt Caroline?
+'The-old-woman-who-sniffs-the-air.' Desire did not translate. Isn't she
+rather a wonder, John? Did you ever see anything like the way she
+manages Aunt?"
+
+But the doctor's eyes were on the distant tents.
+
+"Someone in blue is waving to us," he said. "It must be your Aunt."
+
+Spence lazily raised his eyes.
+
+"No. That's Desire. She is wearing blue."
+
+"She was wearing pink this morning."
+
+"Yes. But she won't be wearing it this afternoon."
+
+"How do you know?" curiously.
+
+The professor yawned. "By psychology! I happened to mention that pink
+was Mary's favorite color."
+
+Rogers opened his lips. He was plainly struggling with himself.
+
+"Don't trouble," said Spence serenely. "I know what you feel it your
+duty to say. But it isn't really your duty. And there would be no use
+in saying it, anyway. I take my chances!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The long Transcontinental puffed steadily up toward the white-capped
+peaks of a continent. They were a day out from Vancouver--a day during
+which Desire had sat upon the observation platform, drugged with wonder
+and beauty. She had known mountains all her life. They were dear and
+familiar, and the sound of rushing water was in her blood. But these
+heights and depths, these incredible valleys, these ever-climbing,
+piling hills pushing brown shoulders through their million pines, the
+dizzy, twisting track and the constant marvel of the man-made train
+which braved it, held her spellbound and almost speechless.
+
+Fortunately, Aunt Caroline was indisposed and had remained all day in
+the privacy of their reserved compartment. Only one such reservation
+had been available and the men of the party had been compelled to
+content themselves with upper berths in the next car.
+
+To Desire, who presented that happy combination, a good traveller still
+uncloyed by travel, every deft arrangement of the comfortable train
+provided matter for curiosity and interest--the little ladders for the
+upstair berths, the tiny reading-lamps, the paper bags for one's new
+hat, the queer little soaps and drinking cups in sealed oil paper--all
+these brought their separate thrill. And then there was the
+inexhaustible interest of the travellers themselves. When night had
+fallen and the great Outside withdrew itself, she turned with eager
+eyes to the shifting world around her, a human world even more
+absorbing than the panorama of the hills.
+
+What was there, for instance, about that handsome old lady, from Golden
+(fascinating name!) which permitted her to act as if the whole train
+were her private suite and all the porters servants of her person? She
+was the most autocratic old lady Desire had ever seen and far younger
+and more alert than the tired-looking daughter who accompanied her.
+They were going to New York. They went to New York every year. Desire
+wondered why.
+
+She wondered, too, about the rancher's wife going home to Scotland for
+the first time since her marriage. What did it feel like to be going
+home--to a real home with a mother and brothers and sisters? What did
+it feel like to be taking two dark-haired, bright-eyed babies, as like
+as twins and with only a year between them, for the fond approval of
+grand-parents across the seas? ... The rancher's wife looked as if
+she enjoyed it. But women will pretend anything.
+
+Desire's eyes shifted to the inevitable honeymoon couple who were going
+to Winnipeg to visit "his" people. The bride was almost painfully
+smart, but she was pretty and "he" adored her. Her mouth was small and
+red. It fascinated Desire. She could not keep her eyes off it. It was
+like--well, it was the kind of mouth men seemed to admire. She tried
+honestly to admire it her-self, but the more she tried the less
+admirable she found it. She wondered if Benis--
+
+"What do you think of the bride?" she murmured, under cover of a
+magazine.
+
+"Where?" said Benis, in an unnecessarily loud voice, laying down his
+paper.
+
+"S-ssh! Over there. The girl in green."
+
+"Pretty little thing," said Benis. His tone lacked conviction.
+
+"Lovely eyes, don't you think? Nice hair and such a darling nose. But
+her mouth--isn't her mouth rather small?"
+
+"Regular 'prunes and prisms,'" agreed Benis.
+
+"It is very red, though."
+
+"Lipstick, probably."
+
+"But I thought you liked small, red mouths."
+
+"Hate 'em," said Benis, who had a shockingly bad memory.
+
+Desire went to bed thoughtful. "I suppose," she thought as she lay
+listening to the swinging train, "men like certain things because they
+belong to certain people and not because they like them really at all."
+This was not very lucid but it seemed to satisfy Desire for she stopped
+thinking and went to sleep.
+
+Morning found them on the top of the world. Desire was up and out long
+before the mists had lifted. She watched the wonder of their going, she
+saw the coming of the sun. She drew in, with great deep breaths, the
+high, sweet air. The cream of her skin glowed softly with the tang of
+it.
+
+"Quite lovely!" said a voice behind her, and Desire turned to find her
+solitude shared by the young old lady from Golden.
+
+"Your complexion, I mean, my dear," said she, sitting down comfortably
+in the folds of a fur coat. "I never use adjectives about the
+mountains. It would seem impertinent. How old are you?"
+
+Desire gave her age smiling. "Charming age," nodded the old lady.
+"Youth is a wonderful thing. See that you keep it."
+
+"Like you?" said Desire, her smile brightening.
+
+The old lady looked pleased.
+
+"Quite so," she said. "Never allow yourself to believe that silly folly
+about a woman being as old as she looks. As if a mirror had more mind
+than the person looking in it! I remember very well waking up on the
+morning of my thirtieth birthday and thinking, 'I am thirty. I am
+growing old.' But, thank heaven, I had a mind. I soon put a stop to
+that. 'Not a day older will I grow!' I said. And I never have. What's a
+mind for, if not to make use of?"
+
+Desire looked a little awed at an audacity which defied time.
+
+"Don't misunderstand me," went on her companion. "I don't mean that I
+tried to look young. I was young. I am young still."
+
+"Yes," said Desire. "I see what you mean. But--wasn't it lonely?"
+
+The old lady patted her arm with an approving hand.
+
+"Clever child!" she said. "Yes, of course it was lonely. But one can't
+have everything. Pick out what you want most and cling to it. Let the
+rest go. It's a good philosophy."
+
+"Isn't it selfish?"
+
+"Youth is always selfish," complacently. "I feel quite complimented now
+when anyone calls me a selfish creature. You are a bride, aren't you?"
+
+Desire blushed beautifully. But one couldn't resent so frank an
+interest.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"That thin, dark man is your husband? The one with the chin?"
+
+"He has a chin," doubtfully. "Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, he is my
+husband."
+
+"Odd you never noticed his chin before," commented the old lady. "Well,
+look out! That man has reserves. Who is the other one?"
+
+"A friend."
+
+The old lady shook a well-kept finger.
+
+"Inconvenient things, friends!" said she. "Far better without them."
+
+"Haven't you any?"
+
+"Not one. They went on. All old fogies now." Her air of boredom was
+unfeigned.
+
+"But you have your daughter."
+
+"Too old!" The youthful eyes twinkled maliciously. "Now you, my dear,
+would be nearer my age. For you have youth within as well as without.
+Keep it. It's all there is worth having."
+
+Desire smiled. But the words lingered. She had never valued her youth.
+She had been impatient of it. And now to be told that it was all there
+was worth having! It was the creed of selfishness. And yet--had life
+already given her one of her greatest treasures and had she come near
+to missing the meaning of the gift?
+
+At breakfast she observed her husband's chin so narrowly that he became
+uneasy, wondering if he had forgotten to shave. She looked at John's
+chin, too, with reflective eyes. Undoubtedly it was much inferior.
+
+The train had conquered the mountains now and was plunging down upon
+their farther side. Soon they were in the foot-hills and then nothing
+but a flashing streak across an endless, endless tableland of wheat.
+Desire, who had never seen the prairie, smiled whimsically.
+
+"It is like coming from the world's cathedral to the world's
+breakfast-table!" said she.
+
+Aunt Caroline snorted. For her part, she said, she found train
+breakfasts much the same anywhere except near the Great Lakes, where
+one might expect better fish.
+
+It grew very hot. The effortless speed of the train rolled up the
+blazing miles and threw them behind, league on league. The sun set and
+rose on a level sky. The babies of the rancher's wife grew tired and
+sticky. They were almost too much for their equally tired mother, so
+half of them sat on Desire's lap most of the time. Desire's half seemed
+to bounce a great deal and gave bubbly kisses, but the rings around its
+fat wrist and the pink dimples in its fingers were well worth while
+keeping clean and cool just to look at. It was true, as Desire reminded
+herself, that she did not care for children, but anyone might find a
+round, fat one with cooey laughs a pleasant thing to play with! She did
+it mostly when Benis was in the smoker with John.
+
+At Winnipeg the honeymoon couple left them and the old lady from
+Golden, much to her disgust, was also compelled to stay over for a day
+because her middle-aged daughter was train-sick. Other and less
+interesting faces took their places.
+
+Desire watched them hopefully but the only one who seemed appealing was
+a sturdy prairie school teacher going "home." Desire liked the school
+teacher. She was so solid, so sure of herself, so wrapped up in and
+satisfied with something which she called "education." She asked Desire
+where she had been educated. Desire did not seem to know. "Just
+anywhere," she said, "when father felt like it and had time. And I
+taught myself shorthand."
+
+"Then you aren't really educated at all?" said the teacher with frank
+pity. "What a shame! Education is so important."
+
+Benis was frankly afraid of her.
+
+"But you need not be," Desire assured him. "She looks up to you. She
+thinks that, being a professor, you have even more education than she
+has."
+
+"God forbid!" said Benis devoutly.
+
+"Besides, she knows all about you. I found out today that she is an
+Ontario girl. And she lives--guess where? In Bainbridge!"
+
+Aunt Caroline (they were at dinner) looked up from her roast lamb and
+remarked "Impossible."
+
+"But she does, Aunt. She says so."
+
+Aunt Caroline fancied that probably the young person was mistaken.
+"Certainly," she said, "I have never heard of her."
+
+"She lives," said Desire, "on Barker Street and she took her first
+class teacher's certificate at Bainbridge Collegiate Institute."
+
+Aunt Caroline fancied that they gave almost anyone a certificate there.
+All one had to do was to pass the examinations. As to Barker
+Street--there was a Barker Street, certainly. And this young person
+might live on it. She, herself, was not acquainted with the
+neighborhood.
+
+"But she knows you," Desire persisted. "She said, 'Oh, is Miss Caroline
+Campion your Aunt? I remember her from my youth up.'"
+
+"Very impertinent," said Miss Campion. Her nephew's eyes began to
+twinkle.
+
+"Oh, everyone knows Aunt Caroline," he explained. "But then, everyone
+knows the Queen of England."
+
+Aunt Caroline was mollified. "Of course, in that sense--" She felt able
+to go on with her roast lamb.
+
+Dr. Rogers, who had listened to this interchange with delight, said now
+that the young lady had been quite right about her place of residence.
+She did live in Bainbridge, on Barker Street. He did not know her
+personally but her older sister was a patient of his. The mother and
+father were dead. Very nice, quiet people.
+
+Desire was quite young enough to laugh and to point this with "Dead
+ones usually are."
+
+The school teacher, at another table, heard the laugh and felt a
+passing sense of injustice. It seemed unfair that anyone so obviously
+without education could feel free to laugh in that satisfying way. It
+was plain that young Mrs. Spence scarcely realized her sad deficiency.
+And it certainly was a little discouraging that the cleverest men
+almost invariably....
+
+Fort William came and passed and in the sparkling sunshine of another
+morning the train dashed into the wild Superior country where the
+wealth lies under the rock instead of above it. To Desire, her first
+glimpse of the Great Lake was like a glimpse of home. The coolness of
+the air was grateful after prairie heat but, scarcely had she welcomed
+back the smell of pine and fir, before it, too, was left behind and
+they swung swiftly into a softer land--a land of rolling fields and
+fences and farmhouses; of little towns, with tree-lined roads; of
+streams less noisy and more disciplined; of fat cows drowsy in the
+growing heat.
+
+"This," said Aunt Caroline with a breath of proprietary satisfaction,
+"is Ontario."
+
+Desire, always literal, pointed out that according to the map in the
+time-table, they had been in Ontario for some considerable time.
+
+Aunt Caroline thought that the map was probably mistaken. "For," she
+added with finality, "it was certainly not the Ontario to which I have
+been accustomed."
+
+This settled the matter for any sensible person.
+
+"We are nearly home now," she went on kindly. "I hope you are not
+feeling very nervous, my dear."
+
+"I am not feeling nervous at all," said Desire with surprise.
+
+Fortunately Aunt Caroline took this proof of insensibility in a
+flattering light.
+
+"Yes, yes," she said. "It is not, of course, as if you were arriving
+alone. You can depend upon me entirely. John, are you sure that your
+car will be in waiting?"
+
+"I wired it to wait," grinned John. "And usually it's a good waiter."
+
+"Because," said Aunt Caroline, "we do not wish to be delayed at the
+station. If Eliza Merry weather is there, the quicker we get away the
+better. I am determined that she shall be introduced to Desire exactly
+when other people are and not before. Please remember that, Benis.
+Introduce Desire to no one at the station. I think, my dear, we may put
+on our hats."
+
+"It's an hour yet, Aunt."
+
+"I know, but I do not wish to be hurried."
+
+Desire put on her hat. It was because she was always willing to give
+Aunt Caroline her way in small matters that she invariably took her own
+in anything that counted. It is a simple recipe and recommended to
+anyone with Aunts....
+
+"There's Potter's wood!" said Benis, who had been somewhat silent.
+
+Desire looked out eagerly. But Potter's wood was just like any other
+wood and--
+
+"There's Sadler's Pond!" said John.
+
+"They've cut down the old elm!" Aunt Caroline voiced deep displeasure.
+
+"And put up a bill-board," said Benis.
+
+Desire felt a trifle lonely. These people, so close to her and yet so
+far away, were going home.
+
+"Oh, how I wish you weren't stopping off," said the rancher's wife, an
+actual tear on her flushed cheek. "You've been so kind, Mrs. Spence.
+And anyone more understanding with children I never saw. When you've
+got a boy like my Sandy for your own--"
+
+"By jove!" exclaimed Benis. "They're starting to cut down Miller's hill
+at last."
+
+Aunt Caroline rose flutteringly. "There is the water-tank," she
+announced in an agitated voice. "Desire, where is your parasol? My
+dear, don't kiss that child again, it's sticky. WHERE is my hand-bag?
+John, do you see your car?"
+
+"I don't SEE it," admitted John, "but--"
+
+"Bainbridge!" shouted the brakeman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Desire was conscious of a brown and gabled station with a bow-window
+and flower-beds, a long platform where baggage trucks lumbered, the
+calling of taxi-men, a confused noise of greeting and farewell, and
+Aunt Caroline's voice uncomfortably near her ear.
+
+"There she is!" whispered Aunt Caroline hoarsely. "Be careful! Don't
+look!"
+
+"Who? Where?" asked Desire, wondering.
+
+"Eliza Merryweather. Second to the left."
+
+There was another confused impression of curious faces, of one face
+especially with eager eyes and bobbing grey curls, and then she was
+caught, as it were, in the swirl of Aunt Caroline and deposited,
+somewhat breathless, in a car which, providentially, seemed to expect
+her.
+
+Miss Campion was breathing heavily but her face was calm.
+
+"She nearly got it," she said. "But not quite."
+
+"Got what?" asked Desire, still wondering.
+
+"An introduction. Where is Benis? My dear, DON'T LOOK! She is the most
+determined person."
+
+Miss Campion herself was staring straight ahead. Desire, much amused,
+endeavored to do the same.
+
+"Surely it is a trifle!" she murmured.
+
+But Miss Campion was preoccupied. "Where can Benis be? John, do you
+know what is keeping Benis? Oh, here he is," with an exclamation of
+relief. "Now we can start. Did I hear you say 'trifle,' my dear? There
+are no trifles in Bainbridge. John, I think we might drive home by the
+Park."
+
+They drove home by the Park. It was not a long drive, just a dozen or
+so of quiet streets, sentineled by maples; a factory in a hollow; a
+church upon a hill; a glimpse of two long rows of prosperous looking
+business blocks facing each other across an asphalted pavement; a white
+brick school where children shouted; then quiet streets again, the
+leisurely rising of a boulevarded slope and--home.
+
+They turned in at a white gate in the centre of a long fence backed by
+trees. The Spences had built their homestead in days when land was
+plentiful and, being a liberal-minded race, they had taken of it what
+they would. Of all the houses in Bainbridge theirs alone was prodigal
+of space. It stood aloof in its own grounds, its face turned
+negligently from the street, outside. For the passer-by it had no
+welcome; it kept itself, its flowers and its charm, for its own people.
+
+Desire said "Oh," as she saw it--long and white, with green shutters
+and deep verandas and wide, unhurried steps. She had seen many
+beautiful homes but she had never seen "home" before. The beauty and
+the peace of it caught the breath in her throat. She was glad that
+Benis did not speak as he gave her his hand from the car. She was glad
+for the volubility of Aunt Caroline and for the preoccupation of Dr.
+John with his engine. She was glad that she and Benis stepped info the
+cool, dim hall alone. In the dimness she could just see the little,
+nervous smile upon his lips and the warm and kindly look in his steady
+eyes.
+
+After that first moment, the picture blurred a little with the bustle
+of arrival. Aunt Caroline, large and light in her cream dust-coat,
+seemed everywhere. The dimness fled before her and rooms and stairs and
+a white-capped maid emerged. The rooms confused Desire, there were so
+many of them and all with such a strong family likeness of dark
+furniture and chintz. Aunt Caroline called them by their names and,
+throwing open their doors, announced them in prideful tones. Desire
+felt very diffident, they were such exclusive rooms, so old and settled
+and sure of themselves--and she was so new. They might, she felt,
+cold-shoulder her entirely. It was touch and go.
+
+All but one room!
+
+"This," said her conductor, throwing open a door, "is where Benis does
+his work. He calls it his den. But you will agree that library sounds
+better."
+
+Desire went in--with the other rooms she had been content to stand in
+the doors--and, as she entered, the room seemed to draw round and
+welcome her. It was deeply and happily familiar--that shallow, rounded
+window from which one could lean and touch the grass outside, that
+dark, old desk with its leather and brass, that blue bowl on the corner
+of the mantel-piece, the lazy, yet expectant, chairs; even the beech
+tree whose light fingers tapped upon the window glass! It was all part
+of her life, past or future--somewhere.
+
+"You see," said Aunt Caroline in her character of showman, "we have
+fireplaces!"
+
+Desire was so used to fireplaces that this did not seem extraordinary
+and yet, from Aunt Caroline's tone, she knew that it must be, and tried
+to look impressed.
+
+"They are dirty," went on Aunt Caroline, "but they are worth it. They
+give atmosphere. If you have a house like this, you have to have
+fireplaces. That is what I tell my maids when I engage them. So that
+they cannot grumble afterwards. Fireplaces are dirty, I tell them,
+but--what are you staring at, my dear?"
+
+"Was I staring? I didn't know. It is just that I seem to know it all."
+
+Aunt Caroline looked wise. "Oh, yes. I know what you mean. Benis
+explains that curious feeling--some-thing about your right sphere or
+something being larger than your left, or quicker, I forget which. Not
+that I can see any sense in it, anyway. Do you mind if I leave you
+here? I want to see if Olive has made the changes I ordered upstairs."
+
+"Get a hump on!" said a loud, rude voice.
+
+Aunt Caroline jumped.
+
+"Oh, my dear! It's that horrible parrot. Benis insists on keeping it.
+Some soldier friend of his left it to him. A really terrible bird. And
+its language is disgraceful. It doesn't know anything but slang. Not
+even 'Polly wants a cracker.' You'll hardly believe me, but it says,
+'Gimme the eats!' instead."
+
+"Can it!" said the parrot. Aunt Caroline fled.
+
+Desire, to whom a talking bird was a delightful novelty, went over to
+the large cage where a beautiful green and yellow parrot swung
+mournfully, head down.
+
+"Pretty Polly," said Desire timidly.
+
+The bird made a chuckling noise in his throat like a derisive goblin.
+
+"What is your name, Polly?"
+
+"Yorick," said Polly unexpectedly. "Alas. Poor Yorick! I knew him well."
+
+"You'd think it knew what I said!" thought Desire with a start. She
+edged away and once more the welcoming spirit of the room rose up to
+meet her. She tried first one chair and then another, fingered the
+leather on their backs and finally settled on the light, straight one
+in the round window. It was as familiar as the glove upon her hand, and
+the view from the window--well, the view from the window was partially
+blocked by the professor under the beech tree, smoking.
+
+Seeing her, he discarded his cigar and came nearer, leaning on the sill
+of the opened window.
+
+"You haven't got your hat off yet," he said in a discontented tone.
+"Aren't you going to stay?"
+
+"May not a lady wear her hat in her own house?"
+
+"Oh, I see. Then I shan't have to butter your fingers?"
+
+"Do you compare me to a stray cat?"
+
+"I never compare you to anything."
+
+Desire wanted terribly to ask why, but an unaccustomed shyness
+prevented her. Instead she asked if Yorick were really the parrot's
+name.
+
+"I don't know. But he says it is, so I take his word for it. Do you
+want to talk about parrots? Because it's not one of my best subjects.
+May I change it?"
+
+"If you like."
+
+"Don't say, 'If you like,' say 'Right-o.' I always do when I think of
+it. Since the war it is expected of one--a sign of this new fraternity,
+you know, between Englishmen and Colonials. Everyone over there is
+expected to say 'I guess' for the same reason. Only they don't do it.
+How do you like your workroom?"
+
+"Mine?"
+
+"I thought you might not like me to say 'Ours.'"
+
+"Don't be silly!"
+
+"Well, how do you like it, anyway?"
+
+Desire's eyes met his for an instant and then fell quickly. But not
+before he had seen a mistiness which looked remarkably like--Good
+heavens, he might have known that she would be tired and upset!
+
+"You have noticed, of course," he went on lightly, "that we have
+fireplaces? They are very dirty but they provide atmosphere. Almost too
+much atmosphere sometimes. There are no dampers and when the wind blows
+the wrong way--Oh, my dear child, do cry if you really feel like it."
+
+"Cry!" indignantly. "I n--never cry."
+
+"Well, try it for a change. I believe it is strongly recommended
+and--don't go away. Please."
+
+"I had no idea I was going to be silly," said Desire after a moment, in
+an annoyed voice.
+
+"It usually comes unexpectedly. Probably you are tired."
+
+Desire wiped her eyes with businesslike thoroughness.
+
+"No. I'm not. I'm suppressed. Do you remember what you said about
+suppressed emotion the other day? Well, I'm like that, and it's your
+fault. You bring me to this beautiful home and you never, never once,
+allow me to thank you properly--oh, I'm not going to do it, so don't
+look frightened. But one feels so safe here. Benis, it's years and
+years since I felt just safe."
+
+"I know. I swear every time I think of it"
+
+"Then you can guess a little of what it means?"
+
+Their hands were very close upon the window-sill.
+
+"As a psychologist--" began the professor.
+
+"Oh--No!" murmured Desire.
+
+Their hands almost touched.
+
+And just at that moment Aunt Caroline came in.
+
+"Are you there, Benis?" asked Aunt Caroline unnecessarily. "I wish you
+would come in and take--oh, I did not mean you to come in through the
+window. If Olive saw you! But a Spence has no idea of dignity. Now that
+you are in, I wish you would take Desire up to your room. I wired Olive
+to prepare the west room. It is grey and pink, so nice for Desire who
+is somewhat pale. The bed is very comfortable, too, and large. But, of
+course, if you prefer any other room you will change. Desire, my dear,
+it is your home, I do not forget that. I have had your bags carried up.
+Benis can manage his own."
+
+If Desire were pale naturally, she was more than pale now. Her
+frightened eyes fluttered to her husband's face and fluttered away
+again. Why had she never thought of this! Sheer panic held her quiet in
+the straight-backed chair.
+
+But Spence, without seeming to notice, had seen and understood her
+startled eyes.
+
+"Thanks, Aunt," he said cheerfully. "Of course Desire must make her own
+choice. But if she takes my tip she will stay where you've put her.
+It's a jolly room. As for me, I'm going up to my old diggings--thought
+I'd told you."
+
+"What!"
+
+Aunt Caroline's remark was not a question. It was an explosion.
+
+Spence dropped his bantering manner.
+
+"My dear Aunt. I hate to disturb your arrangements with my
+eccentricities. But insomnia is a hard master. I must sleep in my old
+room. We'll consider that settled."
+
+"Humph!" said Aunt Caroline.
+
+Like the house, she was somewhat old fashioned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Tea had been laid on the west lawn under the maples.
+
+Possibly some time in the past the Spences had been a leisured people.
+They had brought from the old country the tradition of afternoon tea.
+Many others had, no doubt, done the same but with these others the
+tradition had not persisted. In the more crowded life of a new country
+they had let it go. The Spences had not let it go. It wasn't their way.
+And in time it had assumed the importance of a survival. It stood for
+some-thing. Other Bainbridgers had "Teas." The Spences had "tea."
+
+Desire had been in her new home a month and had just made a remark
+which showed her astonished Aunt Caroline that tea was no more of a
+surprise to her than fireplaces had been.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me you have always had tea?" Miss Campion ceased
+from pouring in pure surprise.
+
+"Why, yes." Desire's surprise was even greater than Aunt Caroline's.
+"Li Ho never dreamed of forgetting tea. He served it much more
+regularly than dinner because sometimes there wasn't any dinner to
+serve. It was a great comfort--the tea, I mean."
+
+"But how extraordinary! And a Chinaman, too."
+
+"I suppose my mother trained him."
+
+"And Vancouver isn't Bainbridge," put in Benis lazily. "A great many
+people there are more English than they are in England. All the
+old-time Chinese 'boys' served tea as a matter of course."
+
+"Even when no one was calling?"
+
+"Absolutely sans callers of any kind."
+
+"Well, I am sure that is very nice." But it was plain from Aunt
+Caroline's tone that she thought it a highly impertinent infringement
+upon the privileges of a Spence. She poured her nephew's cup in aloof
+silence and refreshed herself with a second before re-entering the
+conversation. When she did, it was with something of a bounce.
+
+"Benis," she said abruptly, "can you tell me just exactly what is a
+Primitive?"
+
+"Eh?" The professor had been trying to read the afternoon News-Telegram
+and sip tea at the same time.
+
+Aunt Caroline repeated her question.
+
+"Certainly," said Spence. "That is to say, I can be fairly exact. Would
+you like me to begin now? If you have nothing to do until dinner I can
+get you nicely started. And there is a course of reading--"
+
+Aunt Caroline stopped him with dignity. "Thank you, Benis. I infer that
+the subject is a complicated one. Therefore I will word my question
+more simply. Would an Indian, for instance, be considered a Primitive?"
+
+"Um--some Indians might."
+
+"Oh," thoughtfully, "then I suppose that is what Mrs. Stopford Brown
+meant."
+
+Her delighted listeners exchanged an appreciative glance.
+
+"Very probably," said Benis, with tact, "were you discussing Primitives
+at the Club?"
+
+"No. Though it might be rather a good idea, don't you think? If, as you
+say, there is a course of reading, it would be sufficiently literary, I
+suppose? At present we are taking up psycho-analysis--dreams, you know.
+It was not my choice. As a subject for club study I consider it too
+modern. Besides, I seldom dream. And when I do, my dreams are not
+remarkable. However, it seems that all dreams are remarkable. And I
+admit that there may be something in it. Take, for instance, a dream
+which I had the other night. I dreamed that I was endeavoring to do my
+hair and every time I put my hand on a hairpin that horrible parrot of
+yours snapped it up and swallowed it. Now, according to
+psycho-analysis, that dream has a meaning. Understood rightly it
+discloses that I have, in my waking moments, a repressed feeling of
+intense dislike for that hateful bird. And it is quite true. I have. So
+you can see how useful that kind of thing might be in getting at the
+truth in cases of murder. I hope," turning to Desire, "I hope I am not
+being too scientific for you, my dear? When the ladies feel that they
+know you better you may perhaps join our club, if you care for anything
+so serious? May I give you more tea?"
+
+"Thanks, yes. That would be delightful."
+
+"Not so delightful, my dear, as educative. But as I was saying, Benis,
+it is all your fault that this misconception has got about. I blame you
+very much in the matter. It comes naturally from your writing so
+continually about Indians and foreigners and Primitives generally.
+People come to associate you with them. Still, I think it was extremely
+rude of Mrs. Stopford Brown to say it."
+
+"So do I," said Spence, with conviction.
+
+"I asked Mrs. Everett, who told me, if anyone else had made remarks
+leading up to it. But she says not a word. It was just that Mrs.
+Everett said that it was strange that when you had taken so long to
+consider marriage you should have made up your mind so quickly in the
+end--'Gone off like a sky-rocket!' was her exact wording, and Mrs.
+Stopford Brown said, in that frivolous way she has, 'Oh, I suppose he
+stumbled across a Primitive.' You will notice, Desire, that Mrs.
+Stopford Brown's name is not upon the list for your reception."
+
+"But--" began Desire, controlling her face with difficulty.
+
+"No 'buts,' my dear. It may seem severe, but Mrs. Stopford Brown is
+quite too careless in her general conversation. It is true that her
+remark is directly traceable to my nephew's unfortunate writings, but
+she should have investigated her facts before speaking. The result is
+that it is all over town that you have Indian blood. They say that, out
+there, almost everyone married squaws once and that is why there is no
+dower law in British Columbia. Those selfish people did not wish their
+Indian wives to wear the family jewels. Benis! You will break that cup
+if you balance it so carelessly. What I want to know is, what are you
+going to do about it?"
+
+"Not being a resident of British Columbia, I cannot do anything, Aunt.
+But I think you will find that since women got the vote the matter has
+been adjusted."
+
+"I do not understand you. What possible connection has the women's vote
+with Mrs. Stopford Brown?"
+
+"I thought you were speaking of dower laws. As for Mrs. Brown, haven't
+you already fitted the punishment to the crime?"
+
+"Then you will not officially contradict the rumor?"
+
+"Dear Aunt, I am not an official. And a rumor is of no
+importance--until it is contradicted. Surely you are letting yourself
+get excited about nothing."
+
+Aunt Caroline bestowed upon Desire the feminine glance which means,
+"What fools men are."
+
+"That's all very well now," she said. "But it is incredible how rumor
+persists. And when you are a father--there! I knew you would end by
+breaking that cup."
+
+"Aren't we being rather absurd?" asked Desire a little later when Aunt
+Caroline and the tea tray had departed together. "Besides, you can't
+break a cup every time."
+
+Spence sighed. It was undoubtedly true that cups do come to an end.
+
+"What we want to do," said Desire, angry at her heightened color, "is
+to be sensible."
+
+"That's what Aunt Caroline is. Do you want us to be like Aunt Caroline?"
+
+"I want us to face facts without blushing and jumping."
+
+"I never blush."
+
+"You jump."
+
+"Sorry. But give me time. I am new at this yet. Presently I shall be
+able to listen to Aunt describing my feelings as a grandfather without
+a quiver. Poor Aunt!"
+
+"Why do you say 'poor Aunt'?"
+
+"It is going to be rather a blow to her, you know."
+
+"Do you think we ought to--tell her?"
+
+"Good heavens, no!"
+
+"But it seems so mean to let her go on believing things."
+
+"Not half so mean as taking the belief from her. Besides--" He paused
+and Desire felt herself clutch, unaccountably, at the arm of her garden
+chair.
+
+"She wouldn't understand," finished Benis.
+
+Desire's grasp upon the chair relaxed.
+
+"Life is like that," he went on slowly. "No matter how careful people
+are there is always someone who slips in and gets hurt. Our affairs are
+strictly our own affairs and yet--we stumble over Aunt Caroline and
+leave her indignant and disappointed and probably blaming Providence
+for the whole affair. It is just a curious instance of the intricacy of
+human relationships--you're not going in, are you?"
+
+"There is some typing I want to finish," said Desire. "I have been
+letting myself get shamefully behind."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+The weather on the day of Desire's reception could scarcely have been
+bettered. Rain had fallen during the night; fallen just sufficiently to
+lay the dust on the drive and liberate all the thousand flower scents
+in the drowsy garden. It was hot enough for the most summery dresses
+and cool enough for a summer fur. What more could be desired?
+
+Bainbridge was expectant. It was known that Miss Campion was excelling
+herself in honor of her nephew's bride, and the bride herself was
+alluringly rumored to be a personality. It is doubtful if anyone really
+believed the "part Indian" suggestion, but there were those who liked
+to dally with it. Its possibility was a taste of lemon on a cloyed
+tongue.
+
+"They say she is part Indian--fancy, a Spence!"
+
+"Nonsense. I asked Dr. Rogers about it and he made me feel pretty
+foolish. The truth is--her parents are both English. The father is a
+doctor, at one time a most celebrated physician in London."
+
+"Physicians who are celebrated in London usually stay there."
+
+"And I am sure she is dark enough."
+
+"Not with that skin! And her eyes are grey."
+
+"Oh, I admit she's pretty--if you like that style. I wonder where she
+gets her clothes?"
+
+"Where they know how to make them, anyway. Did you notice that smoke
+colored georgette she wore on Sunday? Not a scrap of relief anywhere.
+Not even around the neck."
+
+"It's the latest. I went right home and ripped the lace off mine. But
+it made me look like a skinned rabbit, so I put it back. I don't see
+why fashions are always made for sweet and twenty!"
+
+"Twenty? She's twenty-five if she's a day. For myself I can't say that
+I like to see young people so sure of themselves. A bride, too!"
+
+"They say Mrs. Stopford Brown hasn't had a card for the reception."
+
+"Did she tell you so?"
+
+"Oh, no! But she let it drop that she thought it was on the seventh
+instead of the eighth."
+
+"Plow funny! Serve her right. It's about time she knew she isn't quite
+everybody...."
+
+Desire, herself, was unperturbed. To her direct and unself-conscious
+mind there was no reason why she should excite herself. These people,
+to whom she was so new, were equally new to her. The interest might be
+expected to be mutual. Any picture of herself as affected by their
+personal opinions had not obtruded itself. She was prepared to like
+them; hoped they would like her, but was not actively concerned with
+whether they did or not. She had lived too far away from her kind to
+feel the impact of their social aura. Besides, she had other things to
+think about.
+
+First of all, there was Mary. She found that she had to think about
+Mary a great deal. She did not want to, but there seemed to be a
+compulsion. This may have been partly owing to a change of mind with
+regard to Mary as a subject for conversation. She had decided that it
+was not good for Benis to talk about Her. Why revive memories that are
+best forgotten? She never now disturbed him when he gazed into the
+sunset; and when he sighed, as he sometimes did without reason, she did
+not ask him why. She had even felt impatient once or twice and, upon
+leaving the room abruptly, had banged the door.
+
+So, because Mary was unavailable for discussion, Desire had to think
+about her. She had to wonder whether her hair was really? And whether
+her eyes really were? She wanted to know. If she could find someone who
+had known Mary, some entirely unprejudiced person who would tell her,
+she might be able to dismiss the subject from her mind. And surely, in
+Bainbridge, there must be someone?
+
+But she had been in Bainbridge a month now. People had called. And she
+was still as ignorant as ever. She had been so sure that someone would
+mention Mary almost at once. She had felt that people would simply not
+be able to refrain from hinting to the bride a knowledge of her
+husband's unhappy past. There were so many ways in which it might be
+done. Someone might say, "When I heard that Professor Spence was
+married, I felt sure that the bride would have dark hair because--oh,
+what am I saying! Please, may I have more tea?" But no one, not even
+the giddiest flapper of them all, had said even that! Perhaps,
+incredible as it might seem, Bainbridge did not know about Mary? She
+had been, Desire remembered, a visitor there when Benis met her.
+Perhaps her stay had been brief. Perhaps the ill-fated courtship had
+taken place elsewhere? Even then, it seemed almost unbelievably stupid
+of Bainbridge not to have known something. But of course, she had not
+met nearly everybody. This fact lent excitement to the idea of the
+reception. Something might be said at any moment.
+
+If not--there was still John. John must know. A man does not keep the
+news of a serious love affair from his best friend. Some day, when John
+knew her well enough, he might speak, delicately, of that lost romance.
+Yes. She would have to cultivate John.
+
+Luckily, John was easily cultivated. He had been quite charming to her
+from the very first. He thought of her comfort continually, almost too
+continually--but that, no doubt, was medical fussiness. He insisted,
+for instance, upon putting wraps about her shoulders after dewfall and
+refused to believe that she never caught cold. Only last night he had
+left early saying that she must get her beauty sleep so as to be fresh
+for the reception.
+
+"One would think," she had said, sauntering with him to the gate, "that
+the guests might decide to eat me instead of the ices. Why do you all
+expect me to quake and shiver? They can't really do anything to me, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Do?" The doctor was absent-minded. "Do? Oh, they can do things all
+right. But," with quite unnecessary emphasis, "their worst efforts
+won't be a patch on the things you will do to them. Why, you'll add ten
+years to the age of everyone over twenty and make the others feel like
+babes in arms. You'll raise all their vibrations to boiling point and
+remain yourself as cool and pulseless as--as you are now."
+
+Desire was surprised, but she was reasonable.
+
+"If you can tell me why my vibrations should raise themselves," she
+said, "I will see what can be done."
+
+The doctor had gone home gloomily.
+
+"He is really very moody, for a doctor," thought Desire, as she
+sauntered back through the dusk. "It seems to me that he needs cheering
+up."
+
+Then she probably forgot him, for certainly no thought of his
+gloominess disturbed her beauty sleep. A fresher or more glowing bride
+had never gathered flowers for her own reception. She had carried them
+into all the rooms; careless for once of their cool aloofness; making
+them welcome her whether they would or not. Then, as the stir of
+preparation ceased and the house sank into perfumed quiet, she had
+slipped back into her own pink and grey room for a breathing space
+before it was time to dress.
+
+At Aunt Caroline's earnest request she had taken Yorick with her.
+"For," said Aunt Caroline, "I refuse to receive guests with that bird
+within hearing distance. The things he says are bad enough but I have a
+feeling that he knows many things which he hasn't said yet. And people
+are sensitive. Only the other day when old Mrs. Burton was calling him
+'Pretty Pol,' he burst into that dreadful laugh of his and told her to
+'Shake a leg'! How the creature happened to know about the scandal of
+her early youth I can't say. But it is quite true that she did dance on
+the stage. She grew quite purple when that wretched bird threw it up to
+her."
+
+Desire had laughed and promised to sequestrate Yorick for the
+afternoon. He had taken the insult badly and was now muttering protests
+to himself with throaty noises which exploded occasionally in bursts of
+bitter laughter.
+
+It was too early to dress for another hour but already the dress lay
+ready on the bed. Desire had chosen it with care. She had no
+wedding-dress. Bridal white would have seemed--well, dangerously near
+the humorous. She would have feared that half-smile with which Spence
+was wont to appreciate life's pleasantries. But the gown upon the bed
+was the last word in smartness and charm. In color it was like pale
+sunlight through green water. It was both cool and bright. Against it,
+her warm, white skin glowed warmer and whiter; her leaf-brown hair
+showed more softly brown. Its skirt was daintily short and beneath it
+would show green stockings that shimmered, and slippers that were
+vanity.
+
+Desire sat in the window seat and allowed herself to be quite happy.
+"If I could just sit here forever," she mused. "If someone could
+enchant me, just as I am, with the sun warm on the tips of my toes and
+this little wind, so full of flowers, cool upon my face. If I need
+never again hear anything save the drone of sleepy bees, the chirping
+of fat robins and the hum of a lawn-mower--"
+
+She sat up suddenly. Who could be mowing the west lawn in the heat of
+the day? Desire, forgetting about the enchantment, leaned out to see.
+Surely it couldn't be? And yet it certainly was. The lawn-mower man
+displayed the heated countenance of the bridegroom him-self.
+
+"What is he thinking of?" groaned Desire. "He will make himself a
+rag--a perfect rag. I wonder Aunt Caroline allows it."
+
+But Aunt Caroline was presumably occupied elsewhere. No one came to
+prevent the ragmaking of the professor, and Desire, after watching for
+a moment, raised her finger and gave the little searching call which
+had been their way of finding each other in the woods at Friendly Bay.
+
+The professor stopped instantly, leaving the lawn-mower exactly where
+it was, in the middle of a swath. With an answering wave he crossed to
+the west room window and, with an ease which surprised his audience,
+drew his long slimness up the pillar of the porch and clambered over
+the railing into the small balcony.
+
+"I can't come in by the front door," he explained, "on account of my
+boots. And I can't come in by the back door on account of Extra Help. I
+intended getting in eventually by the cellarway, but, if you want me,
+that would take too long. Besides, I wanted to show you how neatly I
+can shin up a post."
+
+He smiled at her cheerfully. He was damp and flushed, but much brisker
+than Desire had thought. He did not look at all raglike. For the first
+time since their homecoming she seemed to see him with clear eyes. And
+she found him changed. He was younger. Some of the lines had smoothed
+out of his forehead. His face showed its cheekbones less sharply and
+his hair dipped charmingly, like an untidy boy's. His shirt was open at
+the throat. He did not look like a professor at all. Desire momentarily
+experienced what Dr. John had called a "heightening of vibration."
+
+"Anything that I can do," offered he helpfully.
+
+"The best thing will be to stop doing," suggested Desire. "Don't you
+know that you're accessory to a reception this afternoon? Of course you
+are only the host, but it looks better to have the host unwilted."
+
+"Like the salad? I hadn't thought of that. In fact I'm afraid I haven't
+been giving the matter serious attention. I must consult my secretary.
+How else should a host look?"
+
+"He should look happy."
+
+Benis noted this on his cuff.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Desire's eyes began to sparkle.
+
+"If he is a bridegroom, as well as a host, he should be careful to look
+often at the bride."
+
+"No chance," said Spence gloomily. "Not with the mob that's coming."
+
+"Above all, he looks after his least attractive lady guests. And he
+never on any account slips away for a smoke with a stray gentleman
+friend."
+
+The professor's gloom lightened. "Is there going to be a stray
+gentleman friend? Did old Bones promise?"
+
+Desire nodded triumphantly.
+
+"First time in captivity," murmured Spence. "How on earth did you
+manage it?"
+
+"I simply asked him!"
+
+"As easy as that?"
+
+They both laughed as happy people laugh at merest nonsense.
+
+"Ha! Ha! Ha!" shrieked Yorick. "Go to it, give 'em hell!"
+
+"I don't wonder Aunt Caroline dreads him," said Desire. "His experience
+seems to have been lurid."
+
+"Kiss her, you flat-foot, kiss her," shrieked the ribald Yorick.
+
+"Sorry, old man," said Spence regretfully. "It's against the rules to
+kiss one's secretary."
+
+Again they both laughed. But was it fancy, or was this laugh a trifle
+less spontaneous than the other? "Gracious!" said Desire, suddenly in a
+hurry, "I've hardly left myself time to dress."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+It may be said with fairness that the reception given by Miss Campion
+for her nephew's bride left Bainbridge thoughtful. They had expected
+the bride to be different, and they had found her to be different from
+what they had expected. They could not place her; and, in Bainbridge,
+everyone is placed.
+
+"I understood," said Mrs. T. L. Lawson, whose word in intellectual
+matters was final, "that young Mrs. Spence was wholly uneducated. A
+school teacher who met her on the train told my dressmaker that she had
+heard her admit the fact with her own lips. So, naturally, not wishing
+to embarrass a newcomer, I confined my remarks to the simplest matters.
+She did not say very much but I must confess--you will scarcely believe
+it--I actually got the impression that she was accommodating her
+conversation to me."
+
+"Oh, surely not!" from a shocked chorus.
+
+"It is just a manner she affects," comforted Mrs. Burton Holmes. "Far,
+far too assured, in my opinion, for a young bride. I hope it does not
+denote a certain lack of fine feeling. In a girl who had been brought
+up to an assured social position, such a manner might be understood.
+But--well, all I can say is that I heard from my friend Marion Walford
+yesterday, and she assured me that Mrs. Spence is quite unknown in
+Vancouver society. But, of course, dear Marion knows only the very
+smartest people. For myself I do not allow these distinctions to affect
+me. If only for dear Miss Campion's sake I determined to be perfectly
+friendly. But I felt that, in justice to everybody, it might be well
+for her to know that we know. So I asked her, casually, if she were
+well acquainted with the Walfords. At first she looked as if she had
+never heard of them, and then--'Oh, do you mean the soap people?' she
+said. 'I don't know them--but one sees their bill-boards everywhere.'
+It was almost as if--"
+
+"Oh--absurd!" echoed the chorus. "Though if she is really English,"
+ventured one of them, "she might, you know. The English have such a
+horror of trade."
+
+These social and educational puzzles were as nothing to the religious
+problem. Bainbridge, who had seen Desire more or less regularly at
+church, had taken for granted that in this respect, at least, she was
+even as they were. But, after the reception, Mrs. Pennington thought
+not.
+
+"I felt quite worried about our pretty bride," said Mrs. Pennington.
+"You know how we all hoped that when the dear professor married he
+would become more orthodox. Science is so unsettling. And married men
+so often do. But--" she sighed.
+
+"Surely not a free thinker?" ventured one in a subdued whisper.
+
+"Or a Christian Scientist?" with equal horror.
+
+Mrs. Pennington intimated that she had not yet sufficient data to
+decide. "But," she added, solemnly, "she is not a. Presbyterian."
+
+"She goes to church."
+
+"Yes. She was quite frank about that. She did not scruple to say that
+she goes to please Miss Campion and because 'it is all so new.'"
+
+"New?"
+
+"Exactly what I said to her. I said, 'New?' My dear, what you do
+mean--new?' And she tipped her eyebrows in that oriental way she has
+and said, 'Why, just new. I have never been to church, you know!'"
+
+"Oh, impossible--in this country!"
+
+"Yes, imagine it! Perhaps she saw my disapproval for she added, 'We had
+a prayer-book in the house, though.' As if it were quite the same
+thing."
+
+One of the more optimistic members of the chorus thought that this
+might show some connection with the Church of England. But Mrs.
+Pennington shook her head.
+
+"Hardly, I think. Her language was not such as to encourage such a
+hope. The very next thing she said to me was, 'Don't you think the
+prayer-book is lovely?'"
+
+"Oh!--not really?"
+
+"I admit I was shocked. I am not," said Mrs. Pennington, "a Church of
+England woman. But I am broad-minded, I hope. And I have more respect
+for ANY sacred work than to speak of it as 'lovely.' In fact, in all
+kindness, I must say that I fear the poor child is a veritable heathen."
+
+This conclusion was felt to be sound, logically, but without great
+practical significance. The veritable heathen persisted in church-going
+to such an extent that she tired out several of the most orthodox and
+it was rumored that she even went so far as to discuss the sermon
+afterward. "Just as if," said Mrs. Pennington, "it were a lecture or a
+play or something."
+
+As a matter of fact, Desire was intensely interested in sermons. She
+had so seldom heard any that the weekly doling out of truth by the Rev.
+Mr. McClintock had all the fascination of a new experience. Mr.
+McClintock was of the type which does not falter in its message. He had
+no doubts. He had thought out every possible spiritual problem as a
+young man and had seen no reason for thinking them out a second time.
+What he had accepted at twenty, he believed at sixty, with this
+difference that while at twenty some of his conclusions had caused him
+sleepless nights, at sixty they were accepted with complacency. No
+questioning pierced the hard enamel of his assurance. He saw no second
+side to anything because he never turned it over. He had a way of
+saying "I believe" which was absolutely final.
+
+Desire had been collecting Mr. McClintock's beliefs carefully. They
+fascinated her. She often woke up in the night thinking of them,
+wondering at their strange diversity and speculating as to the ultimate
+discovery of some missing piece which might make them all fit in. It
+was because she was afraid of missing this master-bit that she went to
+church so regularly.
+
+The Sunday after the reception was exceptionally hot. It was
+exceptionally dusty too, for Bainbridge tolerated no water carts on
+Sunday. It was one of those Sundays when people have headaches. Aunt
+Caroline had a head-ache. She felt that it would be most unwise to
+venture out. She even suggested that, no doubt, Desire had a headache,
+too.
+
+"But I haven't," said that downright young person, looking provokingly
+cool and energetic. Her husband groaned.
+
+"Don't look at me," he said hastily. "My excuse is not hallowed by
+antiquity like Aunt's but it is equally effective. I have to go down to
+the cellar to make ice-cream."
+
+This, as Desire knew, was perfectly legitimate. No ice-cream of any
+kind could be bought in Bainbridge on Sunday. Therefore a certain
+proportion of the population had to descend into its cellars and make
+it. It was even possible to tell, if one were curious, how many
+families were going to have ice-cream for dinner by counting the empty
+seats at morning service. Nearly all of the more prominent families
+owned freezers while many of those who were freezerless did not go to
+church, anyway. From which it would seem that, in Bainbridge at least,
+the righteous had prospered.
+
+On this hot morning, therefore, Desire collected Mr. McClintock's
+belief alone. It was an especially puzzling one, having to do with the
+origin and meaning of pain and founded upon the text, "Whom the Lord
+loveth he chasteneth."
+
+"There is a tendency among modern translators," began Mr. McClintock,
+"a tendency which I deplore, to render the word 'chasteneth' as
+'teacheth or directeth.' This rendering, in my opinion, is regrettably
+lax. We will therefore confine our attention to the older version. It
+is my belief that...."
+
+Desire listened attentively to a lengthy and blood-curdling exposition
+of this belief and was still in the daze which followed the hearty
+singing of the doxology on top of it when the assistant Sunday School
+Superintendent asked her to take a class. He was a very hot assistant
+and a very hurried one. Even while he spoke to Desire his eye wandered
+past her to some of his flock who were escaping by the church door.
+
+"Do take a class, Mrs. Spence," he urged.
+
+"Do you mean teach one?" asked Desire. "I'm sorry, but I don't know
+how."
+
+"Beg pardon? Oh, but of course you do. It is only for today. We are so
+short. You will do splendidly, I'm sure. They are very little girls and
+it's in the Old Testament."
+
+"But I don't--"
+
+"Oh, that will be quite all right. It's Moses. Quite easy."
+
+"I have never--"
+
+"It doesn't matter, really. Just the plain story, you know. I find
+myself the best way is to adopt a cheerful, conversational manner and
+keep them from asking questions. At that age they never ask the right
+ones. Stump you every time if you're not careful. Give them the facts.
+They'll understand them later."
+
+"I don't understand them myself," objected Desire. But by this time the
+assistant's eye was quite distracted.
+
+"So very good of you," he murmured, "if you will come this way--"
+
+Desire went that way and presently found herself seated in the Sunday
+School room in a blazing bar of sunlight and facing a row of small
+Bainbridgers, surprisingly brisk and wide-awake considering the weather.
+
+"We usually have our boys' and girls' classes separate," explained the
+assistant. "But this is a mixed class as you see."
+
+Desire saw that the mixture consisted of a very round boy in a very
+stiff sailor suit.
+
+"Now children, Mrs. Spence is going to tell you about Moses. Mrs.
+Spence is a newcomer. We must make her welcome and show her how well
+behaved we are."
+
+"I'm not," volunteered an angel-faced child with an engaging smile.
+
+"I got a lickin' on Friday," added the round boy, who as sole member of
+his sex felt that he must stand up for it.
+
+The assistant shook a finger at them cheerfully and hurried away.
+
+Desire became the focus of all eyes and a watchful dumbness settled
+down upon them like a pall. Frantically she tried to remember her
+instructions. But never had a light conversational manner seemed more
+difficult to attain.
+
+"I hope," she faltered, seeking for a sympathetic entry, "that your
+regular teacher is not ill?"
+
+The row of inquiring eyes showed no intelligence.
+
+"Is she?" asked Desire, looking directly at the child opposite.
+
+"Ma says she only thinks she is," said the child. The row rustled
+pleasantly.
+
+"I understand," went on Desire hastily, "that we are to talk about
+Moses. How many here can tell me anything about Moses?"
+
+The row of eyes blinked. But Moses might have been a perfect stranger
+for any sign of recognition from their owners.
+
+"Moses," went on Desire, "was a very remarkable man. In his age he
+seems even more remarkable--"
+
+A small hand shot up and an injured voice inquired: "Please, teacher,
+don't we have the Golden Text?"
+
+"I suppose we do." There was evidently some technique here of which the
+hurried assistant had not informed her. "We will have it now. What is
+the Golden Text?"
+
+Nobody seemed to know.
+
+"I don't see how we can have it, if you don't know it," said Desire
+mildly.
+
+Another hand shot up. "Please teacher, you say it first."
+
+There was also, then, an established order of precedence.
+
+"I don't know it, either," said Desire.
+
+This might have precipitated a deadlock. But, fortunately, the row did
+not believe her. They smiled stiffly. Their smile revealed more clearly
+than anything else how unthinkable it was for a teacher not to know the
+Golden Text. Desire, in desperation, remembered the paper-covered
+"Quarterly" which the assistant had put into her hands and, with a
+flash of inspiration, decided that what the children wanted was
+probably there. She opened it feverishly and was delighted to discover
+"Golden Text" in large letters on the first page she looked at. She
+read hastily.
+
+"And thou Bethlehem in the land of Juda--"
+
+A whole row of hands shot up. "Please teacher, that was last
+Christmas!" announced the class reproachfully.
+
+With shame Desire noticed that the lessons in the Quarterly were dated.
+But she was regaining something of her ordinary poise.
+
+"You ought to know it, even if it is," she remarked firmly. This was
+more according to Hoyle. The little boy's hand answered it.
+
+"'Tain't review Sunday, teacher."
+
+Teacher decided to ignore this. "Very well," she said. "We will now
+have the Golden Text for today. Who will say it first? I will give you
+a start--'As Moses--'"
+
+"As Moses," piped a chorus of small voices.
+
+"Lifted up," prompted Desire.
+
+"Lifted up," shrilled the chorus.
+
+"Yes?" expectantly.
+
+The chorus was silent.
+
+"Well, children, go on."
+
+But nobody went on.
+
+"You don't know it," declared Desire with mild severity. "Very well.
+Learn it for next Sunday. Now I am going to ask you some questions.
+First of all--who was Moses?"
+
+She asked the question generally but her eye fell upon the one male
+member who swallowed his Sunday gum-drop with a gulp.
+
+"Don't know his nother name," said the male member sulkily.
+
+Desire realized that she didn't know, either. "I did not ask you to
+tell his name but something about him. Where he lived, for instance.
+Where did Moses live?" Her eye swept down to the mite at the end of the
+row.
+
+"Bulrushes!" said that infant gaspingly.
+
+"He was hidden among bulrushes," explained Desire, "but he couldn't
+exactly live there. Does anyone know what a bulrush is?"
+
+The row exchanged glances and nudged each other.
+
+"Things you soak in coal-oil," began one.
+
+"To make torches at 'lections," added another.
+
+"Same as cat-tails," volunteered a third condescendingly.
+
+"Well, even if they were anything like that, he couldn't live in them,
+could he?" Desire felt that she had made a point at last.
+
+"Could if he was a frog," offered the male member after consideration.
+
+To Desire's surprise the row accepted this seriously.
+
+"But as he was a baby and not a frog," she went on hurriedly, "he must
+have lived with his mother in a house. The name of the country they
+lived in was Egypt. And Egypt had a wicked King. This wicked King
+ordered all the little boy babies--" She paused, appalled at the
+thought of telling these infants of that long-past ruthlessness. But,
+again to her surprise, the infants now showed pleasurable interest. An
+excited murmur rose.
+
+"I like that part!" ... "Why didn't he kill the girl babies, too?"
+... "Did he cut their heads right off?" ... "Did their mothers
+holler?" ... While the male member offered with an air of authority,
+"I 'spect he just wrung their necks."
+
+"Well, well! Getting along nicely, I see," said the assistant,
+tiptoeing down the aisle. "I felt sure you would interest them, Mrs.
+Spence. You will find our children very intelligent."
+
+"Very," agreed Desire.
+
+"They all know the Golden Text, I am sure," he continued with that
+delightful manner which children dumbly hate. "Annie, you may begin."
+
+But Annie refused to avail herself of this privilege. Instead she
+showed symptoms of tears.
+
+"Come, come!" chided the assistant still more delightfully. "We mustn't
+be shy! Bessie, let us hear from you. 'As Moses--'"
+
+"As Moses."
+
+"Very good. Now, Eddie. 'Lifted up.'"
+
+"Lifted up."
+
+"Very good indeed. Mabel, you next. 'The ser-'"
+
+"I'm scared of snakes," said Mabel unexpectedly.
+
+"Well, well! But you are not afraid of snakes in Sunday School."
+
+"I'm s-cared of snakes anywhere!" wailed Mabel.
+
+"Oh, there is the first bell--excuse me." The relief of the assistant
+was a joyful thing. "That means that you have three minutes more, Mrs.
+Spence. We usually utilize these last moments for driving home the main
+thought of the lesson. Very important, of course, to leave some
+concrete idea--sorry, I must hurry."
+
+Desire felt that she must hurry, too. She hadn't even time to wonder
+what a concrete idea might be. One can't wonder about anything in three
+minutes.
+
+"Children," she began. "We haven't learned much about Moses. But the
+main idea of this lesson is that he was a very good man and a great
+patriot. He had been brought up in a King's palace, yet when the time
+came for him to choose, he left the beautiful home of the mother who
+had adopted him and went to his own people. His Own People," she
+repeated slowly. "Do you understand that?" The class sat stolidly
+silent. Desire's eye rested again upon the little girl with the prim
+mouth.
+
+"Ma says 'dopting anyone's a terrible risk," said the prim one. "Like
+as not they'll never say thank yuh." ...
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+"And that," said Desire later in the day as she related her experiences
+to the professor, "that was the idea with which I left them! I shan't
+have to teach again, shall I, Benis?"
+
+Her husband smiled. "No. I should think more would be a superfluity."
+
+"They'll say I'm a heathen. I know they will. You don't realize how
+serious it is. Think how your prestige will suffer."
+
+"It has suffered already. Only yesterday Mrs. Walkem, the laundress,
+told Aunt that your--er--peculiarities were a judgment on me for
+'tryin' to find out them things in folkses minds which God has hid away
+a-purpose.'"
+
+"But I'm in earnest, Benis--more or less."
+
+"Let it be less, then. My dear girl, you don't really think that
+Bainbridge disturbs me?"
+
+"N-no. But it disturbs me. A little. I am so different from all these
+people, your friends. And being different is rather--lonely."
+
+"It is," he agreed. "But it is also stimulating."
+
+"I used to think," she went on, following her own thought, "that I was
+different because my life was different. I thought that if I could ever
+live with people, just as we live here, with everything normal and
+everyday, the strangeness would drop away. But it hasn't. I am still
+outside."
+
+"Everyone is, though you are young to realize it. Our social life is
+very deceiving. Most of us wake up some day to find ourselves alone in
+a desert."
+
+Desire swung the hammock gently with the tip of her shoe. "Is not one
+ever a part of a whole?"
+
+"Socially, yes. Spiritually--I doubt it. It is some-thing which you
+will have to decide for yourself."
+
+"I don't want to be alone," said Desire rebelliously. "It frightens me.
+I want to have a place. I want to fit in. But here, it seems as if I
+had come too late. Every-one is fitted in already. There isn't a tiny
+corner left."
+
+Spence's grey eyes looked at her with a curious light in their depths.
+
+"Wait," he said. "You haven't found your corner yet. When you do, the
+rest won't matter."
+
+"But people do not want me. I had a horrid dream last night. I was
+wandering all through Bainbridge and all the doors were open so that I
+might go in anywhere. I was glad--at first. But I soon saw that my
+freedom did not mean anything. No one saw me when I entered or cared
+when I went away. I spoke to them and they did not answer. Then I knew
+that I was just a ghost."
+
+"I'm another," said a cheerful voice behind them. "All my 'too, too
+solid flesh' is melting rapidly. Only ice-cream can save me now!" Using
+his straw hat vigorously as a fan Dr. Rogers dropped limply into an
+empty chair. "Tell you a secret," he went on confidentially. "I had two
+invitations to Sunday supper but neither included ice-cream. So I came
+on here."
+
+"Very kind, I'm sure," murmured Benis.
+
+"How did you guess?" began Desire, and then she dimpled. "Oh, of
+course,--Benis wasn't in church."
+
+"How did he know that?" asked Benis sharply. "He wasn't there, was he?"
+
+The doctor looked conscious. Desire laughed. "His presence did seem to
+create a mild sensation," she admitted.
+
+"Well, you see," he explained, "in the summer I am often very busy--"
+
+"In the cellar," murmured Benis.
+
+"But no one happened to need me today and, besides, my freezer is
+broken. This, combined with--"
+
+"An added attraction," sotto voce from the professor.
+
+"Oh, well--I went, anyway."
+
+"I saw you there," said Desire, ignoring their banter. "I thought you
+might have gone for the sermon. The subject was one of your
+specialties, wasn't it?"
+
+The doctor twirled his hat.
+
+"Better tell him what the subject was," suggested Benis unkindly.
+
+"Didn't you listen?" Desire's inquiring eyebrows lifted. "That's one of
+the things I don't understand about people here. Church and church
+affairs seem to play such an important part in Bainbridge. Nearly
+everyone goes to some church. But no one seems at all disturbed about
+what they hear there. Is it because they believe all that the minister
+says, or because they don't believe any of it?"
+
+Her hearers exchanged an alarmed glance.
+
+"What do you want them to do?" said John uneasily. "Argue about it?
+Besides, this morning was very exceptionally hot."
+
+"I don't want to be any more heathen than I have to be," went on
+Desire, "but I must be terribly heathen if what Mr. McClintock said
+this morning is right. He was speaking of pain, physical pain, and, he
+said God sent it. I always thought," she concluded naively, "that it
+came straight from the devil."
+
+"Healthy chap, McClintock!" said Benis lazily. "Never had anything
+worse than measles and doesn't remember them."
+
+"What I'd like to know," said the doctor, "would be his opinion after
+several weeks of--something unpleasant. He might feel more like blaming
+the devil. What does he think doctors are fighting? God? By Jove, I
+must have this out with McClintock! I know that, for one, I never fight
+down pain without a glorious sense of giving Satan his licks."
+
+"But you did not even listen."
+
+"I'm listening now."
+
+"And no one else seemed to object to anything he said. I heard some of
+them call it a 'beautiful discourse' and 'so helpful.'"
+
+Under her perplexed gaze the two Bainbridgers were clearly
+uncomfortable.
+
+"It's because you don't really care what you hear from the pulpit,"
+said the girl accusingly. "You have your own beliefs and go your own
+ways. Another man's views, good or bad, make no difference."
+
+"S-shish! 'ware Aunt Caroline!" warned the professor, but Desire was
+too absorbed to heed.
+
+"Why, if one actually believed half of what was said this morning," she
+went on, "the world would be a beautiful garden with half its lovely
+things forbidden. 'Don't touch the flowers' and 'Keep off the grass'
+would be everywhere. It seems such a waste, if God made so many happy
+things and then doesn't like it if people are too happy."
+
+"Not many of us suffer from too much happiness," muttered Benis.
+
+"Or too much health," echoed the doctor. "I'd like to tell McClintock
+that if people would expect more health, they'd get more. The ordinary
+person expects ill-ness. They have a 'disease complex'--that's in your
+line, Benis. But just supposing they could change the idea--Eh?
+Supposing everybody began to look for health--just take it, you know,
+as a God-intended right? I'd lose half my living in a fortnight."
+
+"John Rogers!" Aunt Caroline's voice fell with the effect of sizzling
+hailstones upon the fire of John's enthusiasm. "If you must talk
+heresy, there are other places beside my garden to do it in."
+
+"I was merely saying--"
+
+"I heard what you were saying. And although it takes a great deal to
+surprise me, I am surprised. Such doctrines I consider most dangerous,
+highly so. If you are thinking of setting up as a faith healer, the
+sooner we know it the better. Desire, my dear, you might see Olive
+about tea. Tell her not to forget the lemon. I do not know what I have
+done to deserve a maid called Olive," she sighed, "but the only
+alternative was Gladys. And Gladys I could not endure. As for illness,
+I am surprised at you, John Rogers. I was not in church owing to a
+severe headache, but I know the sermon. It is one of Mr. McClintock's
+very best. If you had not gone to sleep in the middle of the first
+point you would have heard the mystery of pain beautifully explained. A
+wonderful preacher. If he wouldn't click his teeth."
+
+The professor shuddered.
+
+"Benis acts so foolishly about it," went on Aunt Caroline. "He insists
+that the clicking makes him ill. But why should it? At the same time,
+if one of the Elders were to suggest, tactfully, to Mr. McClintock that
+he have the upper set tightened it might be well. It would at least"
+(with grimness) "do away with the trivial excuses of some people for
+not attending Divine service."
+
+Her graceless nephew was understood to murmur something about "too hot
+to fight."
+
+"As for Mr. McClintock's ideas," pursued Aunt Caroline, "they are quite
+beautiful. The first time he gave the deathbed description which
+comprises part of this morning's discourse he had us all in tears. I
+mean all of us who were sufficiently awake to realize the fact that it
+was a deathbed. His description of the last agony has clearly lost
+nothing in poignancy, for Desire came home quite pale. I wonder if you
+have noticed, Benis, that Desire is looking somewhat less robust?
+Doctor, now that she is not here--"
+
+"Now that she is not here, we will not discuss her," said Spence firmly.
+
+"Indeed! And may I ask why you wish to stop me, Benis? I am speaking to
+a qualified medical man, am I not? But there," with resignation, "I
+never can expect to understand the present generation. So lax on one
+hand, so squeamish on the other. Surely it is perfectly proper that I,
+her Aunt--oh, very well, Benis, if you are determined to be silly."
+
+"Now with regard to the Rev. McClintock," put in the doctor hastily.
+"Do you really think that he is sufficiently in touch with modern views
+to--to--oh, dash it! what was I saying?"
+
+"You were interrupting me when I was telling Benis--"
+
+"Oh yes. I remember. We were talking about new ideas. And you suggested
+heresy. But you must remember that, in my profession, new ideas are not
+called heresy--except when they are very new. What would you think of
+me if I doctored exactly as my father did before me?"
+
+"When you are half as capable as your father, young man, I may discuss
+that with you."
+
+"One for you!'' said Benis gleefully.
+
+"Well, leaving me out then, and speaking generally, why should a
+physician search continually for fresh wisdom, while a minister--"
+
+"Beware, young man!" Aunt Caroline raised an affrighted hand. "Beware
+how you compare your case with that of a minister of the Gospel. That
+further wisdom is needed in the practice of medicine, anyone who has
+ever employed a doctor is well aware. But where is he who dare add one
+jot to Divine revelation?"
+
+"No one is speaking of adding anything. But surely, in the matter of
+interpretation, an open mind is a first essential?"
+
+"In the matter of interpretation," said Aunt Caroline grandly, "we have
+our ordained ministers. How do you feel," she added shrewdly, "toward
+quacks and healers who, without study or training, call themselves
+doctors? Do you say, 'Let us display an open mind'?"
+
+"Time!" said Benis, who enjoyed his relative hugely--when she was
+disciplining someone else. "Here comes Desire with the tea."
+
+"What I really came out to say, Benis," resumed Aunt Caroline, "is that
+I have just had a long distance call--Desire, my dear, cream or
+lemon?--a long distance call from Toronto where, I fear, such things
+are allowed on Sunday--Doctor, you like lemon, I think?--a call in fact
+from Mary Davis. You remember her, Benis? Such a sweet girl. She is
+feeling a little tired and would like to run down here for a rest.
+Desire, my dear, have you any plans with which this would interfere? I
+said that I would consult you and let her know. You are very careless
+with your plate, Benis. That Spode can never be replaced."
+
+Fortunately her anxiety for the family heirloom absorbed Aunt
+Caroline's whole attention. If she noticed her nephew's look of
+anguished guilt and his friend's politely raised brows she ascribed it
+to his carelessness in balancing china. Desire's downcast eyes and
+stiffened manner she did not notice at all.
+
+"Well, my dear, what do you say? Shall we invite Mary?"
+
+"It depends on Benis, of course," said Desire quietly.
+
+"Benis? What has Benis to do with it? Not but that he enjoyed having
+her here last time well enough. It is the privilege of the mistress of
+the house to choose her guests. I hope you will not be slack in
+claiming your privileges. They are much harder to obtain than one's
+rights. My dear sister was careless. She allowed Benis's father to do
+just as he pleased. Be warned in time."
+
+"Do you wish Miss Davis to visit us, Benis?" Desire's hands were busy
+with her teacup. Her eyes were still lowered.
+
+"I have no wishes whatever in the matter," said the professor with what
+might be considered admirable detachment.
+
+"Tell Miss Davis we shall be delighted, Aunt," said Desire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+Time, in quiet neighborhoods, like water in a pool, slips in and out
+leaving the pool but little changed. Only when one is waiting for
+something dreaded or desired do the days drag or hasten. Miss Davis was
+to arrive upon the Friday following her telephone invitation. That left
+Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Desire found them very long.
+
+Nothing more had been said of the personality of the expected visitor.
+Desire did not ask, because she felt sure that, when she had seen, she
+would know without asking. At present there was little enough to go
+upon. The guest's name was Mary. Her hair was yellow. She had visited
+in Bainbridge before. She and Benis had been friends. Beyond this there
+was nothing save the professor's carelessness with the family Spode--an
+annoying device for diverting attention in moments of embarrassment.
+
+Against this circumstantial evidence there was the common-sense
+argument that the real Mary of the professor's romance would hardly be
+likely, under the circumstances, to propose herself as his aunt's guest.
+
+Desire was inclined to take the common-sense view. Especially as just
+about this time she came upon the track of another Mary, also with
+yellow hair, who presented possibilities. The most suspicious thing
+about this second Mary was that neither the professor nor his friend
+Dr. Rogers had been able to tell Desire her first name. Now in
+Bainbridge everyone knows the first name of everyone else. One does not
+use it, necessarily, but one knows it. So that when Desire, having one
+day noticed a gleam of particularly golden hair, asked innocently to
+"whom it might belong" and was met by a plain surname prefixed merely
+by "Miss," she became instantly curious. From other sources she learned
+that the golden-haired Miss Watkins had been employed as a nurse in Dr.
+Rogers' office for several months and that her Christian name was Mary
+Sophia.
+
+This also, you will see, was not much to build upon. But Desire felt
+that she must neglect nothing. The menace of the unseen, unknown Mary
+was beginning seriously to disturb her peace of mind. She determined to
+see the doctor's pretty nurse at the earliest opportunity.
+
+The comradeship between herself and Rogers had prospered amazingly. She
+had liked the young doctor at first sight; had discerned in him
+something charmingly boylike and appealing. And Desire had never had
+boy friends. The utter frankness of her friendship was undisturbed by
+overmuch knowledge of her own attractions, and the possibility of less
+contentment on his side did not occur to her. Feeling herself so much
+older, in reality, than he, she assumed with delicious naivete, the
+role of confidant and general adviser. What time she could spare from
+Benis and the great Book she bestowed most generously upon his friend.
+
+During the four dragging days of waiting the appearance of Miss Davis,
+she had found the distraction of Dr. John's company particularly
+helpful. And then, after all, Miss Davis did not arrive. Instead, there
+came a note regretting a very bad cold and postponing the visit until
+its indefinite recovery. The news came at the breakfast table.
+
+"How long," asked Desire thoughtfully, "does a bad cold usually last?"
+
+"Not long--if it's just a cold," answered Benis with some gloom. "But,"
+more hopefully, "if it is tonsillitis it lasts weeks and if pneumonia
+sets in you have to stay indoors for months."
+
+Aunt Caroline looked over her spectacles.
+
+"You sound," she said, "as if you wish it were pneumonia."
+
+But in this she was, perhaps, severe. Her nephew was really not capable
+of wishing pneumonia for anyone, not even a possible Nemesis by the
+name of Mary. He merely felt that if such a complication should
+supervene he would bear the news with fortitude. For, speaking
+colloquially, the professor was finding himself very much "in the air."
+Desire's mind upon the subject of this guest in particular and of Marys
+in general, had become clouded to his psychological gaze. He had
+thought at first that his young secretary was jealous with that
+harmless sex jealousy which may almost as well be described as "pique."
+But, of late, he had not felt so sure about it. He did not, in fact,
+feel quite so sure about any-thing.
+
+Desire was changing. He had expected her to change, but the rapidity of
+it was somewhat breath-taking. In appearance she had become noticeably
+younger. The firm line of her lips had taken on softer curves; the warm
+white of her skin was bloomy like a healthy child's; shadow after
+shadow had lifted from her deep grey eyes. But it was in her manner
+that the most significant difference lay. Spence sometimes wondered if
+he had dreamed the silent Desire of the mountain cottage. That Desire
+had stood coldly alone; had listened and weighed and gone her own way
+with the hard confidence of too early maturity. This Desire listened
+and weighed still, but her confidence was often now replaced by
+questioning. In this new and more normal world, her unserved,
+unsatisfied youth was breaking through.
+
+But, if she were younger, she was certainly not more simple. If the
+grey eyes were less shadowed, they were no less inscrutable. If the
+lips were softer, their serenity was as baffling as their sternness had
+been. If she seemed more plastic she was not less illusive. Nimble as
+were his mental processes, the professor was discomfited to find that
+hers were still more nimble.
+
+Meanwhile the Book was getting on. No excursions into the land of youth
+were allowed to interfere with Desire's idea of her secretarial duties.
+If anyone shirked, it was the author; if anyone wanted holidays it was
+he. If he were lazy, Desire found ways of making progress without him;
+if he grumbled, she laughed.
+
+The day set apart for the arrival of Miss Davis had been voted a
+holiday and the professor hoped that her non-appearance would not
+interfere with so pleasant an arrangement. But Desire's ideas were
+quite otherwise. Sharply on time she descended to the library with her
+note-book ready. The professor felt injured.
+
+"Must we really?" he said. "Yes. I see we must. But mind! I know why
+you are doing it. I thought of your reason in the night when I was
+unable to sleep from overwork. You are hurrying to get through so that
+we may leave this sleepy town. Insatiable window-gazer! You wish to
+look in bigger windows."
+
+"Do I?" Desire turned limpid eyes upon him and tapped her note-book.
+"Then the sooner we get on with this chapter on 'The Significance of
+the Totem' the better. But, if you can excuse me this afternoon, Dr.
+John has just 'phoned to ask me if I can call on the eldest Miss
+Martin. He says that her state of mind is her greatest trouble. And it
+does not react to medicine."
+
+The professor looked still more injured.
+
+"We can't begin the totem chapter unless we are going to go on with
+it," he objected. "I don't see why John doesn't get a secretary of his
+own."
+
+"He has a nurse," said Desire smoothly.
+
+"Er--oh yes, of course. Well, perhaps we had better begin--but why does
+he want you to call on Miss Martin?"
+
+Desire looked self-conscious, a rare thing for her. "Well, you see, I
+have an idea about Miss Martin. It may be entirely wrong but John
+thinks it worth trying. You knew that her fiance was killed just before
+the armistice, didn't you? John says she seemed stunned at the time but
+kept on, the way most women did. She helped him fight the 'flu' all
+that winter without taking it her-self. But she was one of the first to
+come down with it when it returned this Spring. She got through the
+worst--and there she stays. John says that if she doesn't begin to pick
+up soon there won't be enough of her left to bother about."
+
+"And your idea?"
+
+"You might laugh," said Desire with sudden shyness.
+
+The professor promised not to laugh.
+
+"My idea is this. To find out the real reason for her not getting
+better and treat that."
+
+"Very simple."
+
+"Yes, because John already knows the real cause. He says she doesn't
+get well because she doesn't want to. In the old days people would say
+her heart was broken. And it seems such a pity, because, if what
+everyone says is true, she would have been frightfully unhappy if she
+had married him. (Desire became slightly incoherent here.) They weren't
+suited at all. He was a musician, a derelict who hadn't a thought in
+the world for anything but his violin. Aunt Caroline says the
+engagement was a mystery to everyone. She says that probably Miss
+Martin just offered to take him in hand and look after him (she used to
+be very capable) and he hadn't backbone enough to say she couldn't.
+They say that the only time anyone ever saw a gleam in his face was the
+day he went away to the war. Then he was killed. And now she won't get
+well because she can't forget him."
+
+"And that is what you call a 'pity'?"
+
+"Well, not exactly that." She hesitated. "If he had cared for her as
+she thought he did, it wouldn't seem such a waste. But he didn't.
+Everybody knew it--except herself."
+
+"Everybody may have been wrong."
+
+"Yes. But that is just the point. They weren't. He died as he had lived
+without a thought for anything but music. I happened to hear a rather
+wonderful story about his dying. Sergeant Timms, who drives the baker's
+cart, was in the next cot to his, in the hospital. And my idea is that
+if he could just tell her the story--just let her see that he went away
+without a thought--she might get things in proportion again and let
+herself get well."
+
+"I see. Well, my dear, it is your idea. Is John going to drive you out?"
+
+"No. He wanted to. But I'll have to find the Sergeant and take him with
+me."
+
+"In the baker's cart?"
+
+"What a good idea! I would never have thought of that. And I've always
+wanted to ride in a baker's cart. They smell so crusty."
+
+So it was really the professor's fault that Bainbridge was scandalized
+by the sight of young Mrs. Spence jogging comfortably along through the
+outskirts in a bread cart driven by the one-time Sergeant Edward Timms.
+
+"And him so silly with havin' her," said Mrs. Beatty (who first noticed
+them), "that he didn't know a French roll from a currant bun."
+
+Indeed we may as well admit that the gallant Sergeant confused more
+things that day than rolls and buns. The latter part of his orderly
+bread route was strewn thickly with indignant customers. For the
+Sergeant was a thoroughgoing fellow quite incapable of a divided
+interest.
+
+"You can tell me the details of the story as we go along," Desire said,
+"so that I shan't be interrupting your work at all."
+
+The dazzled Sergeant agreed and immediately delivered two whites
+instead of one brown and forgot the tickets.
+
+"Well, you see," he said, "it was this way. We went over there
+together, him and me. And we hadn't known each other, so to speak, not
+intimate. You didn't know him yourself at all, did you?"
+
+Desire shook her head.
+
+"He was a queer one. Willin' as could be to do what he was told, but
+forgettin' what it was, regular. Just naturally no good, like, except
+with the fiddle. I will say, that with that there instrument he was a
+Paderwooski--yes, mam! By the time our outfit got into them trenches
+the boys was just clean dippy about him. They kind of took turns
+dry-nursin' him and remindin' him of the things he'd got to do, and
+doin' them for him when they could put it over. I'll tell you
+this--it's my private suspicion that more than one chap went west
+tryin' to keep the bullets offen him! Not that they were crazy about
+him exactly, but that fiddle of his had got them goin'. 'Twasn't only
+the fiddle he played on, either. Anything would do. That there chap
+could play you into any kind of dashed mood he liked and out of it
+again. Put more pep into you with a penny whistle than Sousy's band or
+a bottle of rum. Ring you out like a dishrag, he could, and hang you
+out to dry. Gee! He could do anything--just anything!"
+
+(It was here that the bun episode occurred.)
+
+"Well,--he got buried. Parapet blown in. And when they got him out he
+was--hurt some." (The Sergeant remembered that one must not shock the
+ladies.)
+
+"That was all I would have known about it," he went on, "only we happen
+to turn up in hospital together. I wakes up one mornin' and finds him
+in the next cot. He was supposed to be recoverin' but was somehow
+botchin' the job.
+
+"'Where's the fiddle?' I says to him one day when I was feelin' social.
+And then, all of a minute, I guessed why he wasn't patchin' up like
+what was his duty. You see, that b-blessed parapet hadn't had any more
+sense than to go and spoil his right arm for him--the one he fiddled
+with, see?"
+
+(Here the Sergeant delivered one brick loaf instead of two sandwich
+ditto.)
+
+"Well, they kept sayin' there weren't any reason he shouldn't mend up.
+But he didn't. And one night--" the Sergeant pulled up the cart so
+quickly that Desire almost fell out of it. "You won't believe this
+part," he said in a kind of shamefaced way.
+
+"Try me."
+
+"Well then, one night he called to me in a kind of clear whisper.
+'Bob!' he says, 'I've got my fiddle!'
+
+"'Sure you have, old cock,' says I.
+
+"'And my arm's as good as ever,' says he.
+
+"'Sure it is! Better,' says I.
+
+"'Listen!' says he.
+
+"And I listened and--but you won't believe this part--"
+
+"I will."
+
+"Well, I heared him playin'! Not loud--not very near but so clear not
+one of the littlest, tinkly notes was lost. I never heard playin' like
+that--no, mam! And the ward was still. I never heard the ward still,
+like that. I think I went to sleep listenin'. I don't know."
+
+The Sergeant broke off here long enough to deliver several orders--all
+wrong. Desire waited quietly and presently he finished with a jerk.
+
+"When I woke up in the mornin', I was feelin' fine--fine. The first
+thing I did was to look over to the next cot. But there was a screen
+around it.... I ain't told the story to his folks because he hasn't
+got any," he added after a pause. "And I kind of thought it mightn't
+comfort his fiancy any--it not bein' personal, so to speak."
+
+Desire frankly wiped her eyes. (It was fortunate that no one saw her do
+this.)
+
+"It's a beautiful story," she said.
+
+"Well, if you think I ought to tell, I will. But if his fiancy says,
+'Was there any message?' hadn't I best put in a little one--somethin'
+comforting?"
+
+"Oh--no."
+
+"All right. Couldn't I just say that at the end he called out
+'Amelia!'?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Timms!"
+
+"Not quite playin' the game, eh? Well, then I won't. But it does seem
+kind of skimp like.... There's the doctor waitin' at the gate."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+It seemed to Desire, waiting in the garden, that the Sergeant was
+taking an unnecessarily long time in telling his story. She had thought
+it best that he should be left alone to tell it, so the doctor had gone
+on to visit another patient, promising to call for her as he came back.
+
+Desire waited. And, as she waited, she thought. And, as she thought,
+she questioned. What had Benis meant when he had said, in that
+whimsical way of his, "Well, my dear, it is your idea"? If he had not
+approved of it, why hadn't he said so? It had seemed such a sensible
+idea. An idea of which anyone might approve.... Why also had
+Sergeant Timms been so reluctant to approach Miss Martin with the bare
+(and, Desire thought, beautiful) truth? Because he feared it would rob
+her of an illusion? But illusions are surely something which people are
+better without?--aren't they?
+
+The Sergeant came at last, twirling his cap and looking hot.
+
+"Well?" asked Desire nervously.
+
+"She'd like you to go in, Mrs. Spence, if you can spare the time. She
+took it quite quiet. 'Thank you, Sergeant,' says she. And never a
+question."
+
+The two looked at each other and Desire saw her own doubt plainly
+reflected upon the honest gaze of Robert Timms.
+
+"I'll go in," she said. "The doctor will take me home."
+
+In the invalid's room there was only quietness. Miss Martin sat in her
+chair by the window; her plain, thin face had not sought to turn from
+the searching light. Desire felt her heart begin to beat with the
+beginnings of an understanding as new as it was revealing.
+
+"Don't be sorry," Miss Martin's reassurance was instant. "I am glad to
+know.... I always did know, anyway ... and it did not make any
+difference ... If you can understand."
+
+Desire nodded. "He must have been very wonderful," she said. In that
+new and nameless understanding she forgot that only that morning she
+had referred to the dead musician as a "derelict" and "no good for
+anything."
+
+"Yes," said the invalid musing. "Not quite like the rest of us. And I
+see now that he never would have been. I used to think--but the
+difference was too deep. It was fundamental.... I feel ... as if
+he knew it ... and just wandered on."
+
+"But you?" Desire ventured this almost timidly. The quietness seemed to
+intensify in the room. Then the invalid's voice, serene, distant.
+
+"I? ... There is no hurry.... He has his fiddle, you see...."
+Miss Martin smiled and the smile held no bitterness. So might a mother
+have smiled over a thoughtless child who turns away from a love he is
+too young to value.
+
+Desire was silent.
+
+"I did not know love was like that," she said after a long pause. "But
+perhaps I do not know anything about love at all."
+
+The older woman looked at her with quiet scrutiny.
+
+"You will," she said.
+
+After that they talked of other things until the doctor came to take
+Desire home.
+
+"Queer thing," he said as he threw in the clutch, "I believe she looks
+a little better already. That was an excellent idea of yours."
+
+"It was anything but an excellent idea." Desire's tone was taut with
+emotional reaction. "Fortunately, it did no harm. But I don't know what
+you were thinking of to allow it."
+
+"Allow it?" In surprised injury.
+
+Desire did not take up the challenge. She was looking, he thought,
+unusually excited. There was faint color on her cheek. Her hands,
+generally so quiet, clasped and unclasped her handbag with an
+irritating click. Being a wise man, Rogers waited until the clicking
+had subsided. Then, "What's the matter?" he asked mildly.
+
+"John," said Desire, "do you know anything about love?"
+
+"I see you do," she added as the car leapt forward, narrowly missing a
+surprised cow. "So perhaps you will laugh at my new wisdom. I learned
+something to-day."
+
+The car was giving trouble. For a few moments its eccentricities
+required its driver's undivided attention. Even when it was running
+smoothly again, he appeared preoccupied. But Desire was seldom in a
+hurry. She waited until he was quite ready.
+
+"You learned something--about love?" asked John gruffly.
+
+"Yes. Have you a sore throat? Your voice sounds all dusty. I used to
+think," she went on dreamily, "that love was something that came from
+outside. That it depended on things. But it doesn't depend on anything
+and it's not outside at all."
+
+"And you found this out, today?"
+
+"Yes. I saw it, in Miss Martin. It was quite plain. What idiots we were
+to pity her!"
+
+"Did we pity her?"
+
+The question was mechanical. John was not thinking of Miss Martin. He
+was thinking of the faint rose upon Desire's half-turned cheek. Desire
+blushing!
+
+"Of course we did. And we had no right. And there is no need."
+
+"Don't let's do it, then," said John. Out of the corner of his eye he
+saw, with a quickening of his pulse, how stirred she was. And his
+wonder mounted. That Desire, of the cool, grey eyes and unwarmed smile,
+should speak of love at all was sufficiently amazing, but that she
+should speak of it with tinted cheek was a miracle.
+
+Yet this, he quickly remembered, was something which he had himself
+foreseen. He had never really accepted Spence's theory that early
+disillusion had seriously poisoned the lifesprings natural to her age.
+Her awakening had been certain. He had warned Spence that she would
+wake! He felt all the exultation of a prophet who sees his prophecy
+fulfilled. But common sense urged caution. To frighten her now might be
+fatal. He tried to bring his mind back to Miss Martin.
+
+"At least," he said, "our intentions were admirable. We were trying to
+help her."
+
+"We were being very impertinent," affirmed Desire. "Benis told me so
+this morning."
+
+"Benis told you?" in surprise.
+
+"Well, he didn't exactly tell me. But I am sure he wanted to."
+
+This was too subtle for the doctor. There were times when he frankly
+admitted his inability to bridge Desire's conversational chasms. He was
+often puzzled by the things she did not say.
+
+"What was Benis thinking of," he said irritably, "to let you come out
+in that bread cart?"
+
+Desire laughed. "I hope he was thinking of the Significance of the
+Totem. But I'm almost sure he wasn't."
+
+"Does he ever think of anything but that blessed book of his?"
+
+"I'm afraid he does--occasionally."
+
+"You mean," with sharpened interest, "that he isn't quite as keen on it
+as he used to be?"
+
+"I mean that he doesn't like me to work too hard."
+
+"Oh, I see. Perhaps he does not wish you to work too hard for me,
+either?"
+
+Desire folded her hands upon her bag and looked primly into space.
+
+"He is a very considerate employer," she remarked mildly. "Take
+care--you nearly hit that hen!"
+
+"Oh, d--bother the hen!"
+
+"And he never swears," added Desire with gentle dignity.
+
+They drove for a mile or so without remark and then, Desire, who had
+something to say, reopened the conversation without rancour.
+
+"Don't be cross," she said. "As a matter of fact Benis does swear
+sometimes. He is nervous, you know. I sometimes wonder if it is all due
+to shell shock, or whether it is a result of his--er--other experience."
+
+For the second time that day the car skidded. And for the second time,
+its unfortunate driver was called upon to give it his whole attention.
+Desire waited.
+
+"I mean his former love affair," said she when conversation was again
+possible.
+
+"His--I don't know," said John weakly.
+
+Desire looked sceptical.
+
+"Don't fancy I want to question you," she said with haughtiness. "But I
+don't see how you can help knowing. You are his doctor. And his friend,
+too. He must have told you. Didn't he?"
+
+"He mentioned something--er--that is to say--"
+
+"Oh, don't hesitate! Don't fancy that I mind. I don't, of course. And I
+am not curious. Although any-one might be curious. I won't ask you
+questions. I am only mildly interested. It is entirely for his own good
+that I should like to know if she is quite as wonderful as he thinks.
+Is she, John?"
+
+"I--I don't know," stammered the wretched John.
+
+Desire nodded patiently.
+
+"You mean you don't know how wonderful he thought her? But did you
+think her very wonderful, John?"
+
+"No, I didn't"
+
+"You thought her plain?"
+
+"No, I--I didn't think of her at all."
+
+"You mean that you found her insignificant?"
+
+The doctor made a sound which Desire was pleased to interpret as assent.
+
+"I'm not surprised," said she earnestly. "Because, from the description
+Benis gave, I felt sure he was exaggerating. Not that it makes any
+difference, because, if he thought she was like that, what she really
+was like didn't matter. That," with plaintive triumph, "is one of the
+things I learned today."
+
+The doctor said nothing. It was the only thing which he felt it safe to
+say.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+The professor was smoking under the maples by the front steps when the
+car drove up. He looked very cool, very comfortable and very sure of
+himself--entirely too sure of himself, in John's opinion. John, who at
+the moment, felt neither cool nor comfortable, and anything but sure,
+observed him with envy and pity. Envy for so obvious a content, pity
+for an ignorance which made content possible.
+
+Spence, on his part, seemed unaware of a certain tenseness in the
+attitude of both Desire and John, a symptom which might have suggested
+many things to a reflective mind.
+
+"You look frightfully 'het up,' Bones," he said. "And your collar is
+wilting. Better pause in your mad career and have some tea."
+
+"Thanks, can't. Office hours--see you later," jerked the doctor rapidly
+as he turned his car.
+
+"What have you been doing to John to bring on an attack of 'office
+hours' at this time of day?" asked Spence as he and Desire crossed the
+lawn together. "Wasn't the great idea a success?"
+
+"John thinks it was."
+
+It was so unlike Desire to give someone else's opinion when asked for
+her own that the professor said "um."
+
+"I suppose," she added stiffly, "it is a question of values."
+
+"Something for something--and a doubt as to whether one pays too dear
+for the whistle? Well, don't worry about it. If you could not help, you
+probably could not hurt, either.... I had a letter from Li Ho this
+afternoon."
+
+"A letter!" Desire's swift step halted. Her eyes, wide and startled,
+questioned him. "A letter from Li Ho? But Li Ho can't write--in
+English."
+
+"Can't he? Wait until you've read it. But I shan't let you read it, if
+you look like that."
+
+"Like what? Frightened? But I am frightened. I can't help it. I know
+it's foolish. But the more I forget--the worse it is when I remember."
+
+"You must get over that. Sit here while I fetch the letter. Aunt is
+out. I'll tell Olive to bring tea."
+
+Desire sat where he placed her. It was very pleasant there with the
+green slope of the lawn and the cool shadow of trees. But her widely
+opened eyes saw nothing of its homely peace. They saw, instead, a
+curving stretch of moonlit beach and a trail which wound upwards into
+thick darkness. Ever since she had broken away, that vision had haunted
+her, now near and menacing, now dimmer and farther off, but always
+there like a spectre of the past.
+
+"It hasn't let me go--it is there always--waiting," thought Desire. And
+in the still warmth of the garden she shivered.
+
+The sense of Self, which is our proudest possession, receives some
+curious shocks at times. Before the mystery of its own strange changing
+the personality stands appalled. The world swings round in chaos before
+the startled question, "Who am I--where is that other Self that once
+was I?"
+
+Only a few months separated Desire from her old life in the mountain
+cottage and already the mental and spiritual separation seemed
+infinite. But was it? Was there any real separation at all? That ghost
+of herself, which she had left behind on the moonlit beach, was it not
+still as much herself as ever it had been? Behind the shrouding veil of
+the present might not the old life still live, and the old Self wander,
+fixed and changeless? It was a fantastic idea of Desire's that the girl
+she had been was still where she had left her, working about the
+log-walled rooms, or wandering alone by the shining water. This Self
+knew no other life, would never know it--had no lot or part in the new
+life of the new Desire. Yet in its background she was always there, a
+figure of fate, waiting. Through the pleasant, busy days Desire forgot
+her--almost. But never was she quite free from the pull of that
+unsevered bond.
+
+Until today there had been no actual word from the discarded past. Dr.
+Farr had not replied to Desire's brief announcement of her marriage.
+She had not expected that he would. And for the rest, Spence had
+arranged with Li Ho for news of anything which might concern the old
+man's welfare.
+
+"Here is the letter," said Benis, breaking in upon her musing. "You
+will see that, if the clear expression of thought constitutes good
+English, Li Ho's English is excellent."
+
+He handed her a single sheet of blue note paper, beautiful with a
+narrow purple border and the very last word in "chaste and distinctive"
+stationery.
+
+"Honorable Spence and Respected Sir"--wrote Li Ho--"I address husband
+as is propriety but include to Missy wishes of much happiness.
+Honorable Boss and father is as per accustomed but no different.
+Admirable Sami child also of strong appetite when last observed.
+Departure of Missy is well to remain so. Moon-devil not say when, but
+arrive spontaneous. This insignificant advise from worthless personage
+Li Ho."
+
+Desire handed back the letter with a hand that was not quite steady.
+The professor frowned. He had hoped that she was beginning to forget.
+But, with one so unused to self-revelation as Desire, it had been
+difficult to tell. He had thought it unwise to question and he had
+never pressed any comparison between her life as it was and as it had
+been. Better, he thought, to let all the old memories die. They were,
+he fancied, not very tellable memories, being compounded not so much of
+word and deed as of those more subtle things without voice or being
+which are no less terribly, evilly, real and whose mark remains longest
+upon the soul. Even complete understanding would not help him to rub
+out these markings. Only that slow over-growing of life, which we call
+forgetfulness, could do that. She was so young, there was still an
+infinite impulse of growth within her and in the new growth old scars
+might pass away.
+
+Desire noticing the new seriousness of his face was conscious of a pang
+of guilt. It seems such crass ingratitude to doubt for one instant the
+stability of the happiness he had given her. Had he not done more than
+it had seemed possible for anyone to do? From the first she had
+overflowed with silent gratitude to him. There was wonder yet in the
+apparent ease with which he had sauntered into the prison of her life
+and, with a laugh and jest, set her free. He had shown her, for the
+first time in her life, the blessedness of receiving. Those whose
+nature it is to give greatly are not ungenerous to the giving of
+others. It is a small and selfish mind which fears to take, and Desire
+was neither small nor selfish. She had hidden the thanks she could not
+speak deep in her heart, letting them lie there, a core of sweetness,
+sweeter for its silence.
+
+Who shall say when in this secret core a wonderful something began to
+quicken and to grow? So fine were its beginnings that Desire herself
+knew them only as new bloom and color, 'violets sweeter, the blue sky
+bluer'--the old eternal miracle of a new-made earth.
+
+She had called this new thing friendship and had been content. Only
+today, when she had for an instant glimpsed life through the eyes of
+Agnes Martin, had there seemed possible a greater word. In that quiet
+room another name had whispered around her heart like the first breath
+of a rising wind. She had not dared to listen. Yet, without listening,
+she heard. And now, through Li Ho's letter, that other Self who would
+have none of love, stretched out a phantom hand and beckoned.
+
+The professor took the letter from her gravely, retaining, for an
+instant the unsteady hand that gave it.
+
+"Aren't you able to get away from it yet?" he asked kindly.
+
+"No. Perhaps I never shall. When the memory comes back I feel--sick. It
+is even worse in retrospect. When it was my daily life, I lived it. But
+now it seems impossible. Am I getting more cowardly, do you think?"
+
+Spence smiled. "I hope you are," he told her. "When you lived under a
+daily strain you were probably keyed to a sort of harmony with it. Now
+you are getting more normal. Life is a thing of infinite adjustment."
+
+"You think I could get 'adjusted' again if I had to?"
+
+"You won't have to. Why discuss it?"
+
+"Because it puzzles me. Why do I mind things more now than I did? I
+used to feel quite casual about father's oddities. They never seemed to
+exactly matter. But now," naively, "I would so much like to have a
+father like other people."
+
+"That is more normal, too."
+
+"I suppose," she went on, as if following her own thoughts, "what Li Ho
+calls the moon-devil is really a disease. Have you ever told Dr. John
+about father, Benis? What did he say?" The professor fidgeted. "Oh,
+nothing much. He couldn't, you know, without more data. But he thinks
+his periodical spells may be a kind of masked epilepsy. There are some
+symptoms which look like it. The way the attacks come on, with
+restlessness and that peculiar steely look in the eye, the unreasoning
+anger and especially the--er--general indications." The professor came
+to a stammering end, suddenly remembering that she did not know that
+last and worst of the moon-devil symptoms.
+
+"It is hereditary, of course," said Desire calmly.
+
+The professor jumped.
+
+"My dear girl! What an idea."
+
+"An idea which I could not very well escape. All these things tend to
+transmit themselves, do they not? Only not necessarily so. I seem to
+have escaped."
+
+"Yes," shortly. "Surely you have never supposed--"
+
+"No. I haven't. That's the odd part of it. I have never been the least
+bit afraid. Perhaps it's because I have never felt that I have anything
+at all in common with father. Or it may be because I have never faced
+facts. I don't know. Even now, when I am facing facts, they do not seem
+really to touch me. I never pretended to understand father. He seemed
+like two or three people, all strangers. Sometimes he was just a rather
+sly old man full of schemes for getting money without working for it,
+and very clever and astute. Sometimes he seemed a student and a
+scholar--this was his best mood. It was during this phase that he wrote
+his scientific articles and taught me all that I know. His own
+knowledge seemed to be an orderly confusion o>f all kinds of things.
+And he could be intensely interesting when he chose. In those moods he
+treated me with a certain courtesy which may have been a remnant of an
+earlier manner. But it never lasted long."
+
+"And the other mood--the third one?"
+
+"Oh, that Well, that was the bad mood. If it is a disease he was not
+responsible. So' we won't talk of it." Desire's lips tightened. "He
+usually went away in the hills when the restlessness came on. And I
+fancy Li Ho--watched."
+
+"Good old Li Ho!"
+
+Desire nodded. "I think now that perhaps I did not quite appreciate Li
+Ho. I should like to know--but what is the use? We shall never know
+more than we do."
+
+"Not about Li Ho'. He is the eternal Sphinx wrapped in an everlasting
+yesterday. I suppose he did not have even a beginning?"
+
+Desire smiled. "No. He was always there. He is one of my first
+memories. A kind of family familiar. Sometimes I think that if he had
+not been away the night my mother died she might have been alive still."
+
+Spence hesitated. "You have never told me about your mother's death,
+you know," he reminded her gently.
+
+"Haven't I?" Desire was plainly surprised. "Why--I thought you knew.
+That is a queer thing about you," she went on musingly, "I am always
+thinking that you know things which you don't. Perhaps it's because you
+guess so much without being told. My mother died suddenly--of shock.
+Her heart was never strong and the fright of waking to find a thief in
+her room proved fatal. It happened one night when Li Ho was away. We
+lived in Vancouver at the time and Li Ho often disappeared into
+Chinatown. He had all the Oriental passion for fan-tan. That night
+there was a police raid on his favorite gambling place and Li Ho was
+held till morning. It was always he who locked the doors and attended
+to everything at night. Perhaps it was known that he was away. But just
+what happened was never settled, for my father was found unconscious on
+the floor of the passage outside my mother's door. He couldn't remember
+anything clearly. The fact that there had been several previous
+burglaries in town and that there were valuables missing offered the
+only explanation."
+
+The professor was silent so long that Desire added: "I'm sorry. I
+should have told you before."
+
+"What difference would it have made?" He roused himself. "Tell me the
+rest of it. Did Li Ho think that your mother had been frightened by
+a--thief?"
+
+"I suppose so," in surprise. "Li Ho blamed himself terribly. He said it
+was his fault. If they hadn't known he was in the cells all night they
+might have suspected him. He acted so queerly. But of course what he
+meant was that if he had been at home the thief would not have broken
+in."
+
+"There were evidences of his having broken in?"
+
+"There was a window open."
+
+"And were any of the stolen things recovered."
+
+"Not that I ever heard of. And yet, I think perhaps some of them were.
+I remember--" Desire paused and a painful flush crept into her cheek.
+
+"Yes?" prompted Spence gently.
+
+"One of the lost things was an old-fashioned watch belonging to mother.
+I used to listen to it ticking. And once, years after, I saw it. Father
+had given it to--a friend of his. So, you see, he must have got it
+back."
+
+"I see." The professor was aware of a pricking along his spine. He
+looked at the unconscious face of the girl and ventured another
+question.
+
+"Was your father injured at all?"
+
+"His head was hurt. They did not know whether the thief had struck him
+or whether it was the fall. He had fallen just at the foot of the
+stairs. We lived in a bungalow, then, and as I was asleep in my little
+room under the eaves, it was thought that he had been trying to reach
+me--what is the matter?"
+
+The professor had been unable to control an involuntary shudder.
+
+"Nothing," he said. "Just nerves."
+
+Desire's smile was wistful. "It isn't a pretty story," she said. "None
+of the stories I can tell are pretty. That's why I am different from
+other people. But I am trying. Perhaps I shall get to be more like them
+presently."
+
+The professor banished his dark thoughts with an effort. "God forbid!"
+he said cheerfully. "And here comes tea!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+One wonders what would happen to our admirable muddle of a world, if
+even a minority of its inhabitants were suddenly to embrace
+consistency. It would, presumably, be a world still, but so changed
+that its best friends would not know it. It is because every-body,
+everywhere and at all times, acts as they could not logically be
+expected to act, that our dear familiar chaos of you-never-can-tell
+continues to entertain us.
+
+Had Desire possessed consistency, this quality so jewel-like in its
+rarity, she would have realized that, having voluntarily stepped aside
+from woman's natural destiny, she should also have ceased to trouble
+herself with those feminine doubts and hopes which are peculiar to it.
+She would have known that the position of secretary to a professional
+man does not logically include heart-burnings and questionings
+concerning that gentleman's love affairs, past or present. She would
+have refused to consider Mary. She would have been quite happy in the
+position she had deliberately made for herself.
+
+Much as we would like to present Desire in this thoroughly sensible
+light, we fear that her action on the morning following her visit to
+the invalid Miss Martin would not bear us out in so doing. For on that
+morning, with all facts of the situation freshly in her mind, she went
+down-town to Dr. Rogers' office for no other purpose than to see and
+talk to Dr. Rogers' yellow-haired nurse.
+
+"When I see her and hear her," said Desire to her-self, "I shall know.
+And it will be so comfortable to know." Never a word, mind you, about
+the inconsistency of being uncomfortable through not knowing.
+
+No attempt at reminding herself that knowledge was none of her
+business. No arguing out of the matter at all. Merely the following of
+a blind impulse to find Mary if Mary were to be found.
+
+This impulse, which was wholly foreign to her natural habit of mind,
+she justified to herself under the guise of "natural curiosity." All
+she had to do was to make the call seem sufficiently casual and to time
+her arrival at the doctor's office at an hour when he could not
+possibly be in it. As a newcomer, such a mistake would seem quite
+plausible and could be passed over easily with "How stupid of me! I
+should have known." After that the nurse would probably invite her to
+wait. And, even if she did not, the mere exchange of question and
+answer would probably be sufficiently revealing.
+
+This small program proceeded exactly as planned and Desire, in her most
+becoming frock, learned of the absence of Dr. Rogers with exactly the
+right degree of impatience and regret.
+
+"Please come in," said Dr. Rogers' nurse in somewhat drawling accents.
+"Doctor may be back any minute." Being a nurse she always predicted the
+doctor's arrival no matter how certain she might be that he would not
+arrive.
+
+Desire hesitated, glanced quite naturally at her watch and decided to
+wait. "If you are sure the doctor won't be long--?" The nurse was sure
+that he wouldn't be long.
+
+Here her interest in the caller seemed to cease and she became very
+much occupied with a business-like addressing of envelopes at a desk in
+the corner.
+
+Desire looked around the cool and pleasant room. It was not like her
+idea of a doctor's office, save perhaps for a faint clean smell of
+drugs. There were comfortable chairs, flowers in a window-box, a table
+with a book or two and some magazines. Through a half-open door, an
+inner office showed--all very different from the picture her memory
+showed her of the musty, cumbered room in which her father had received
+his dwindling patients. As a child she had hated that room, hated the
+hideous charts of "people with their skins off," the ponderous books
+with their horrific and highly colored plates, the "patients' chair"
+with its clinging odor of plush and ether, the untidy desk, the dust on
+everything!
+
+But she had not come to Dr. Rogers' office to indulge in memory. She
+had come to see the lady who was so busily addressing envelopes and,
+after a decent interval of polite abstraction, she devoted herself
+cautiously to this purpose.
+
+Nurse Watkins, before Desire's entrance, had not been addressing
+envelopes. She had been reading. Her book lay open upon the window-sill
+and Desire, having good eyes, could read its title upside down. It was
+not a title which she knew, nor, if titles tell anything, did it belong
+to a book which invited knowing. Desire felt almost certain that it was
+not a book which Mary would care to read. Still, one never could tell.
+The professor had said nothing whatever about Mary's literary taste.
+
+Desire's eyes strayed, vaguely, from the book to its owner. Only Miss
+Watkins' profile was visible but it was a profile well worth attention.
+People who cannot choose their literature are often quite successful
+with their caps. Miss Watkins' cap was just right. And her hair was
+certainly yellow. Desire frowned.
+
+Miss Watkins, looking up, caught the frown.
+
+"Doctor really can't be long now," she drawled sympathetically. Desire
+felt that the sympathy, like the assurance, was professional--an
+afterglow, perhaps of sympathy which had existed once, before life had
+overdrawn its account. She felt, also, that Miss Watkins' nose was
+decidedly good. It was straight, with the nicest little blunt point;
+and her eyes were blue--not misty blue, like the hills, but a passable
+blue for all that. Her expression was cold and eminently superior.
+("Frightfully nursey" was what Desire called it to herself.) Her voice
+was thin. (Desire was glad of that.)
+
+"Doctor must have been kept somewhere," said the nurse pursuing her
+formula. "Won't you sit near the window? There's a breeze."
+
+"Thank you." Desire moved to the window. "You must find it very
+peaceful here--after nursing overseas."
+
+Nurse Watkins tapped her full upper lip with her pen. "Yes," she said.
+"It's very dull." Desire smiled. Her spirits had been rising ever since
+her entrance and she was now quite cheerful. Pretty as Miss Mary
+Watkins undoubtedly was, there was a some-thing--could it be possible
+that she chewed gum? No, of course she could not chew gum. And yet
+there was an impression of gum somewhere--an insinuating certainty that
+she might chew gum on a dark night when no one was looking. Desire
+heaved a little sigh of satisfaction and, leaning out, appeared to
+occupy herself with the passers-by.
+
+"Aren't Bainbridge streets wonderful?" she said.
+
+Nurse Watkins' mouth took on a discontented droop. "The streets are all
+right," she said, "only they don't go anywhere."
+
+Desire laughed. "Are you as bored as that?" she asked.
+
+"Worse. I wouldn't stay here a minute if it weren't--I mean, if I
+hadn't been advised to rest up a bit."
+
+Desire looked at her watch, and rose. Now that her curiosity had been
+amply satisfied, she began to realize that curiosity is an undignified
+thing. And also that she had not been the only person present to give
+way to it.
+
+The somewhat drawling tones of Miss Watkins' voice were not at all in
+keeping with the activity of her wide-awake blue eyes. A sense of this
+nurse's speculation as to her presence there flicked Desire with little
+whips of irritation. It is one thing to observe and quite another to
+render oneself observable. She felt the blood flow hotly to her cheek.
+Why had she come? How could she have so far forgotten her natural
+reserve, her instinctive dislike of intrusion? Desire saw plainly that
+she had allowed a regrettable sentiment to trick her into a ridiculous
+situation. Satisfied curiosity is usually ashamed of itself.
+
+And how absurd to have fancied for a moment that this blond prettiness
+could be Mary!
+
+"I am afraid I cannot wait longer," she murmured with polite regret.
+
+"If there is any message--"
+
+"None, I think. Thank you so much."
+
+With the departure of her caller, Miss Watkins' manner underwent a
+remarkable change. Professional coolness deserted her. She stamped her
+foot and, from the safe concealment of the window curtain, she watched
+Desire's unhurried progress down the street with eyes in which the blue
+grew clouded and opaque. They brightened again as she noticed Professor
+Spence passing on the opposite side of the street, and became quite
+snappy with interest as she saw him pause as if to call to his wife,
+then, after a swift and hesitating glance at the door from which she
+had emerged, pass on without attracting her attention.
+
+As a bit of pure pantomime, these expressions of feeling on Miss
+Watkins' part might be misleading with-out the added comment of a
+letter which she wrote that night.
+
+
+"I'm going to cut it, Flossy old girl," wrote Miss Watkins. "If you
+know of anything near you that would suit me, pass it on. I think I'm
+about due to get out of here. You know why I've stayed so long. At
+first, I thought if we were together enough he might get to care.
+People say I'm not bad for the eyes. And I don't use peroxide. Well,
+I've made myself useful--he'll miss me anyway!
+
+"It's kind of hard to give up. But I don't believe it's a bit of use.
+I've noticed a difference in him ever since he came back from that
+western trip. He doesn't seem to see me anymore. And there's something
+else, a look in his eyes and a line along his mouth that were never
+there before. I knew something had happened. And now I know what it
+was. Another girl, of course.
+
+"And this girl is married!
+
+"You might think this would make things hopeful for me. But it doesn't.
+Doctor's just the kind that would go on loving her if she had a
+thousand husbands. So here's where I hook it. No use wasting myself,
+honey. Maybe I'll get over it. They say everyone does.
+
+"Funny thing--she's just the kind I'd think he'd go dippy over, dark
+and still, with a lovely, wide mouth and skin like lilies. She is
+young, younger than I am. But, believe me, she isn't a kid. Those eyes
+of hers have seen things. They're the kind of eyes that I'd go wild
+over if I were a man. So I'm not blaming Doctor. He can't help it.
+
+"She came into the office today, just like an ordinary patient. But I
+knew right off that she'd come for some-thing. Don't know yet what she
+came for. She doesn't give herself away, that one! Didn't seem to look
+around, didn't ask questions and only stayed a few minutes. Do you
+suppose she could have come to see me? Because, if she did--Well, that
+shows where her interest is.
+
+"Another odd thing--as she went out, I saw her husband. (I'll tell you,
+in strict confidence, that her husband is Professor Spence. They are
+well known people here. He used to be a sort of recluse. A queer chap.
+Deep as a judge.) Well, I saw him pass, on the opposite side of the
+road. He saw her and was just going to call, when it seemed to strike
+him where she had come from. I couldn't see very well across the road,
+but he looked as if someone had hit him. And he went on without saying
+a word. Now that looked queer to me.
+
+"Don't write and say that I'm only guessing at things. I may be
+mistaken, of course, but I know I'm not. And I'm not a Pharisee (or
+whoever it was that threw stones). If she cares for Doctor, I suppose
+she can't help it. Some people think her husband handsome but I don't.
+He's too thin and he has the oddest little smile. It slips out and
+slips in like a mouse. When Dr. John smiles, he smiles all over.
+
+"Well, I'll wait a week or so to make sure. Although I'm sure now. If I
+ever see Doctor look at her, I'll know. You see, I know how he'd look
+if he looked that way. I've kept hoping--but I guess I'd better take my
+ticket, Yours,
+
+"MARY."
+
+
+This letter satisfactorily explains the loss, some weeks later, of Dr.
+Rogers' capable nurse--a matter which he, himself, could never
+understand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+Desire was smiling as she left Dr. Rogers' office. It was a smile
+compounded of derision and relief--a shamefaced smile which admitted an
+opinion of herself very far from flattering.
+
+So occupied was she with her mental reactions that she had no attention
+to spare for the opposite side of the street and therefore missed the
+slightly peculiar action of her husband-by-courtesy. Professor Spence,
+when he had first caught sight of his wife had automatically paused, as
+if to call or cross over. It had become their friendly habit to inform
+each other of their daily plans and a cheery "whither away?" had risen
+naturally to the professor's lips. It rose to them, but did not leave
+them, for, in the intervening instant, he had grasped the fact of
+Desire's smiling abstraction and had sought its explanation in the
+place from which she had come. Desire calling at old Bones' office at
+this hour of the morning? Before he had recovered from the surprise of
+it, she had passed.
+
+Time, which seems so mighty, is sometimes quite negligible. The most
+amazing mental illuminations may occupy only the fraction of a second.
+A light flashes and is gone--but meanwhile one has seen.
+
+The professor's pause was hardly noticeable. He walked on at once. But
+years could not have instructed him more thoroughly than that one
+second. He had received a revelation. Like all revelations, he received
+it in its entirety and realized it piecemeal. His thoughts stumbled
+over each other in confusion.... Desire at John's office at this
+unusual hour? ... Desire in her prettiest frock and smiling ...
+smiling, and so lost in her own thoughts that she saw no one ...
+Desire ... John? ... What the devil!
+
+Spence had a finicky dislike of strong language. He thought it savored
+of weakness, yet he found himself swearing heartily as he hurried
+on--meaningless swears which by their very childishness brought him
+back to common sense. His step slowed, he forced himself to be
+reasonable. He took a brief against his own unwarranted disturbance of
+mind and reduced it to argument. There was nothing at all strange, he
+pointed out, in Desire having called at old Bones' office at this, or
+any other, time of day (but what under heaven did she do it for?). She
+might easily have forgotten to tell the doctor some-thing. (What in
+thunder would she have to tell him?) She might have dropped in, in
+passing (at that hour of the morning?) merely to ask him over for some
+tennis (was the dashed telephone out of order?). Or she might have felt
+a trifle seedy (pshaw! her health was perfect--idiot!). Anyway she had
+a perfect right to see Dr. Rogers at any time and for any reason she
+might choose. (Yes, she had--that was the devil of it!)
+
+At this point of his argument the professor was nearly-run down by a
+delivery boy on a bicycle and saved himself only by a sharp collision
+with a telegraph pole. This served to clear his brain somewhat. His
+confusion of thought dropped away. He began to look his revelation in
+the face--
+
+"Desire--John?"
+
+It was certainly possible! Why had he never seen it before? ... He
+had been warned. John himself had warned him--Old John who had been so
+palpably "hit" when he had first seen Desire at Friendly Bay. But he,
+Benis Spence, had laughed. Honestly laughed. No possibility of this
+possibility had troubled him. He simply had not seen it. And now--he
+saw. The thing italicised itself on his brain.
+
+Granted that Desire might love, there was no reason on earth why she
+should not love John.
+
+The conclusion seemed childishly simple and yet he had never seriously
+considered it. Why? Relentlessly he forced himself to answer why. It
+was because he had believed that when Desire woke to love, if she
+should so wake, she would wake to love for him! He tore this admission
+out of a shrinking heart and laughed at it. It was funny, quite funny
+in its ridiculous conceit.... But it hadn't been conceit, it had
+been assurance. Impossible to account for, and absurd as it seemed now,
+it was some-thing higher than vanity which had hidden in his heart that
+happy sense of kinship with Desire which had made John's warning seem
+an emptiness of words.
+
+It was gone now, that wonderful sense of "belonging," swept away in the
+swift rush of startled doubt. Searching as it might, his mind could not
+find anywhere the faintest foothold for a belief that Desire, free to
+choose, should turn to him and not to another.
+
+"I had better go and sleep this off somewhere," murmured the professor
+with a wry smile. "Mustn't let it get ahead of me. Mustn't make any
+more mistakes. This needs thinking out--steady now!"
+
+He tried to forget his own problem in thinking of hers. It couldn't be
+very pleasant for her--this. And yet she had been smiling as she came
+out of John's office. Perhaps she did not know yet? On second thoughts,
+he felt sure that she did not know. He recognized the essentials of
+Desire. She was loyalty itself. And had he not reason to know from his
+own present experience that the beginnings of love can be very blind.
+
+John, too--but with John it was different. John had given his warning.
+If the warning were to be justified he could not blame John. He could
+not blame anyone save his own too confident self. Why, oh why, had he
+been so sure? Had he not known that love is the most unaccountable of
+all the passions? How had he dared to build security on that subtle
+thing within himself which, without cause or reason, had claimed as his
+the unstirred heart of the girl he had married.
+
+Spence returned home with lagging step. The old distaste for familiar
+things, which he thought had gone with the coming of Desire, was heavy
+upon him. The gate of his pleasant home shut behind him like a prison
+gate. In short, Benis Spence paid for a moment's enlightenment with a
+bad day and a night that was no better.
+
+By the morning he had won through. One must carry on. And the advantage
+of a quiet manner is that no one notices when it grows more quiet.
+
+Desire was already in the library when he entered it. She looked very
+crisp and cool. It struck Spence for the first time that she was
+dressing her part--the neat, dark skirt and laundered blouse,
+blackbowed at the neck in a perfect orgy of simplicity, were eminently
+secretarial. How beautifully young she was!
+
+Desire looked up from her note-book with business-like promptitude.
+
+"I think," she said, "that we are quite ready to go on with the
+thirteenth chapter."
+
+"But I think," said Benis, "that it would be much nicer to go fishing."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well, it's Friday, for one thing. Do you really think it safe to begin
+the thirteenth chapter on a Friday?"
+
+His secretary's smile was dutiful, but her lips were firm. "We didn't
+do a thing-yesterday," she reminded 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, something of his own lost enthusiasm, had he been able to
+work again. Then, in a glow of recovered energy, the book had been
+begun. And all had gone well until the book's inspirer had begun to
+usurp the place of the book itself. (Spence smiled as he realized that
+Desire was painstakingly tracing the course of her self-caused
+destruction.) How could he think of the book when he wanted only to
+think of her? Insensibly, his gathered facts had begun to lose their
+prime importance, his deductions had lost their sense of weight, all
+that he had done seemed strangely insignificant--it was like looking at
+something through the wrong end of a telescope. The great book was a
+star which grew steadily smaller.
+
+The proportion was wrong. He knew that. But at present he could do
+nothing to readjust it. Two interests cannot occupy the same space at
+the same time. The book interest had simply succumbed to an interest
+older and more potent.
+
+"In this chapter, the Sixth," Desire was saying, "you seem to lose some
+of the serious purpose which is a prominent note in the opening
+chapters. You begin to treat things casually. You almost allow yourself
+to be humorous. Now is this supposed to be a humorous book, or is it
+not?"
+
+"Oh--not. Distinctly not."
+
+"Well then, don't you see? If you had treated the thing in that
+semi-humorous manner all through and continued in that vein you would
+produce a certain definite type of book. The critics would probably
+say--"
+
+"I know, spare me!"
+
+"They would say," sternly, "that 'Professor Spence has a light touch.'
+That 'he has treated his subject in a popular manner.'" (The professor
+groaned.) "But that isn't a patch upon what they will say if you mix up
+your styles as you are doing at present."
+
+"But--well, what do you advise?"
+
+Desire sucked her pencil. (He had given up trying to cure her of this
+poisonous habit.)
+
+"I've thought about that. If you were not so--so temperamental, I would
+say go back and begin again. But that is risky. It will be better to go
+on, I think, trying to recapture the more serious style, until the
+whole book it at least in some form. Then you will know exactly where
+you are and what is necessary to harmonize the whole. You can then
+rewrite the 'off' chapters, bringing them into line. This is a
+recognized literary method, I believe."
+
+"Is it? Good heavens!"
+
+"I read it in a book."
+
+"Then it must be literary. All right. I'm agreeable. But at present--"
+
+"At present," firmly, "the main thing is to go on."
+
+"This morning?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"But I don't want to go on this morning. That is the flaw in your
+literary method. It makes me go on whether I want to or not. Now the
+really top-notchers never do that. They are as full of stoppages as a
+freight train. Fact. They only create when the spirit moves them."
+
+"Aren't you thinking of Quakers?" suggested Desire sweetly. "Besides
+you are not creating. You are compiling--a very different thing."
+
+"But what is the use of compiling an off chapter when I know it is
+going to be an off one?"
+
+Desire threw down her pencil.
+
+"Oh, Benis," she said. "I don't like this. Don't let us play with
+words. Surely you are not getting tired--you can't be."
+
+Her eyes, urgent and truth-compelling, forced an answer.
+
+"I don't quite know," he said. "But I am certainly off work at present.
+There may be all kinds of reasons. You will have to be patient, Desire."
+
+"Then," in a low voice, "it isn't only indolence?"
+
+He was moved to candor. "It isn't indolence at all. I have always been
+a fairly good worker, and will be again. But the driving force has
+shifted. I have not been doing good work and I know it. The more I know
+it the worse the work will become.... It doesn't matter, really,
+child," he added gently, seeing that she had turned away. "The world
+can wait for the bit of knowledge I can give it."
+
+Desire, whose face was invisible, took a moment to answer this. When
+she did her voice was carefully with-out expression.
+
+"Then this ends my usefulness. You will not need me any more."
+
+The professor, who had been nursing his knee on the corner of the desk,
+straightened up so suddenly that he heard his spine click.
+
+"What's this?" he said. (Good heavens--the girl was as full of
+surprises as a grab-bag!)
+
+"It was for the book you needed me, was it not? That was my share of
+our partnership."
+
+("Now you've done it!" shouted an exultant voice in the professor's
+brain. "Oh, you are an ass!")
+
+"Shut up!" said Spence irritably. "I wasn't talking to you," he
+explained apologetically. "It's just a horrid little devil I converse
+with sometimes. What I meant was--" He did not seem to know what he
+meant and looked rather helplessly out of the window. "Oh, I say," he
+said presently, "you are not going to--to act like that, are you?
+Agitation's so frightfully bad for me. Ask old Bones."
+
+"You are not agitated," said Desire coldly. "Please be serious."
+
+"I am. Deuced serious. And agitated too. You ought to think twice
+before you startle me like that--just when everything was going along
+so nicely."
+
+"I am only reminding you of your own agreement," stubbornly. "I want to
+be of use."
+
+"Very selfish of you. Can't you think of someone else once in a while?"
+
+"Selfish? Because I want to help?"
+
+"Certainly. I wonder you don't see it! Think of the mornings I've put
+in on this dashed book just because you wanted to help. I have to be
+polite, haven't I?--up to a point. But when you begin to blame me for
+doing poorly what I do not want to do at all I begin to see that my
+self-sacrifice is not appreciated."
+
+"You are talking nonsense."
+
+"Perhaps I am. But it was you who started it. When you said I did not
+need you, you said a very nonsensical thing. And a very unkind thing,
+too. A man does not like to talk of--his need. But, now that we have
+come to just this point, let us have it out. Surely our partnership was
+not quite as narrow as you suggest? The book is a detail. It is L. part
+of life which will fit in somewhere--an important part in its right
+place--but it isn't the whole pattern." He smiled whimsically. "Do not
+think of me as just an animated book, my dear--if you can help it. And
+remember, no matter how we choose to interpret our marriage, you are my
+wife. And my very good comrade. The one thing which could ever change
+my need of you is your greater need of--of someone else."
+
+The last words were casual enough but the look which accompanied them
+was keen, and a sense of relief rose gratefully in the professor as no
+sign of disturbance appeared upon the thoughtful face of his hearer.
+
+"Is Benis here, my dear?" asked Aunt Caroline opening the door. "Oh
+yes, I see that he is. Benis, you are wanted on the 'phone. If you
+would take my advice, which you never do, you would have an extension
+placed in this room. Then you could always just answer and save Olive a
+great deal of bother. Not that I think maids ought to mind being
+bothered. They never did in my time. But it would be quite simple for
+you, when you are writing here, to attend to the 'phone. Perhaps if the
+butcher heard a man's voice occasionally he might be more respectful. I
+do not expect much of tradespeople, as you know, but if the butcher--"
+
+"Is it the butcher who wishes to speak to me, Aunt?"
+
+"Good gracious, no. It's long distance. Why don't you hurry? ... Men
+have no idea of the value of time," she added as the professor
+vanished. "My dear you must not let Benis overwork you. He doesn't
+intend to be unkind, but men never think."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+Desire turned back to her papers as the door closed. But her manner was
+no longer brisk and business-like. There was a small, hot lump in her
+throat.
+
+"It isn't fair," she thought passionately. "It's all very well to talk,
+but it does make a difference--it does. If I'm not his secretary what
+am I?" A hot blush crimsoned her white skin and she stamped her foot.
+"I'm not his wife. I'm not! I'm not!" she said defiantly.
+
+There was no one to contradict her. Even Yorick was silent. And, as
+contradiction is really necessary to belligerency, some of the fire
+died out of her stormy eyes. But it flared again as thought flung
+thought upon the embers.
+
+"Wife!" How dared he use the word? And in that tone! A word that meant
+nothing to him. Nothing, save a cold, calm statement of claim....
+Not that she wanted it to mean anything else. Had she not, herself,
+arranged a most satisfactory basis of coolness and calmness? (Reason
+insisted upon reminding her of this.) And a strict recognition of this
+basis was precisely what she wanted, of course. Only she wanted it as a
+secretary and not as a--not as anything else.
+
+"What's in a word?" asked Reason mildly. "Words mean only what you mean
+by them. Wife or secretary, if they mean the same--"
+
+Desire flung her note-books viciously into a drawer and banged it shut.
+
+Why did things insist upon changing anyway? She had been content--well,
+almost. She had not asked for more than she had. Why, then, should a
+cross-grained fate insist upon her getting less? Since yesterday she
+had not troubled even about Mary. Her self-ridicule at the absurdity of
+her mistake regarding Dr. Rogers' pretty nurse had had a salutary
+effect. And now--just when everything promised so well (self-pity began
+to cool the hot lump in her throat). And just when she had made up her
+mind that, however small her portion of her husband's thought might be,
+it would be enough--well, almost enough--
+
+A screech from Yorick made her start nervously.
+
+"Cats!" said Yorick. "Oh the devil--cats!"
+
+Desire laughed and firmly dislodged Aunt Caroline's big Maltese cat
+from its place of vantage on the window-sill. The laughter dissolved
+the last of the troublesome lump and she began to feel better. After
+all, the book-weariness of which Benis had spoken would probably be a
+passing phase. If she allowed herself to go on creating mountains out
+of molehills she would soon have a whole range upon her hands.
+
+And he had said he needed her!
+
+Mechanically, she began to straighten the desk, restoring the
+professor's notes to their proper places. She was feeling almost
+sanguine again when her hand fell upon the photograph.
+
+We say "the" photograph because, of all photographs in the world, this
+one was the one most fatal to Desire's new content. She picked it up
+casually. Photographs have no proper place amongst notes of research.
+Desire, frowning her secretarial frown, lifted the intruder to remove
+it and, lifting, naturally looked at it. Having looked, she continued
+looking.
+
+It was an arresting photograph. Desire had not seen it before. That in
+itself was surprising, since one of Aunt Caroline's hardest-to-bear
+social graces was the showing of photographs. She had quantities of
+them--tons, Desire sometimes thought. They lived in boxes in different
+parts of the house, and were produced upon most unlikely occasions. One
+was never quite safe from them. Even the spare room had its own box,
+appropriately covered with chintz to match the curtains.
+
+This photograph, Desire saw at once, would not fit into Aunt Caroline's
+boxes. It was too big. And it was very modern. Most of Aunt Caroline's
+collection dated from the "background" period of photographic art. But
+this one was all person. And a very charming person too.
+
+Photographs are often deceiving. But one can usually catch them at it.
+Desire perceived at once that this photograph's nose had been
+artistically rounded and that its flawlessness of line and texture owed
+something to retoucher's lead. But looking through and behind all this,
+there was enough--oh, more than enough!
+
+With instant disfavor, Desire noted the perfect arrangement of the
+hair, the delicate slope of the shoulder, the lifted chin, the tip of a
+hidden ear, the slightly mocking, but very alluring, glance of long,
+fawn-like eyes.
+
+"Another molehill," thought Desire. And, virtuously disregarding the
+instinct leaping in her heart, she turned the fascinating thing face
+downwards. Probably fate laughed then. For written large and in very
+black ink across the back was the admirably restrained autograph,
+"Benis, from Mary" ...
+
+Well, she knew now!
+
+A very different person, this, from the blond Miss Watkins with her
+hard blue eyes and too, too dewy lips! Here was a woman of character
+and charm. A woman fully armed with all the witchery of sex. A woman
+any man might love--even Benis.
+
+Desire did not struggle against her certainty. Her acceptance of it was
+as sudden as it was complete. Huddling back in her chair, with the
+tell-tale photo in her hands, she felt cold. Certainty is a chill
+thing. We all seek certainty but, when we get it, we shiver. The proper
+place for certainty is just ahead, that we may warm our blood in the
+pursuit of it. Certainty stands at the end of things and human nature
+shrinks from endings.
+
+Only that morning, Desire had qualified the good of her present state
+by the "if" of "if I only knew." And, now that she did know, the only
+unqualified thing was her sense of desolation. The most disturbing of
+her speculations had been as nothing to this relentless knowledge. Not
+until she had found certainty did she realize how she had clung to hope.
+
+She did not know that she was crying until a tear splashed hot upon her
+hand. She did not hear the door open as Benis reentered the room, but
+she sprang to her feet, alert and defensive, at the sound of his voice.
+
+"Crying?" said Benis.
+
+It was hardly a question. He had, in fact, seen the tear. But there was
+nothing in his manner to indicate more than ordinary concern.
+
+"Certainly not," said Desire.
+
+"My mistake. But what is it you are hiding so carefully behind you?
+Mayn't I see?"
+
+Desire thought quickly. Her denial of tears had been, she knew, quite
+useless. Besides, she had heard that note of dry patience in the
+professor's voice before. It came when he wanted something and intended
+to get it. And he wanted now to know the cause of her tears. Well, he
+would never know it--never. It was the one impossible thing. Desire's
+pride flamed in her, a white fire which would consume her utterly--if
+he knew.
+
+"It is a personal matter," she said. (This was merely to gain time.)
+
+"It is personal to me also."
+
+"I do not wish to show it to you."
+
+"No. But--do not force me to insist."
+
+These two wasted but few words upon each other. It was not necessary.
+Desire took a quick step backward. And, as she did so, the desired
+inspiration came. Directly behind her stood the table on which lay Aunt
+Caroline's box of photographs. If she could, without turning,
+substitute one of them for the tell-tale picture in her hand--
+
+"You will hardly insist, I think." Her eyes were on him, cool and wary.
+She took another step backward. He did not follow her. There was a
+faint smile on his lips but his face, she noticed with perturbation,
+had gone very pale. His eyes were shining and chill, like water under
+grey skies.
+
+"Please," he said, holding out his hand.
+
+Desire let her glance go past him. "The door!" she murmured. He turned
+to close it. It gave her only a moment. But a moment was all she needed.
+
+"Surely we are making a fuss over nothing." With difficulty she kept a
+too obvious relief out of her voice. He must not find her opposition
+weakened.
+
+"Perhaps. But--let me decide, Desire."
+
+"Shan't!" said Desire, like a naughty child.
+
+Fire leapt from the chill grey of his eyes.
+
+"Very well, then--"
+
+He took it so quickly that Desire gasped. Then she laughed. She had
+never had anything taken from her by force since her childhood and it
+was an astonishing experience. Also, she had not dreamed that Benis was
+so strong. It hadn't been at all difficult. And this in spite of the
+fact that she had clung to the substituted photo-graph with convincing
+stubbornness.
+
+"Well--now you've got it, I hope you like it," she said a little
+breathlessly. Her eyes were sparkling. She did not know what photo she
+had picked up when she dropped the real one. 'Probably it was a picture
+of Aunt Caroline herself or of some dear and departed Spence. Benis
+would have some difficulty in tracing the cause of the tears he had
+surprised. Fortunately he could always see a joke on himself. It would
+be funny ...
+
+But it did not seem to be funny. Benis was not laughing. He had gone
+quite grey.
+
+"What is it, Benis?" in a startled tone. "You see it was just a
+mistake? I was crying because--because I was sorry you were not going
+on with the book. I just happened to have a photograph--" The look in
+his eyes stopped her.
+
+"Please don't," he said.
+
+She took the card he held out to her, glanced at it, and choked back a
+spasm of hysterical laughter. For it wasn't a picture of Aunt Caroline,
+or even of a departed Spence--it was a picture of Dr. John Rogers!
+
+"Gracious!" said Desire. There seemed to be nothing else to say.
+"Well," she ventured after a perplexed pause, "you can see that I
+couldn't be crying over John, can't you?"
+
+"I can see--no need why you should;" said Benis slowly. "I'm afraid I
+have been very blind."
+
+The girl's complete bewilderment at this was plain to anyone of
+unbiased judgment. But Spence's judgment was not at present unbiased.
+He went on painfully.
+
+"I owe you an apology for my very primitive method of obtaining your
+confidence. But it is better that I should know--"
+
+"Know what? You don't know. I don't know myself. I did not even know
+whose the photograph was until--" She hesitated at the look of hurt
+wonder in his eyes. "You think I am lying?" she finished angrily.
+
+"I think you are making things unnecessarily difficult. There is no
+need for you to explain--anything."
+
+Desire was furious. And helpless. She remembered now that when he had
+entered the room he had certainly seen her bending over a photograph.
+No wonder her statement that she did not know whose photograph it was
+seemed uniquely absurd. There was only one adequate explanation. And
+that explanation she wouldn't and couldn't make.
+
+"Very well then," she said loftily. "I shall not explain."
+
+He did not look at her. He had not looked at her since handing her back
+John's picture. But he had himself well in hand now. Desire wondered if
+she had imagined that greyish pallor, that sudden look of a man struck
+down. What possible reason had there been for such an effect anyway?
+Desire could see none.
+
+"I came to tell you," he said in his ordinary voice, "that the long
+distance call came from Miss Davis. If it is convenient for you and
+Aunt, she plans to come along on the evening train. Her cold is quite
+better."
+
+"The evening train, tonight?"
+
+"Yes." He smiled. "She is a sudden person. Gone today and here
+tomorrow. But you will like her. And you will adore her clothes."
+
+"Are they the very latest?"
+
+"Later than that. Mary always buys yesterday what most women buy
+tomorrow."
+
+"Oh," said Desire. "And what does this futurist lady look like?"
+
+Benis considered. "I can't think of anything that she looks like," he
+concluded. "She doesn't go in for resemblances. Futurists don't, you
+know!"
+
+"Isn't it odd?" said Desire in what she hoped was a casual voice. "So
+many of your friends seem to be named Mary."
+
+"I've noticed that myself--lately."
+
+"There are--"
+
+"'Mary Seaton and Mary Beaton and Mary Carmichael and me,'" quoted
+Benis gravely.
+
+Desire permitted herself to smile and turning, still smiling, faced
+Aunt Caroline; who, for her part, was in anything but a smiling humor.
+
+"I'm glad you take it good-naturedly, Desire," said Aunt Caroline
+acidly. "But people who arrive at a moment's warning always annoy me. I
+do not require much, but a few days' notice at the least--have you seen
+a photograph anywhere about?"
+
+Desire bit her lips. "Whose photograph was it, Aunt?"
+
+"Why, Mary Davis' photograph, of course. The one she gave to Benis when
+she was last here. I hope you do not mind my taking it from your room,
+Benis? My intention was to have it framed. People do like to see
+themselves framed. I thought it might be a delicate little attention.
+But if she is coming tonight, it is too late now. Still, we might put
+it in place of Cousin Amelia Spence on the drawing-room mantel. What do
+you think, my dear?"
+
+"I think we might," said Desire. Her tone was admirably judicial but
+her thoughts were not.... If the Mary of the visit were no other
+than the Mary of the faun-eyed photograph, why then--
+
+Why then, no wonder that Benis had lost interest in the great Book!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+To give exhaustive reasons for the impulse which brought Miss Mary
+Davis to Bainbridge at this particular time would be to delve too
+deeply into the complex psychology of that lady. But we shall not be
+far wrong if we sum up the determining impulse in one word--curiosity.
+
+The news of Benis Spence's unexpected marriage had been something of a
+shock to more than one of his friends. But especially so to Mary Davis.
+Upon a certain interesting list, which Miss Davis kept in her
+well-ordered mind, the name of this agreeable bachelor had been
+distinctly labelled "possible." To have a possibility snatched from
+under one's nose without warning is annoying, especially if the season
+in possibilities threatens to be poor. The war had sadly depleted Miss
+Davis' once lengthy list. And she, herself, was five years older. It
+would be interesting, and perhaps instructive, to see the young person
+from nowhere who had still further narrowed her personal territory.
+
+"It does seem rather a shame," she confided to a select friend or two,
+"that clever men who have escaped the perils of early matrimony should
+in maturity turn back to the very thing which constituted that peril."
+
+"You mean men like them young?" said a select friend with brutal candor.
+
+"I mean they like them too young. In the case I'm thinking of, the girl
+is a mere child. And quite uncultured. What possibility of intellectual
+companionship could the most sanguine man expect?"
+
+"None. But they don't want intellectual companionship." Another select
+friend spoke bitterly. "I used to think they did. It seemed reasonable.
+As the basis for a whole lifetime, it seemed the only possible thing.
+But what's the use of insisting on a theory, no matter how abstractly
+sound, if it is disproved in practice every day? Remember Bobby Wells?
+He is quite famous now; knows more about biology than any man on this
+side of the water. He married last week. His wife is a pretty little
+creature who thinks protoplasm another name for appendicitis."
+
+There was a sympathetic pause.
+
+"And biology was always such a fad of yours," sighed Mary thoughtfully.
+"Never mind! They are sure to be frightfully unhappy."
+
+"No, they won't. That's it. That's the point I am making. They'll be as
+cozy as possible."
+
+Miss Davis thought this point over after the select friend who made it
+had gone. She did not wish to believe that its implication was a true
+one. But, if it were, if youth, just youth, were the thing of power,
+then it were wise that she should realize it before it was too late.
+Her own share of the magic thing was swiftly passing.
+
+From a drawer of her desk she took a recent letter from a Bainbridge
+correspondent and re-read the part referring to the Spence reception.
+
+"Really, it was quite well done," she read. "Old Miss Campion has a
+'flair' for the suitabilities, and now that so many are trying to be
+smart or bizarre, it is a relief to come back to the old pleasant
+suitable things--you know what I mean. And the old lady has an air. How
+she gets it, I don't know, for the dear Queen is her idea of style.
+Perhaps there is something in the 'aura' theory. If so, Miss Campion's
+aura is the very glass of fashion.
+
+"And the bride! But I hear you are coming down, so you will see the
+bride for yourself. There was a silly rumor about her being part
+Indian. Well, if Indian blood can give one a skin like hers, I could do
+with an off-side ancestor myself! She is even younger than report
+predicted. But not sweet or coy (Heavens, how one wearies of that
+type!) And Benis Spence, as a bride-groom, has lost something of his
+'moony' air. He is quite attractive in an odd way. All the same, I
+can't help feeling (and others agree with me) that there is something
+odd about that marriage. My dear, they do not act like married people.
+The girl is as cool as a princess (I suppose princesses are). And the
+professor's attitude is so--so casual. Even John Rogers' manner to the
+bride is more marked than the bridegroom's. But you know I never repeat
+gossip. It isn't kind. And any-way it may not be true that he drops in
+for tea nearly every day."
+
+Miss Davis replaced the letter with a musing smile. And the next
+morning she called up on long distance. A visit to Bainbridge, she
+felt, might be quite stimulating....
+
+Observe her, then, on the morning of her arrival having breakfast in
+bed. Breakfast in bed is always offered to travellers at the Spence
+home--a courtesy based upon the tradition of an age which travelled
+hard and seldom. Miss Davis quite approved of the custom. She had not
+neglected to bring "matinees" in which she looked most charming.
+Negligee became her. She openly envied Margot Asquith her bedroom
+receptions.
+
+Young Mrs. Spence, inquiring with true western hospitality, whether the
+breakfast had been all that could be desired, was conscious of a pang,
+successfully repressed, at the sight of that matinee. She saw at once
+that she had never realized possibilities in this direction. Her
+night-gowns (even the new ones) were merely night-gowns and her kimonas
+were garments which could still be recognized under that name.
+
+"It is rather a duck," said Mary, reading Desire's admiring glance.
+"Quite French, I think. But of course, as a bride, you will have oceans
+of lovely things. I adore trousseaux. Perhaps you will show me some of
+your pretties?" (The bride's gowns, she admitted, might be passable but
+what really tells the tale is the underneaths.)
+
+"Oh, with pleasure." Desire's assent was instant and warm. "I shall
+love to let you see my things."
+
+It was risky--but effective. Mary's desire to see the trousseau
+evaporated on the instant. No girl would be so eager to show things
+which were not worth showing. And Mary was no altruist to rejoice over
+other people's Paris follies.
+
+After all, she really knew very little about Benis's wife. And you
+never can tell. She began to wish that she had brought down with her
+some very special glories--things she had decided not to waste on
+Bainbridge. Her young hostess had eyes which were coolly, almost
+humorously, critical. "Absurd in a girl who simply can't have any
+proper criteria!" thought Miss Davis crossly.
+
+"When you are quite rested," said Desire kindly, "you will find us on
+the west lawn. The sun is never too hot there in the morning."
+
+"Yes--I remember that." The faintest sigh disturbed the laces of Mary's
+matinee. Her faun-like eyes looked wistful. "But if you do not mind, I
+think I shall be really lazy--these colds do leave one so wretched."
+
+Desire agreed that colds were annoying. She had not missed the sigh
+which accompanied Mary's memory of the west lawn and very naturally
+misread it. Mary's regretful decision to challenge no morning
+comparison in the sunlight on any lawn was interpreted as regret of a
+much more tender nature. Desire's eyes grew cold and dark with shadow
+as she left her charming visitor to her wistful rest.
+
+That Mary Davis was the lady of her husband's one romance, she had no
+longer any doubt. Anyone, that is, any man, might love deeply and
+hopelessly a woman of such rare and subtle charm. Possessing youth in
+glorious measure herself, Desire naturally discounted her rival's lack
+of it. With her, the slight blurring of Mary's carefully tended
+"lines," the tired look around her eyes, the somewhat cold-creamy
+texture of her delicate skin, weighed nothing against the exquisite
+finish and fine sophistication which had been the gift of the added
+years.
+
+In age, she thought, Mary and Benis would rank each other. They were
+also essentially of the same world. Neither had ever gazed through
+windows. Both had been free of life from its beginning. Love between
+them might well have been a fitting progression.
+
+The one fact which did not fit in here was this--in the story as told
+by Benis the affair had been one of unreciprocated affection. This
+presupposed a blindness on the lady's part which Desire began
+increasingly to doubt. She had already reached the point when it seemed
+impossible that anyone should not admire what to her was entirely
+admirable. Even the explanation of a prior attachment (the "Someone
+Else" of the professor's story), did not carry conviction. Who else
+could there be--compared with Benis?
+
+No. It looked, upon the face of it, as if there had been a mistake
+somewhere. Benis had despaired too soon!
+
+This fateful thought had been crouching at the door of Desire's mind
+ever since Mary had ceased to be an abstraction. She had kept it out.
+She had refused to know that it was there. She had been happy in spite
+of it. But now, when its time was fully come, it made small work of her
+frail barriers. It blundered in, leering and triumphant.
+
+Men have been mistaken before now. Men have turned aside in the very
+moment of victory. And Benis Spence was not a man who would beg or
+importune. How easily he might have taken for refusal what was, in
+effect, mere withdrawal. Had Mary retreated only that he might pursue?
+And had the Someone Else been No One Else at all?
+
+If this were so, and it seemed at least possible, the retreating lady
+had been smartly punished. Serve her right--oh, serve her right a
+thousand times for having dared to trifle! Desire wasted no pity on
+her. But what of him? With merciless lucidity Desire's busy brain
+created the missing acts which might have brought the professor's
+tragedy of errors to a happy ending. It would have been so simple--if
+Benis had only waited. Even pursuit would not have been required of
+him. Mary, unpursued, would have come back; unasked, she might have
+offered. But Benis had not waited.
+
+Desire saw all this in the time that it took her to go down-stairs. At
+the bottom of the stairs she faced its unescapable logic: if he were
+free now, he might be happy yet.
+
+How blind they had both been! He to believe that love had passed; she
+to believe that love would never come. Desire paused with her hand upon
+the library door. He was there. She could hear him talking to Yorick.
+She had only to open the door ... but she did not open it. Yesterday
+the library had been her kingdom, the heart of her widening world. Now
+it was only a room in someone else's house. Yesterday she would have
+gone in swiftly--hiding her gladness in a little net of everyday words.
+But today she had no gladness and no words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+Miss Davis had been in Bainbridge a week. Her cold was entirely better
+and her nerves, she said, much rested. "This is such a restful place,"
+murmured Miss Davis, selecting her breakfast toast with care.
+
+"I'm glad you find it so," said Aunt Caroline. "Though, with the club
+elections coming on next week--" she broke off to ask if Desire would
+have more coffee.
+
+Desire would have no more, thanks. Miss Campion, looking over her
+spectacles, frowned faintly and took a second cup herself--an
+indulgence which showed that she had something on her mind. Her nephew,
+knowing this symptom, was not surprised when later she joined him on
+the side veranda. Being a prompt person she began at once.
+
+"Benis," she said, "I have a feeling--I am not at all satisfied about
+Desire. If you know what is the matter with her I wish you would tell
+me. I am not curious. I expect no one's confidence, nor do I ask for
+it. But I have a right to object to mysteries, I think."
+
+As Aunt Caroline spoke, she looked sternly at the smoke of the
+professor's after-breakfast cigarette, the blue haze of which
+temporarily clouded his expression. Benis took his time in answering.
+
+"You think there is something the matter besides the heat?" he inquired
+mildly.
+
+"Heat! It is only ordinary summer weather."
+
+"But Desire is not used to ordinary summer, in Ontario."
+
+"Nonsense. It can't be much cooler on the coast. Although I have heard
+people say that they felt quite chilly there. It isn't that."
+
+"What is it, then?"
+
+Not noticing that she was being asked to answer her own question, Aunt
+Caroline considered. Then, with a flash of shrewd insight, "Well," she
+said, "if there were any possible excuse for it, I should say that it
+is Mary Davis."
+
+"My dear Aunt!"
+
+"You asked me, Benis. And I have told you what I think. Desire has
+changed since Mary came. Before that she seemed happy. There was
+something about her--well, I admit I liked to look at her. And she
+seemed to love this place. Even that Yorick bird pleased her, a taste
+which I admit I could never understand. Now she looks around and sees
+nothing. The girl has some-thing on her mind, Benis. She's thinking."
+
+"With some people thought is not fatal."
+
+"I am serious, Benis."
+
+"So am I."
+
+"What I should like to know is--have you, by any chance, been flirting
+with Mary?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Don't shout. You heard what I said perfectly. I do not wish to
+interfere. It is against my nature. But if you had been flirting with
+Mary, that might account for it. I don't believe Desire would
+understand. She might take it seriously. As for Mary--I am ashamed of
+her. I shall not invite her here again."
+
+"This is nonsense, Aunt."
+
+"Excuse me, Benis. The nonsense is on your side. I know what I am
+talking about, and I know Mary Davis. She is one of those women for
+whom a man obscures the landscape. She will flirt on her deathbed, or
+any-body else's deathbed, which is worse. Come now, be honest. She has
+been doing it, hasn't she?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"I suppose you have to say that. I'll put it in another way. What is
+your opinion of Mary?"
+
+"She is an interesting woman."
+
+"You find her more interesting than you did upon her former visit?"
+
+"I hardly remember her former visit. I never really knew her before."
+
+"And you know her now?"
+
+"She has honored me with a certain amount of confidence."
+
+Aunt Caroline snorted. "I thought so. Well, she doesn't need to honor
+me with her confidence because I know her without it. Was she honoring
+you that way last night when you stayed out in the garden until
+mid-night?"
+
+"We were talking, naturally."
+
+"And--your wife?"
+
+There was a moment's pause while the cigarette smoke grew bluer. "My
+wife," said Benis, "was very well occupied."
+
+"You mean that when Dr. John saw how distrait and pale she was, he took
+her for a run in his car? Now admit, Benis, that you made it plain that
+you wished her to go."
+
+"Did I?"
+
+"Yes," significantly, "too plain. Mary saw it--and John. You are acting
+strangely, Benis. I don't like it, that's flat. Desire is too much with
+John. And you are too much with Mary. It is not a natural arrangement.
+And it is largely your fault. It is almost as if you were acting with
+some purpose. But I'll tell you this--whatever your purpose may be--you
+have no right to expose your wife to comment."
+
+She had his full attention now. The cigarette haze drifted away.
+
+"Comment?" slowly. "You mean that people--but of course people always
+do. I hadn't allowed for that. Which shows how impossible it is to
+think of everything. I'm sorry."
+
+"I do not pretend to understand you, Benis. But then, I never did. Your
+private affairs are your own, also your motives. And I never meddle, as
+you know. I think though, that I may be permitted a straight question.
+Has your feeling toward Desire changed?"
+
+"Neither changed nor likely to change."
+
+Miss Campion's expression softened.
+
+"Are you sure that she knows it?"
+
+"I am not sure of anything with regard to Desire."
+
+"Then you ought to be. Don't shilly-shally, Benis. It is a habit of
+yours. All of the Spences shilly-shally. Make certain that Desire is
+aware of your--er--affection. Mark my words--I have a feeling. She is
+fretting over Mary."
+
+"I happen to know that she is not."
+
+Small red flags began to fly from Miss Campion's prominent cheek-bones.
+
+"We shall quarrel in a moment, Benis. You are pig-headed. Exactly as
+your father was, and without his common sense. I know you think me an
+interfering old maid. But I like Desire, and I won't have her made
+miserable. I want--"
+
+"Hush--here she comes."
+
+"Ill leave you then," in a sepulchral whisper. "And for goodness' sake,
+Benis, do something! ... Were you looking for me, my dear?" added
+Aunt Caroline innocently as Desire came slowly toward them. "Do not try
+to be energetic this morning. It is so very hot. Sit here. I'll send
+Olive out with something cool. I'd like you both to try the new
+raspberry vinegar."
+
+Greatly pleased with her simple stratagem the good soul bustled away.
+Desire looked after her with a grateful smile.
+
+"I believe Aunt Caroline likes me," she said with a note of faint
+surprise.
+
+"Is that very wonderful?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Benis looked at her quickly and looked away. She was certainly paler.
+She held her head as if its crown of hair were heavy.
+
+"It does not seem wonderful to other people who also--like you."
+
+Her eyes turned to him almost timidly. It hurt him to notice that the
+old frank openness of glance was gone. Good heavens! was the child
+afraid of him? Did she think that he blamed her? That he did not
+understand how helpless she was before her awakening womanhood? He
+forgot how difficult speech was in the overpowering impulse to reassure
+her.
+
+"I wish you could be happy; my dear," he said. "You are so young. Can't
+you be a little patient? Can't you be content as things are--for a
+while?"
+
+Even Spence, blinded as he was by the bitterness of his own struggle,
+noticed the strangeness of her look.
+
+"You want things to go on--as they are?"
+
+"Yes. For a time. We had better be quite sure. We do not want a second
+mistake."
+
+"You see that there has been a mistake?"
+
+"Can I help seeing it, Desire?"
+
+"No, I suppose not.... And when you are sure?" Her voice was very
+low.
+
+"When I--when we are both sure, I shall act. There are ways out. It
+ought not to be difficult."
+
+"No, quite easy, I think. I hope it will not be long."
+
+His mask of reasonable acquiescence slipped a little at the wistfulness
+of her voice.
+
+"Don't speak like that!" he said sharply. "No man is worth it."
+
+Desire smiled. It was such a sure, secret little smile, that it
+maddened him.
+
+"You can't--you can't care like that!" he said in a low, furious tone.
+"You said you never could!"
+
+"I do," said Desire.
+
+It was the avowal which she had sworn she would never make. Yet she
+made it without shame. Love had taught Desire much since the day of the
+episode of the photograph. And one of its teachings had to do with the
+comparative insignificance of pride. Why should he not know that she
+loved him? Of what use a gift that is never given? Besides, as this
+leaden week had passed, she knew that, more than anything else, she
+wanted truth between them. Now, when he asked it of her, she gave him
+truth.
+
+"It is breaking our bargain," she went on with a wavering smile. "But I
+was so sure! I cannot even blame myself. It must be possible to be
+quite sure and quite wrong at the same time."
+
+"Yes. There is no blame, anywhere. I--I didn't think of what I was
+saying."
+
+"Well, then--you will guess that it isn't exactly easy. But I will wait
+as you ask me. When you are quite sure--you will let me go?"
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+Neither of them looked at the other.
+
+Does Jove indeed laugh at lover's perjuries? Even more at their
+stupidities, perhaps!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+For they really were stupid! Looking on, we can see so plainly what
+they should have seen, and didn't.
+
+If thoughts are things (and Professor Spence continues to argue that
+they are) a mistaken thought is quite as powerful a reality as the
+other kind. Only let it be conceived with sufficient force and
+nourished by continual attention and it will grow into a veritable
+highwayman of the mind--a thievish tyrant of one's mental roads,
+holding their more legitimate travellers at the stand and deliver.
+
+Desire, usually so clearsighted, ought to have seen that the attentions
+of Benis to the too-sympathetic Mary were hollow at the core. But this,
+her mistaken Thought would by no means allow. Ceaselessly on the watch,
+it leapt upon every unprejudiced deduction and turned it to the
+strengthening of its own mistaken self. What might have seemed merely
+boredom on the professor's part was twisted by the Thought to appear an
+anguished effort after self-control. Any avoidance of Mary's society
+was attributed to fear rather than to indifference. And so on and so on.
+
+Spence, too, a man learned in the byways of the mind, ought to have
+known that, to Desire, John was a refuge merely, and Mary the real lion
+in the way. But his mistaken Thought, born of a smile and a photograph,
+grew steadily stronger and waxed fat upon the everyday trivialities
+which should have slain it. So powerful had it become that, by the time
+of Desire's arrival on the veranda, it had closed every road of
+interpretation save its own.
+
+Nor was John in more reasonable case. His mistaken Thought was
+different in action but equally successful in effect. Born of an
+insistent desire, and nursed by half fearful hope, it stood a beggar at
+the door of life, snatching from every passing circumstance the crumbs
+by which it lived. Did Desire smile--how eagerly John's famished
+Thought would claim it for his own. Did she frown--how quick it was to
+find some foreign cause for frowning. And, as Desire woke to love under
+his eyes, how ceaselessly it worked to add belief to hope. How
+plausibly it reasoned, how cleverly it justified! That Spence loved his
+wife, the Thought would not accept as possible. All John's actual
+knowledge of the depth and steadfastness of his friend's nature was
+pooh-poohed or ignored. Benis, dear old chap, cared nothing for women.
+Hadn't he always shunned them in his quiet way? And hadn't he, John,
+warned Benis, anyway? The Thought insisted upon the warning with
+virtuous emphasis. It pointed out that Benis had laughed at the
+warning. Even if--but we need not follow John's excursions further.
+They all led through devious ways to the old, old justification of
+everything in love and war.
+
+As time went on, the thing which fed the mistaken thoughts of both
+Benis and John was the change in Desire herself. That she was
+increasingly unhappy was evident to both. And why should she be
+unhappy--unless?
+
+To John Rogers, that summer remained the most distracting summer of his
+life. Desire should have seen this--would have seen it had her
+mind-roads not been closed by their own obsession. The probability is
+that she did not consciously think of John at all. He was there and he
+was kind. She saw nothing farther than that.
+
+The relationship between the two men remained apparently the same and
+indeed it is likely that, in the main, their conception one of the
+other did not change. To Benis, John's virtues were still as real and
+admirable as ever. To John, Benis was still a bit of a mystery and a
+bit of a hero>. (There were war stories which John knew but had never
+dared to tell, lest vengeance befall him.) But, these basic things
+aside, there were new points of view. Seen as a possible mate for
+Desire, Benis found John most lamentably lacking. Seen in the same
+light, Benis to John was undesirable in the extreme. "If it could only
+be someone more subtle than John," thought Benis. And, "If only old
+Benis were a bit more stable," thought John. Both were insincere, since
+no possible combination of qualities would have satisfied either.
+
+Of this fatally misled quartette, Mary Davis was perhaps the one most
+open to reason. And yet not altogether so, for the thought of Benis
+Spence as eternally escaped was not a welcome one. She realized now
+that she might have liked the elusive professor more than a little.
+They would have been, she thought, admirably suited. At the worst,
+neither would have bored the other. And the Spence home was quite
+possible--as a home for part of the year at least. It was certainly
+annoying that fate should have cut in so unexpectedly. And for what?
+Apparently for nothing but that a girl with grey, enigmatic eyes and
+close-shut lips should keep from Mary a position which she did not want
+herself. For Mary, captive of her Thought, was more than ready to
+believe that Desire's hidden preference was for John. She naturally
+could not grant her rival a share of her own discriminating taste in
+loving.
+
+"I suppose," thought Mary, "it is her immaturity which makes her prefer
+the doctor person to one who so far outranks him. She admires sleek
+hair and a straight nose. The finer fascinations of Benis escape her."
+
+Meanwhile she stayed on.
+
+"I know I should come home," she wrote the most select of the select
+friends. "And I know dear Miss Campion thinks so! But the situation
+here is too absorbing. And, as my invitation was indefinite, I can
+hardly be accused of outstaying it. I can't be supposed to know that
+I'm not wanted. I justify myself by the knowledge that I am of some use
+to Benis. You know I can interest most men when I try, and this time my
+'heart is in it'--like Sentimental Tommy. I am even teaching a
+perfectly dear parrot they have here to sing, 'Oh, What a Pal was
+Mary.' Will you run over to my rooms and send down that London smoke
+chiffon frock with the silver underslip? Stockings and slippers to
+match in a box in the bottom drawer. I am contemplating a moon-light
+mood and must have the accessories. One loses half the effect if one
+does not dress the part. Madam Enigma never dresses in character.
+Because she never assumes one. So dull to be always just oneself, don't
+you think? Even if one knew what one's real self is, which I am sure I
+do not.
+
+"This girl annoys me. How she can be so simple and yet so complex I
+can't understand. I thought perhaps a dash of jealousy might be
+revealing. But she hasn't turned a hair. I have my emotions pretty well
+in hand myself but even if I didn't adore my husband, I'd see that no
+one else appropriated him. But as far as Madam Coolness is concerned it
+looks as if I might put her husband in my pocket and keep him there
+indefinitely.
+
+"I told you in my last about the good-looking doctor. What she sees in
+him puzzles me. He is handsome but as dull as all the proverbs. Can't
+be original even in his love affairs--otherwise he would hardly select
+his best friend's bride--so bookish! Why doesn't someone fall in love
+with the wife of his enemy? It seems to have gone out since Romeo's
+time. (Now don't write and tell me that Juliet wasn't married.)
+
+"Another thing which I find odd, is the attitude of Benis himself. He
+is quite alive, painfully so, to the drift of the thing. Yet he does
+nothing. And this is not in keeping with his character. He is the type
+of man who, in spite of an unassertive manner, holds what he has with
+no uncertain grasp. Why, then, does he let this one thing go? The
+logical deduction is that he knows that he never had it. All of which,
+being interpreted, means that things may happen here through the sheer
+inertia of other things. Almost every day I think, 'Something ought to
+be done.' But I know I shall never do it. I am not the novelist's
+villainess who arranges a compromising situation and produces the
+surprised husband from behind a door. Neither am I a peacemaker or an
+altruist. I am not selfish enough in one way nor un-selfish enough in
+another. (Probably that is why life has lost interest in my special
+case.) Even my emotions are hopelessly mixed. There are times when I
+find myself viciously hoping that Madam Composure will go the limit and
+that right quickly. And there are other times when I feel I should like
+to choke her into a proper realization of what she is risking. Not for
+her sake--I'm far too feminine for that--but because I hate to see her
+play with this man (whom I like myself) and get away with it."
+
+It is worth while remembering the closing sentences of this letter.
+They explain, or partially explain, a certain future action on the part
+of the writer, which might otherwise seem out of keeping with her well
+defined attitude of "Mary first."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+"There is one thing which I simply do not understand." Miss Davis dug
+the point of a destructive parasol into the well-kept gravel of the
+drive and allowed a glance of deep seriousness to drift from under the
+shadow of her hat. Unfortunately, her companion was not attending.
+
+It was the day of Mrs. Burton Jones' garden party, the Bainbridge event
+for which Miss Davis was, presumably, staying over. Mary, in a new
+frock of sheerest grey and most diaphanous white, and a hat which lay
+like a breath of mist against the gold of her hair, had come down
+early. In the course of an observant career, she had learned that, in
+one respect at least, men are like worms. They are inclined to be
+early. Mary had often profited by this bit of wisdom, and was glad that
+so few other women seemed to realize its importance. One can do much
+with ten or fifteen uninterrupted minutes.
+
+But today Mary had not done much. She had found Benis, as she expected,
+on the front steps. They had talked for quite ten minutes without an
+interruption--but also without any reason to deplore one.
+
+This was failure. And Mary, whose love of the chase grew as the quarry
+proved shy, was beginning to be seriously annoyed with Benis. He might
+at least play up! Even now he was not looking at her, and he did not
+ask her what it was that she simply did not understand. Mary decided
+that he deserved something--a pin-prick at least.
+
+"Why don't you get a car, Benis?" she asked inconsequently. "If you had
+one, Desire might ride in it some-times, instead of always in Dr.
+Rogers'. Can't you see that it's dangerous?"
+
+"One has to take risks," said Spence plaintively. "John is careless.
+But he has never killed anyone yet."
+
+"You're impossible, Benis."
+
+"Yes, I know. But particularly impossible as a chauffeur. That's why I
+haven't a car. What would I do with a driver when I wasn't using him?
+Desire will have a car of her own as soon as she likes to try it. Aunt
+won't drive and I--don't."
+
+This was the first approach to a personal remark the professor had
+made. No one was in sight yet and Mary began to hope again. Once more
+she tried the gently serious gaze.
+
+"Why not?" she asked, not too eagerly.
+
+Yorick, sunning himself by the door, gave vent to a goblin chuckle.
+"Oh, what a pal was M-Mary! Oh, what a pal--Nothing doing!" he finished
+with a shriek and began to flap his wings.
+
+The professor laughed. "Yorick gets his lessons mixed," he said. "But
+isn't he a wonder? Did you ever know a bird who could learn so quickly?"
+
+Mary did not want to talk about birds.  "Do tell me why you dislike
+driving?" she asked with gentle insistence.
+
+"Oh, I like it.-It's not that. I used to drive like Jehu, or John.
+Never had an accident. But when I came back from overseas I found I
+couldn't trust my nerve--no quick judgment, no instinctive
+reaction--all gone to pieces. Rather rotten."
+
+With unerring intuition Mary knew this for a real confidence.
+Fortunately she was an expert with shy game.
+
+"Quite rotten," she said soberly. He went on.
+
+"It's little things like that that hit hard. Not to be One's own man in
+a crisis--d'y' see?"
+
+Mary nodded.
+
+"But it's only temporary," he continued more cheer-fully. "I'll try
+myself out one of these days. Only, of course, arranged tests are never
+real ones. The crisis must leap on one to be of any use. Some little
+time ago, when I was at the coast, an incident happened--a kind of
+unexpected emergency"--he paused thoughtfully as a sudden vision of a
+moon-lit room flashed before him--"I got through that all right," he
+added, "so I'm hopeful."
+
+"How thrilling," said Mary. "Won't you tell me what it was?"
+
+His eyes met hers with a placidity for which she could have shaken him.
+
+"It wouldn't interest you," he said. "I hear Aunt coming at last."
+
+Miss Campion's voice had indeed preceded her.
+
+"Oh, there you are, Mary," she said with some acidity. "I told Desire
+you were sure to be down first."
+
+"I try to be prompt," said Mary meekly. "I have been keeping Benis
+company until you were ready." She spoke to Miss Campion but her
+slightly mocking eyes watched for some change upon the face of her
+young hostess. Desire, as usual, was serene.
+
+"Mary thinks we are all heathens not to have a car," said Benis. "When
+are you going to choose yours, Desire?"
+
+"Not at all, I think," said Desire.
+
+Men, even clever men, are like that. The professor had seen no possible
+sting in his idly spoken words. But the sore, hot spot, which now
+seemed ever present in Desire's heart, grew sorer and hotter. To owe a
+car to the reminder of another woman! Naturally, Desire could do very
+well without it.
+
+"But don't you miss a car terribly?" asked Mary with kind concern.
+
+"I cannot miss what I have never had."
+
+"Oh, in the west, I suppose one does have horses still."
+
+"There may be a few left, I think." Desire's slow smile crept out as
+memory brought the asthmatic "chug" of the "Tillicum." "My father and I
+used a launch almost exclusively." In spite of herself she could not
+resist a glance at the professor. His eyes met hers with a ghost of
+their old twinkle.
+
+"A launch?" Mary's surprise was patent. "Did you run it yourself?"
+
+"We had a Chinese engineer," said Desire demurely. "But I could manage
+it if necessary."
+
+Further conversation upon modes of locomotion on the coast was cut off
+by the precipitate arrival of John who, coming up the drive in his best
+manner, narrowly escaped a triple fatality at the steps.
+
+"You people are careless!" he exclaimed indignantly. "What do you mean
+by standing on the drive? Some-one might have been hurt! Anyone here
+like to get driven to the garden party?"
+
+"Do doctors find time for garden parties in Bainbridge?" asked Mary in
+mock surprise.
+
+"Healthiest place you ever saw!" declared Dr. John gloomily. "And
+anyway, this garden party is a prescription of mine. Naturally I am
+expected to take my own medicine. I said to Mrs. B. Jones, 'What you
+need, dear Mrs. Jones, is a little gentle excitement combined with
+fresh air, complete absence of mental strain and plenty of cooling
+nourishment.' Did you ever hear a garden party more delicately
+suggested? Desire, will you sit in front?"
+
+"Husbands first," said Benis. "In the case of a head-on collision, I
+claim the post of honorable danger."
+
+It was surely a natural and a harmless speech. But instantly the
+various mistaken thoughts of his hearers turned it to their will.
+Desire's eyes grew still more clouded under their lowered lids. "He
+does not dare to sit beside Mary," whispered her particular mental
+highwayman. "Oho, he is beginning to show human jealousy at last,"
+thought Mary. "He has noticed that she likes to sit beside me," exulted
+John. Of them all, only Aunt Caroline was anywhere near the truth. "He
+has taken my warning to heart," thought she. "But then, I always knew I
+could manage men if I had a chance."
+
+A garden party in Bainbridge is not exciting, in itself. In themselves,
+no garden parties are exciting. As mere garden parties they partake
+somewhat of the slow and awful calm of undisturbed nature. One could
+see the grass grow at a garden party, if so many people were not
+trampling on it. So it is possible that there were those in Mrs. Burton
+Jones' grounds that afternoon who, bringing no personal drama with
+them, had rather a dull time. For others it was a fateful day. There
+were psychic milestones on Mrs. Burton Jones' smooth lawn that
+afternoon.
+
+It was there, for instance, that the youngest Miss Keith (the pretty
+one) decided to marry Jerry Clarkson, junior (and regretted it all her
+life). It was there that Mrs. Keene first suspected the new principal
+of the Collegiate Institute of Bolshevik tendencies. (He had said that,
+in his opinion, kings were bound to go.) And it was there that Miss
+Ellis spoke to Miss Sutherland for the first time in three years. (She
+asked her if she would have lemon or chocolate cake--a clear matter of
+social duty.) It was there also that Miss Mary Sophia Watkins, Dr.
+Rogers' capable nurse, decided finally that a longer stay in Bainbridge
+would be wasted time. It was the first time she had actually seen her
+admired doctor and the object of his supposed regard together, and a
+certain look which she surprised on Dr. John's face as his eyes
+followed Desire across the lawn, convinced her so thoroughly that, like
+a sensible girl, she packed up that night and went back to the city.
+
+Perhaps it was that very look which also decided Spence. For decide he
+did. There was no excuse for waiting longer. He must "have it out" with
+John. Desire must be given her freedom. Of John's attitude he had small
+doubt. His infatuation for Desire had been plain from the beginning.
+Time had served only to centre and strengthen it. He could not in
+justice blame John. He didn't blame John. That is to say, he would not
+officially permit himself to blame John, though he knew very well that
+he did blame him. A sense of the rights of other people as opposed to
+one's own rights has been hardly gained by the Race, and is by no means
+firmly seated yet. Let primitive passions slip control for an instant
+and presto! good-bye to the rights of other people! The primitive man
+in Spence would not have argued the matter. Having obtained his mate by
+any means at all, it would have gone hard with anyone who, however
+justly, attempted to take her from him. Today, at Mrs. Burton-Jones'
+garden party, the acquired restraints of character seemed wearing thin.
+The professor decided that it might be advisable to go home.
+
+Desire and Mary noticed his absence at about the same time. And both
+lost interest in the party with the suddenness of a light blown out.
+
+"Things are moving," thought Mary with a thrill of triumph. But in
+spite of her triumph she was angry. It is not pleasant to have the
+power of one's rival so starkly revealed. Malice crept into her
+faun-like eyes as she looked across to where Desire sat, a composed
+young figure, listening with apparent interest to the biggest bore in
+Bainbridge. What right had she to hold a man's hot heart between her
+placid hands! Mary ground her parasol into Mrs. Burton-Jones' best sod
+and her small white teeth shut grindingly behind her lips.
+
+Desire was trying to listen to the little man with the enlarged ego who
+attempted to entertain her. But she was very much aware of Mary and all
+her moods. "She is selfish. She will make him miserable," thought
+Desire. "But she will make him happy first. And, in any case, he must
+be free."
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Spence," the little man beside her was saying, "a man like
+myself, however diffident, must be ready to do his full duty by the
+community in which he lives. That is why I feel I must accept the
+nomination for mayor of this town--if I am offered it. My friends say
+to me, 'Miller, you are a man, and we need a man. Bainbridge needs a
+man.' What am I to do under such circumstances? If there is no man--"
+
+"You might try a woman," said Desire, suddenly losing patience. The
+garden party was stupid. The egotist was stupid. She was probably
+stupid too, because she knew that a few weeks ago she would have found
+both the party and the egotist entertaining. She would have been
+delighted to peep in at a window where every-thing was labelled "Big
+I." She would have enjoyed Mrs. Burton-Jones' windows immensely--but
+now, windows bored her. In the only window that mattered the blinds
+were down. Desire's life had narrowed as it broadened. It wasn't life
+that she wanted any more--it was the one thing which could have made
+life dear.
+
+A great impatience of trivialities came upon her. She hardly heard the
+injured tones of the little man who had embarked upon a heated
+repudiation of a feminine mayoralty. It did not amuse her even when he
+proved logically that women could never be anything because they were
+always something else. Instead she looked to Dr. John for rescue, and
+Dr. John, most observant of knights, immediately rescued her.
+
+"Did you see that?" asked Mrs. Keene (the same who discovered the
+Bolshevik principal). She touched Miss Davis significantly on the arm.
+
+Mary, who had seen perfectly well, looked blank.
+
+"Of course you are not one of us," went on Mrs. Keene. "So you can
+scarcely be expected.... Still, living in the same house ... and
+knowing the dear professor so well."
+
+"Did you wish to speak to him? He has gone home, I think," said Mary,
+innocently. "I fancy he doesn't suffer garden parties gladly."
+
+"No--such a pity! With a wife so young and, if I may say so, so
+different. One feels that she has not been brought up amongst us. So
+sad. I always say 'Let our young men marry at home.' So sensible. One
+knows where one is then, don't you think?"
+
+Mary agreed that, in such a position, one might know where one was.
+
+"And book writing," said Mrs. Keene, "so fatiguing! So liable to occupy
+one's attention--to the exclusion of other matters.... The dear
+professor.... So bound up in the marvels of the human brain!"
+
+"Not brain, mind," corrected Mary gently. "The professor is a
+psychologist."
+
+"Well, of course if you wish to separate them, in a scriptural sense.
+But what I mean is that such biological studies are dangerous. So
+absorbing. When one examines things through a microscope--"
+
+"One doesn't--in psychology."
+
+"Well, perhaps not so much as formerly, especially since vivisection is
+so looked down upon. But it is terribly absorbing, as I say. And one
+can hardly expect an absorbed man to see things. And yet--"
+
+"What is it," asked Mary bluntly, "that you think Professor Spence
+ought to see?"
+
+This was entirely too blunt for Mrs. Keene. She, in her turn, looked
+blank. What did Miss Davis mean? She was not aware that she had
+suggested the professor's seeing anything. Probably there was nothing
+at all to see. Young people have such latitude nowadays. She herself
+was not a gossip. She despised gossip. "What I always say," declared
+she, virtuously, "is 'do not hint thing's.' Say them right out and then
+we shall know where we are. Don't you think so?"
+
+Mary agreed that, under these conditions also, one might be fairly sure
+of one's position in space. "Unless," she concluded maliciously, "there
+is anything in the Einstein theory."
+
+This latter shot had the effect intended, for Mrs. Keene said
+hurriedly, "Oh, of course in that case--" and moved away.
+
+"I'm going home, Mary," said Aunt Caroline, coming up. Aunt Caroline
+had had enough garden party. She had noticed both the rescue of Desire
+by John, and the conversation of Mary with Mrs. Keene--the "worst old
+gossip in Bainbridge."
+
+Desire was quite ready to go. So was Mary. The centre of attraction for
+them both had shifted itself. John too, felt that he ought to turn up
+at the office. But all three ladies politely declined a lift home in
+his car.
+
+"It is so hot," he pleaded.
+
+"It is not hot," said Aunt Caroline.
+
+Mary smiled mockingly and murmured something about the great distances
+of small towns. Desire said, "No, thank you, John," in her detached
+way--a way which drove him mad even while he adored it.
+
+So the Burton-Jones garden party faded into history. But
+history-in-the-making caught up its effects and carried them on....
+
+It was a lovely night. But indoors it was hot with the accumulated heat
+of the day. Instead of going to bed, Mary slipped out into the garden.
+It was fresher there, and she was restless. The front of the house lay
+in darkness, but, from the library window at the side, stretched a
+ribbon of light. Benis must be still at work. With slippers which made
+no sound upon the grass, Mary crossed over to the window and looked in.
+
+What she saw there stung her already fretted soul to unreasoning anger,
+and for once the circumspect Miss Davis acted upon impulse undeterred
+by thought. Entering the house softly, she ran upstairs to the west
+room which she entered without knocking.
+
+Desire, seated at the dressing table, turned in surprise. She was ready
+for bed, but lingered over the brushing of her hair. With another spasm
+of anger, Mary noticed the hair she brushed--hair long and lustrous and
+lifted in soft waves. A pink kimona lay across the back of her chair, a
+pretty thing--but not at all French.
+
+"Put it on," said Mary, "and come here. I want to show you something."
+
+Desire did not ask "What?" Nor did she keep Mary waiting. Pleasant or
+unpleasant, it was not Desire's way to delay revelation. Together the
+two girls hurried out into the dew-sweet garden. As they went, Mary
+spoke in gusty sentences.
+
+"I don't care what you do." (She was almost sobbing in her anger.) "I
+don't understand you.... I don't want to.... But you're not going
+to get away with it ... that cool air of yours ... pretending not
+to see.... If you are human at all you'll see ... and remember all
+your life."
+
+They were close to the library window now. Desire looked in.
+
+She looked so long and stood so still that Mary had time to get back a
+little of her breath and something of her common sense. An instinct
+which her selfish life had pretty well buried began to stir.
+
+"Come away," she whispered, "I shouldn't have ... it wasn't fair
+... he would never forgive us if he knew we had seen him like this!"
+
+Desire drew back instantly.
+
+"No," she said. Her voice was toneless. Her face in the darkness
+gleamed wedge-shaped and unfamiliar between the falling waves of her
+hair.
+
+"I'm sorry," said Mary sulkily. "But I thought you ought to know what
+you are doing. It takes a lot to break up a man like that."
+
+"Yes," said Desire. "All the same I had no right--"
+
+"You will have," said Desire evenly.
+
+They were at her door now. She paused with her hand on the knob.
+
+"I knew he cared," she said in the same level voice, "but I didn't know
+that he cared like that."
+
+"You know now," said Mary. Her irritation was returning.
+
+"Yes," said Desire. "Good-night."
+
+She opened the door and went in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+It seems incredible and yet it is a fact that Bainbridge never knew
+that young Mrs. Spence had run away. Full credit for this must be given
+to Miss Caroline Campion, who never really believed it herself--a
+mental limitation which lent the necessary air of unemphasized truth to
+her statement that Desire had been summoned suddenly to her father.
+
+Miss Campion had, in her own mind, built up an imaginary Dr. Farr in
+every way suited to be the father-in-law of a Spence. This creation she
+passed on to Bainbridge as Desire's father. "Such a fine old
+gentleman," she would say. "And so devoted to his only daughter. Quite
+a recluse, though, my nephew tells me. And not at all strong." This
+idea of delicacy, which Miss Campion had added to the picture from a
+sense of the fitness of things, proved useful now. An only daughter may
+be summoned to attend a delicate father at a moment's notice, without
+unduly straining credulity.
+
+One feels almost sorry for Bainbridge. It would have enjoyed the truth
+so much!
+
+"Is Desire going to have no breakfast at all?" asked Aunt Caroline,
+from behind the coffee-urn on the morning following the garden-party.
+It was an invariable custom of hers to pretend that her nephew was
+fully conversant with his wife's intentions.
+
+"She may be tired," said Benis.
+
+"No. She has been up some time. The door of her room was open when I
+came down."
+
+"Then she is probably in the garden. I'll ask Olive to call her."
+
+"Why not call her yourself? I have a feeling--"
+
+The professor rose from his untasted coffee. When Aunt Caroline "had a
+feeling" it was useless to argue.
+
+"Are you sleeping badly again, Benis?" asked Aunt Caroline. "Your eyes
+look like burnt holes in a blanket."
+
+"Nothing to bother about, Aunt." He stepped out quickly into the sunny
+garden. But Desire was not among the flowers, neither was she on the
+lawn nor in the shrubbery. A few moments' search proved that she was
+not out of doors at all. Benis returned to his coffee. He found it
+quite cold and no waiting Aunt Caroline to pour him another cup. "I
+wonder," he pondered idly, "why, when one really wants coffee, it is
+always cold."
+
+Then he forgot about coffee suddenly and completely, for Aunt Caroline
+came in with the news that Desire was gone.
+
+"Gone where?" asked Spence stupidly.
+
+"That," said Aunt Caroline, "she leaves you to inform me."
+
+With the feeling of being someone else and acting under compulsion he
+took the few written lines which she held out to him. "Dear Aunt
+Caroline," he read, "Benis will tell you why I am going. But I cannot
+go without thanking you. I'll never forget how good you have
+been--Desire."
+
+"I had a feeling," said Aunt Caroline with mournful triumph. "It never
+deceives me, never! As I passed our dear girl's room this morning, I
+said, 'She is not there'--and she wasn't!"
+
+"I think you mentioned that the door was open."
+
+"That has nothing to do with it. I--"
+
+"Where did you find this note?"
+
+"On her dressing table. When you went into the gar-den, I went
+upstairs. I had a feeling--"
+
+"Was there nothing else? No note for me?"
+
+"No," in surprise. "She says you know all about it. Don't you?"
+
+"Something, not all."
+
+Aunt Caroline was, upon occasion, quite capable of meeting a crisis.
+Remembering the neglected coffee, she poured a cup for each of them.
+
+"Here," said she, "drink this. You look as if you needed it. I must
+say, Benis, that you don't act as if you knew anything, but if you do,
+you'd better tell me. Where is Desire?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Umph! Then what you do know won't help us to find her. Finding her is
+the first thing. I wonder," thoughtfully, "if she told John?"
+
+A wintry smile passed over the professor's lips.
+
+"I shall ask him," he said.
+
+Aunt Caroline proceeded with her own deducing. "There is no one else
+she could have told," she reasoned. "She did not tell you. She did not
+tell me. Naturally, she would not tell Mary. And a girl nearly always
+tells somebody. So it must be John. I hope you are sufficiently ashamed
+of yourself, Benis? I told you Desire wouldn't understand your
+attentions to Mary. Though I admit I did not dream she would take them
+quite so seriously. I don't envy you your explanations."
+
+"Aunt--"
+
+"Wait a moment, Benis. On second thought, if I were you I would not
+explain at all. Simply tell her she is mistaken and stick to that. She
+may believe you. Promise her that you will never see Mary again--and
+you won't" (grimly) "if I have anything to say about it. Desire will
+come around. I have a feeling--"
+
+"My dear Aunt!"
+
+"Let me proceed, Benis. I have a feeling that she will forgive
+you--once. But let this be a lesson. Desire is not a girl who will
+forgive twice."
+
+"You are all wrong, Aunt," with weary patience. "But it doesn't matter.
+Say nothing about this. I am going to see John."
+
+"Not before you drink that coffee."
+
+Benis obediently drank. Hurry would not mend what had happened.
+
+"She has taken her travelling coat and hat," pursued Aunt Caroline.
+"Her train slippers, that taupe jersey-cloth suit, some fresh blouses,
+her dressing case, her night things and your photo off the dressing
+table."
+
+Benis smiled, a wry smile, and pushed back his cup.
+
+"You don't look fit to go anywhere," said Aunt Caroline irritably. "Why
+can't you call John on the 'phone?"
+
+"That would be quite modern," said Benis. "But--I think I'll see him. I
+shan't be long."
+
+It never once occurred to the professor, you will notice, that he might
+find John vanished also. His obsessing thought had not been able to
+change his essential knowledge of either Desire or John. If Desire had
+gone, she had gone because she could not stay. But she had gone alone.
+Just what determining thing had happened to make her flight imperative,
+Benis could not guess. But he would not have been human if he had not
+blamed the other man. "The fool has bungled it!" he thought. "Lost
+control of his precious feelings, perhaps--broken through--said
+something--frightened her." We may be sure that he cursed John in his
+heart very completely.
+
+But when he entered John's office and saw John he began to doubt even
+this. There was no guilt on the doctor's face--no sign of apprehension
+or regret, no tremor of knowledge. An angry-eyed young man looked up
+from a letter he was reading with nothing more serious than injured
+wonder in his gaze.
+
+"Can you beat it?" asked John disgustedly, waving the letter. "Aren't
+women the limit? Here's this one going off without a word, or an
+excuse, or anything. Just gone! And a silly note thrown on my desk. I
+tell you women have absolutely no sense of business
+obligation--positively not!"
+
+Spence restrained himself.
+
+"You are speaking of--?"
+
+"That nurse of mine, Miss Watkins. Never a word about leaving
+yesterday, and today vanished--vamoosed--simply non est! Look at what
+she says.--"
+
+Spence pushed the letter aside.
+
+"There is something more important than that, John," he said quietly,
+"Desire has left me."
+
+The two men stared at each other. Spence was the first to speak.
+
+"There is no doubt about it. She is gone. She has not told us where. I
+see that you do not know."
+
+John shook his head.
+
+"There may be a note for you in the morning's mail." Benis was coldly
+brief. "I must know where she is. If you can help me, let me know." He
+turned to the door.
+
+With difficulty John found his voice.
+
+"I knew nothing of this, Benis."
+
+"I realize that," dryly. "But you may be responsible for it. She had no
+idea of leaving yesterday."
+
+"Benis, I swear--"
+
+"It is not necessary. Besides," bitterly, "you could afford to be
+patient. You felt fairly--sure, didn't you?"
+
+"Sure! No, I--"
+
+"You mean you merely hoped?"
+
+"Oh--damn!"
+
+"Quite so. There is nothing to say. Not being a sentimentalist, I
+shan't pretend to love you, John. But I gambled and I've lost. I have
+always admired a good loser."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+Upon reaching home Benis found Aunt Caroline waiting for him just
+inside the outer gate.
+
+"I thought," she explained, "that we might talk while strolling up the
+drive. Then Olive would not overhear."
+
+The professor had quite neglected to consider Olive.
+
+"I have told Olive," went on Aunt Caroline, "that Mrs. Spence had
+received news of her father which was far from satisfactory and that
+she had left for Vancouver by the early morning train. The morning
+train is the only one she could have left by, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then that's all right. I also let Olive know, indirectly, that you
+were remaining behind to attend to a few matters. After which you would
+follow."
+
+Admiration for this generalship pierced even the deep depression of the
+professor.
+
+"Does John know where she is?" pursued Aunt Caroline.
+
+"No."
+
+"Then she has gone home to her father. She said something the other day
+which puzzled me. I can't remember just what it was but she seemed to
+have some fatalistic idea, about her old life having a hold upon her
+which she couldn't shake off. Pure morbidity, as I pointed out. But she
+has gone back. I have a feeling that she has."
+
+"You may be right, Aunt. It will be easy to find out. If I can make the
+necessary inquiries without arousing gossip. There was nothing in the
+mail--for me?"
+
+"No. The man has just been. But there is something for Desire, an odd
+looking package done up in foreign paper. I have it here."
+
+Spence took from her hand a slim, yellowish packet, directed in the
+crabbed writing of Li Ho.
+
+"I can't make out whether it is 'Hon. Mrs. Professor Spence' or whether
+the 'Mrs.' is 'Mr.' Perhaps you had better open it, Benis."
+
+"Perhaps, later." Spence slipped the packet into his pocket. "It 'can't
+have anything to do with our present problem.... I must make some
+telephone inquiries. But if Desire has gone, Aunt, we may as well face
+facts. She does not want me to follow her."
+
+"Doesn't she?" Aunt Caroline surveyed him with a pitying smile. "How
+stupid men are! But go along to the library. You've had no decent
+breakfast. I'll send you in something to eat. As for Bainbridge--leave
+that to me." ...
+
+How curiously does a room change with the changing mind of its
+occupant. Benis Spence had known his library in many moods. It had been
+a refuge; it had been a prison; it had been a place of dreams. He had
+liked to fancy that something of himself stayed there--something which
+met him, warm and welcoming, when he came in at the door. He had liked
+to play that the room had a soul. And, after he had brought Desire
+home, the idea had grown until he had seemed to feel an actual presence
+in its cool seclusion. But if presence there had been, it was gone now.
+The place was empty. The air hung dull and lifeless. The chairs stood
+stiff against the wall, the watching books had no greeting. Only Yorick
+swung and flapped in his cage, his throat full of mutterings.
+
+It is all very well to be a good loser. But loss is bitter. Here was
+loss, stark and staring.
+
+Spence walked over to the neatly tidied desk and there, for an instant,
+the cold finger lifted from his heart. A letter was lying on the clean
+blotter--she had not gone without a word, then! She had slipped in here
+to say good-bye.... A very little is much to him who has nothing.
+
+The letter was brief. Only a few words written hurriedly with a
+spluttering pen:
+
+"I am going, Ben-is. I think we are both sure now. But please--please
+do not pity me. Love is too big for pity. You have given me so much,
+give me this one thing more--the understanding that can believe me when
+I say that I, too, am glad to give.
+
+"Desire."
+
+Benis laid the letter softly down upon the ordered desk. No, he need
+not pity her. She had had the courage to let little things go. She, who
+had demanded so royally of life, now made no outcry that the price was
+high. Well, ... it need not be so high, perhaps. He would make it as
+easy as might be.
+
+The parrot was trying to attract him with his usual goblin croaks.
+Benis rubbed its bent, green head.
+
+"You'll miss her, too, old chap," he said, adding angrily, "dashed
+sentimentality!"
+
+The sound of his own voice steadied him. He must be careful. Above all,
+he must not sink into self-pity. He must go back to his work. It had
+meant everything to him once. It must mean everything to him again. If
+he were a man at all he must fight through this inertia. Life had
+tumbled him out of his shell, played with him for an hour, and now
+would tumble him back again--no, by Jove, he refused to be tumbled
+back! He would fight through. He would come out somewhere, some-time.
+
+It occurred to him that he ought to be thankful that Desire at least
+was going to be happy. But he did not feel glad. He was not even sure
+that she was going to be happy. Something kept stubbornly insisting
+that she would have been much happier with him. Quite with-out
+prejudice, had they not been extraordinarily well suited? He put the
+question up to fate. The hardest thing about the whole hard matter was
+the insistent feeling that a second mistake had been made. John and
+Desire--his mind refused to see any fitness in the mating. Yet this
+very perversity of love was something which he had long recognized with
+the complacence of assured psychology.
+
+He heard Mary's voice in the hall. He had forgotten Mary. He hoped she
+would not tap upon the library door--as she sometimes did. No, thank
+heaven, she had gone upstairs! That was an odd idea of Aunt Caroline's.
+If he had felt like smiling he would have smiled at it. Desire jealous
+of Mary? Ridiculous....
+
+"Here comes old Bones," said Yorick conversationally.
+
+The professor started. It was a phrase he had him-self taught the bird
+during that time of illness when John's visit had been the bright spot
+in long dull days. It had amused them both that the parrot seldom made
+a mistake, seeming to know, long before his master, when the doctor was
+near.
+
+But today? Surely Yorick was wrong today. John would not come today.
+Would never come again--but did anyone save John race up the drive in
+that abandoned manner? Benis frowned. He did not want to see John. He
+would not see him! But as he went to leave the library by one door John
+threw open the other and stood for an instant blinded by the
+comparative dimness within.
+
+"Where are you, Benis?"
+
+"Here."
+
+Spence closed the door. His brief anger was swallowed up in something
+else. Never, even in France, had he seen John look like this.
+
+"We're a precious pair of dupes!" began John in a high voice and
+without preliminaries. "Prize idiots--imbeciles!"
+
+"Very likely," said Benis. "But you're not talking to New York."
+
+He made no move to take the paper which John held out in a shaking hand.
+
+"What is the matter with you?" he asked sternly.
+
+"What's the matter with me? Oh, nothing. What's the matter with all of
+us? Crazy--that's all! Here--read it! It's from Desire. Must have
+posted it last night."
+
+Spence put the letter aside.
+
+"If you have news, you had better tell it. That is if you can talk in
+an ordinary voice."
+
+John laughed harshly. "My voice is all right. Not so dashed cool as
+yours. Read it!"
+
+Spence took the sheet held out to him; but he had no wish to> read
+Desire's words to John.
+
+"If it is a private letter--" he began.
+
+"Oh, don't be a bigger fool than you have been! Unless," with sudden
+suspicion, "you've known all along? Perhaps you have. Even you could
+hardly have been so completely duped."
+
+"If you will tell me what you are talking about--"
+
+"Read it. It is plain enough."
+
+The professor slowly opened the folded sheet. It was a longer note than
+the one she had left for him.
+
+"Dear John," he read, "if I I'd known yesterday that I would leave so
+soon I could have said good-bye. But my decision was made suddenly. I
+think you must have seen how it is with Benis and Mary and I can't go
+without telling you that I knew about it from the first. I don't want
+you to blame Benis. He told me about it before we were married, and I
+took the risk with my eyes open. How could he, or I, have guessed that
+he had given up hope too soon?--and anyway, it wasn't in the bargain
+that I should love him.--It just happened.--He is desperately unhappy.
+Help him if you can.--Your affectionate Desire."
+
+"My affectionate Desire!" mocked John, still in that high, strained
+voice which now was perilously near a sob. "That--that is what I was to
+her, a convenient friend! You--you had it all. And let it go, for the
+sake of that blond-haired, deer-eyed, fashion plate--"
+
+"That's enough! You are not an hysterical girl. Sit down.... I can't
+understand this, John. I thought--"
+
+The two men looked at each other, a long look in which distrust at
+least was faced and ended. The excited flush, died out of John's cheek.
+He looked weary and shame-faced.
+
+"I thought she loved you," said Spence simply.
+
+The doctor's eyes fell. It was his honest admission that he, too, had
+thought this possible.
+
+"Even now," went on the professor haltingly, "I can-not believe ...
+it doesn't seem possible ... me? ... John, does the letter mean
+that Desire loves me?"
+
+John Rogers nodded, turning away.
+
+Silence fell between them.
+
+"What will you do--about the other?" asked the doctor presently.
+
+"What other? There is no other. I loved Desire from the very first
+night I saw her. I didn't know it, then. It was all new. And," with a
+bitter smile, "so different from what one expects. Mary was never
+any-thing but the figure of straw I told you of. I thought," naively,
+"that Desire had forgotten Mary."
+
+"Did you?" said John. "Why man, the woman doesn't live who would
+forget! And Miss Davis filled the bill to the last item--even the name
+'Mary'."
+
+"Oh what a pal was M-Mary!" croaked Yorick obligingly.
+
+"The bird, too!" said John. "Everyone doing his little best to sustain
+the illusion--even, if I am any judge, the lady herself."
+
+But Benis Spence had never wasted time upon the lady herself. And he
+did not begin now. With a face which had suddenly become years younger
+he was searching frantically in his desk for the transcontinental
+time-table.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+The train crawled.
+
+Although it was a fast express whose speed might well provoke the
+admiration of travellers, in one traveller it provoked nothing save
+grim endurance. Beside the consuming impatience of Benis Hamilton
+Spence, its best effort was a little thing. When it slowed, he
+fidgeted, when it stopped he fumed. He wanted to get out and push it.
+
+Five days--four--three--two--a day and a half--the vastness of the
+spaces over which it must carry him grew endless as his mind
+continually tried to span them. He felt a distinct grievance that any
+country should be so wide.
+
+"Making good time!" said a genial person, travelling in the tobacco
+trade. The professor eyed him with suspicion, as a man deranged by
+optimism.
+
+The train crawled.
+
+Spence removed his eyes from the passing landscape and tried to forget
+how slowly it was passing. He saw himself at the end of his journey. He
+saw Desire. He saw a grudging moment, or second perhaps, devoted to
+explanation. And then--How happy they were going to be! (If the train
+would only forget to stop at stations it might get somewhere.) How
+wonderful it would be to feel the empty world grow full again! To raise
+one's eyes, just casually, and to see--Desire. To speak, in just one's
+ordinary voice, and to know she heard. To stretch out one's hand and
+feel that she was there. (What were they doing now? Putting on more
+cars? Outrageous!) He would even write that book presently, when he got
+around to it. (When one felt sure one could write.) But first they
+would go away, just he and she, east of the sun and west of the moon.
+They would sit together somewhere, as they used to sit on the
+sun-warmed grass at Friendly Bay, and say nothing at all.... How
+nearly they had missed it ... but it would be all right now. Love,
+whom they had both denied, had both given and forgiven. It would be all
+right, it must be all right, now! (But how the train crawled.)
+
+Poor John, poor old Bones! What a blow it had been for him. Although he
+should certainly have had more sense than to fancy--Well, of course, a
+man can fancy anything it he wants it badly enough. Spence was honestly
+sorry for John--that is, he would be when he had time to consider
+John's case. But John, too, would be all right presently. (Why under
+heaven do trains need to wait ten minutes while silly people walk on
+platforms without hats?) John would marry a nice girl. Not a girl like
+Desire--not that type of girl at all. Someone quite different, but
+nice. A fair girl, like that nurse he had had in his office. John might
+be very happy with a wife like that ...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not until the fourth night out that the professor remembered the
+packet from Li Ho. It had loomed so small among the events of that day
+fof revelations that he had completely forgotten it. He did not even
+remember putting it in his pocket--but there it was, still unopened,
+and promising some slight distraction from the wearying contemplation
+of the crawling train. It would shut out, too, the annoyance of the
+tobacco traveller, smoking with an offensive leisureliness, and
+declaring, in defiance of all feeling, that they were "Sharp on time
+and going some!"
+
+With a reviving interest in something outside the time-table, Spence
+cut the string and opened the yellow packet. A small note-book fell out
+and a letter--two letters, and one of them in the unmistakable writing
+of Li Ho him-self. This latter, the professor opened first.
+
+"Honorable Spence and Esteemed Professor, dear Sir," wrote Li Ho.
+"Permit felicity to include book belong departed parent of valued wife.
+Deceased lady write as per day. Li Ho extract and think proper missy to
+know. Honorable Boss head much loony. Secure that missy remain removed
+if desiring safety. Belong much danger here since married as per also
+enclosed. Exalted self be insignificantly warned by person of no
+intelligence, Li Ho."
+
+Farther down, in a corner of the sheet was this sentence:
+
+"Permit to notably add that respected lady departed life Jan. 14."
+
+Li Ho had certainly surpassed himself. The bewildered professor forgot
+about the time-table entirely. What Chinese meaning lay behind this
+jumble of dictionary words? That they were not used at haphazard Spence
+knew. Li Ho had some distinct meaning to convey--had indeed already
+conveyed it in the one outstanding word "danger." For an instant the
+professor's mind sickened with that weakness which had been his
+dreadful legacy of war. But it passed immediately. Something stronger,
+deeper in, took quiet command. Desire was in danger! Shock has a way at
+times of giving back what shock has taken.--Spence became his own man
+once more--cool, ready.
+
+With infinite care he went over the Chinaman's disjointed sentences.
+They had been written under stress.
+
+That much presented no difficulty. Li Ho, the imperturbable, had
+permitted himself a fit of nerves ... Something must have happened.
+Something new. Something which threatened a danger not sufficiently
+emphasized before. In his former letter Li Ho had indeed intimated that
+a return was not desirable, but it had been an intimation based on
+general principles only. This was different. This had all the marks of
+urgent warning. "No more safe being married as per inclosed." This
+cryptic remark might mean that further enlightenment was to be sought
+in the enclosures.
+
+Spence picked up the second letter. It was addressed to Dr. Herbert
+Farr at Vancouver, and was merely a formal notice from a firm of
+English solicitors--post-marked London--a well-known firm, probably,
+from the address on their letterhead.
+
+
+"Dr. Herbert Farr,
+  Vancouver, B. C.
+
+Dear Sir:
+
+As executors in the estate of Mrs. Henry Strangeways we beg to inform
+you that the allowance paid to you for the maintenance of Miss Desire
+Farr is hereby discontinued. This action is taken under the terms of
+our late clients will,--whereby such allowance ceases upon the marriage
+of the said Desire Farr or her voluntary removal from your roof and
+care.
+
+Obediently yours,
+  Hervey & Ellis."
+
+
+The professor whistled. Here was enlightenment indeed! A very
+sufficient explanation of the old man's grim determination to block any
+self-dependence on Desire's part which would mean "removal from" his
+"care." Here was someone paying a steady (and perhaps a fat) allowance
+for the young girl's maintenance--someone of whom she herself had
+certainly never heard and of whose bounty she remained completely
+ignorant. It was easy enough now to follow Li Ho's reasoning. If it was
+for this allowance, and this alone, that the old doctor had kept Desire
+with him, long after her presence had become a matter of indifference
+or even of distaste, the ending of the allowance meant also the ending
+of his tolerance. "No more safe, being married." The difference, in Li
+Ho's opinion, was all the difference between comparative safety and
+real danger. Money! As long as Desire had meant money there had been an
+instinct in the old scoundrel which, even in his moon-devil fits, had
+protected the goose which laid the golden eggs. But now--now this
+inhibition was removed, Desire, no longer valuable, was no longer
+safeguarded. And who could tell what added grudge of rage and vengeance
+might be darkly harbored in the depths of that crafty and unbalanced
+mind?
+
+And Desire, unwarned, was even now almost within the madman's reach....
+Spence sternly refused to think of this ... there was time yet ...
+plenty of time.... The thing to do was to keep cool ... steady
+now!
+
+"Kind of pretty, going through these here mountains by moonlight,"
+observed the tobacco traveller, inclined to be genial even under
+difficulties. "She'll be full tomorrow night. Queer thing that them
+there prohibitionists can't keep the moon from getting full!" He
+laughed in hearty appreciation of his own cleverness.
+
+The professor, a polite man, tried to smile. And then, suddenly, the
+meaning of what had been said came home to him.
+
+Tomorrow night would be full moon!
+
+He had forgotten about the moon.
+
+"Queer cuss," thought the travelling man. "Stares at you polite enough
+but never says anything. No conversation. Just about as lively as an
+undertaker."
+
+But if Benis had forgotten to remove his eyes from the travelling man,
+he did not know it. He did not see him. He saw nothing but
+moonlight--moonlight across an uncovered floor and the white dimness of
+a bed in the shadow! ... But he must keep cool ... was there time
+to stop Desire with a telegram? She was only a day ahead ... no--he
+was just too late for that. He knew the time-table by heart. Her train
+was already in ... impossible to reach her now!
+
+Fear having reached its limit, his mind swung slowly back to reason....
+There was, he told himself, no occasion for panic. Li Ho might have
+exaggerated. Besides, a danger known is almost a danger met And Li Ho
+knew. Li Ho would be there. When, Desire came he would guard her....
+A few hours only ... until he could get to her.... She was safe
+for tonight at least. She would not attempt to cross the Inlet, until
+the morning. She would have to hire a launch--a thing no woman would
+attempt to do at that hour of night. She was in no hurry. She would
+stay somewhere in the city and get herself taken to Farr's Landing in
+the morning.... Through the day, too, she would be safe ... and,
+to-morrow night, he, Benis, would be there.... But not until late
+... not until after the moon ... better not think of the moon ...
+think of Li Ho ... Li Ho would surely watch ...
+
+He lay in his berth and told himself this over and over. The train
+swung on. The cool, high air of the mountains crept through the
+screened window. They were swinging through a land of awful and
+gigantic beauty. The white moon turned the snow peaks into glittering
+fountains from which pure light cascaded down, down into the blackness
+at their base ... one more morning ... one more day ... Vancouver
+at night ... a launch ... Desire!
+
+Meanwhile one must keep steady. The professor drew from its yellow
+wrapping the little note-book which had been the second of Li Ho's
+enclosures. It had belonged, if Li Ho's information were correct, to
+Desire's mother--a diary, probably. "Deceased lady write as per day."
+Spence hesitated. It was Desire's property. He felt a delicacy in
+examining it. But so many mistakes had already been made through want
+of knowledge, he dared not risk another one. And Li Ho had probably
+other than sentimental reasons for sending the book.
+
+He shut out the mountains and the moonlight, and clicking on the
+berth-light, turned the dog-eared pages reverently. Only a few were
+written upon. It was a diary, as he had guessed, or rather brief bits
+of one. The writing was small but very clear in spite of the fading
+ink. The entries began abruptly. It was plain that there had been
+another book of which this was a continuation.
+
+The first date was November 1st--no year given.
+
+"It is raining. The Indians say the winter will be very wet. Desire
+plays in the rain and thrives. She is a lovely child,
+high-spirited--not like me."
+
+"November 10th--He was worse this month. I think he gets steadily a
+little worse. I dare not say what I think. He would say that I had
+fancies. No one else sees anything save harmless eccentricity,--except
+perhaps Li Ho. But I am terrified.
+
+"December 7th--I tried once more to get away. He found me quickly. It
+isn't easy for a woman with a child to hide--without money. For myself
+I can stand it--my own fault! But--my little girl!
+
+"December 15th--I have been ill. Such a terrible experience. My one
+thought was the dread of dying. I must live. I cannot leave
+Desire--here.
+
+"December 20th--He bought Desire new shoes and a frock today. It is
+strange, but he seems to take a certain care of her. Why? I do not
+know. I have wondered about his motives until I fancy things. What
+motive could he have ... except that maybe he is not all evil? Maybe
+be cares for the child. She is so sweet--No. I must not deceive myself.
+Whatever his reason is, I know that it is not that.
+
+"January 9th--A strange thing happened today. I found a torn envelope
+bearing the name of Harry's English lawyers. I have seen the same kind
+of envelope in Harry's hands more than once. They used to send him his
+remittance, I think. What can this man have to do with English lawyers?
+I am frightened. But for once I am more angry than afraid. I must
+watch. If he has dared to write to Harry's people--"
+
+The writing of the next entry had lost its clearness. It was almost
+illegible.
+
+"January 13th--How could he! How could he sink so low! I have seen the
+lawyer's letter. He has taken money. From Harry's mother--for Desire.
+And this began within a month of our marriage. It shames me so that I
+cannot live. Yet I must live. I can't leave the child. But I can stop
+this hateful traffic in a dead man's honor. I will write myself to
+England."
+
+This was the last fragment. Spence looked again at the almost erased
+date--January 13th. He felt the sweat on his forehead for, beside that
+date, the unexplained postscript of Li Ho's letter took on a ghastly
+significance.
+
+"Respected lady depart life on January 14th."
+
+She had not lived to write to England!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+It seemed to Benis Spence afterward that during that last day, while
+the train plunged steadily down to sea level, he passed every boundary
+ever set for the patience of man. It was a lovely, sparkling day. The
+rivers leaped and danced in sunshine. Long shadows swept like beating
+wings along the mountain sides. The air blew cool and sweet upon his
+lips. But for once he was deaf and blind and heedless of it all. He
+thought only of the night--of the night and the moon.
+
+It came at last--a night as lovely as the day. Benis sat with his hand
+upon his watch. They were running sharp on time. There could be nothing
+to delay them now--barring an accident. Instantly his mind created an
+accident, providing all the ghastly details. He saw himself helpless,
+pinned down, while the full moon climbed and sailed across the skies....
+
+But there was no accident. A cheery bustle soon began in the car.
+Suitcases were lifted up, unstrapped and strapped again. Women took
+their hats from the big paper bags which hung like balloons between the
+windows. There was a general shaking and fixing and sorting of
+possessions. Only the porter remained serene. He knew exactly how long
+it would take him to brush his car and did not believe in beginning too
+soon. Benis kept his eye on the porter. He stirred at last.
+
+"Bresh yo' coat, Suh?"
+
+The professor allowed himself to be brushed and even proffered the
+usual tip, so powerful is the push of habit. In the narrow corridor by
+the door he waited politely while the lady who wouldn't trust her
+suitcase to the porter got stuck sideways and had to be pried out. But
+when once his foot descended upon the station platform, he was a man
+again. The killing inaction was over.
+
+With the quiet speed of one who knows that hurry defeats haste, he set
+about materializing the plans which he had made upon the train. And
+circumstance, repentant of former caprice, seemed willing to serve. The
+very first taxi-man he questioned was an intelligent fellow who knew
+more about Vancouver than its various hotels. A launch? Yes, he knew
+where a launch might be hired, also a man who could run it. Provided,
+of course--
+
+Spence produced an inspiring roll of bills. The taxi-man grinned.
+
+"Sure, if you've got the oof it's easy enough," he assured him. "Wake
+up the whole town and charter a steamer if you don't care what they
+soak you." He considered a moment. "'Tisn't a dope job, is it?"
+
+Spence looked blank.
+
+"What I mean to say is, what kind of man do you want?"
+
+"Any man who will take me where I want to go."
+
+The taxi-man nodded. "All right. That's easy."
+
+In less time than even to the professor seemed possible the required
+boat-man was produced and bargained with. That is to say he was
+requested to mention his terms and produce his launch, both of which he
+did without hesitancy. And again circumstance was kind.
+
+"If it's Farr's Landing you want," said the boat-man, leading a
+precarious way down a dark wharf, "I guess you've come to the right
+party. 'Taint a place many folks know. But I ran in there once to
+borrow some gas. Queer gink that there Chinaman! Anyone know you're
+coming? Anyone likely to show a light or anything?"
+
+The professor said that his visit was unexpected. They would have to
+manage without a light.
+
+The boat-man feared that, in that case, the terms might "run to" a bit
+more. But, upon receiving a wink from the taxi-man, did not waste time
+in stating how far they might run, but devoted himself to the
+encouragement of a cold engine and the business of getting under way.
+
+Once more Spence was reduced to passive waiting. But the taste of the
+salt and the smell of it brought back the picture of Desire as he had
+seen her first--strong, self-confident. He had thought these qualities
+ungirlish at the time; now he thanked God for the memory of them.
+
+It had been dark enough when they left the wharf but soon a soft
+brightness grew.
+
+"Here she comes!" said his pilot with satisfaction. "Some moon, ain't
+she?"
+
+"Hurry!" There was an urge in the professor's voice which fitted in but
+poorly with the magic of the night. The boat-man felt it and wondered.
+He tried a little conversation.
+
+"Know the old Doc. well?" he inquired. "Queer old duck, eh? And that Li
+Ho is about the most Chinky Chinaman I ever seen. Come to think of it,
+I never paid him back that gas I borrowed."
+
+"Hasn't he been across lately?" asked Spence, controlling his voice.
+
+"Haven't seen him. But then 'tisn't as if I was out looking for him.
+Used to be a right pretty girl come over sometimes, the old Doc's
+daughter. Hasn't been around for a long time. Maybe you're a relative
+or some-thing?"
+
+"See here," said Spence. "It's on account of the young lady that I am
+going there tonight. I have reason to fear that she may be in danger."
+
+"That so?" The boat-man's comfortably slouched shoulders squared. He
+leaned over and did something to his engine. "In that case we'll take a
+chance or two. Hold tight, we're bucking the tide-rip. Lucky we've got
+the moon!"
+
+Yes, they had the moon! With growing despair the professor watched her
+white loveliness drag a slipping mantle over the dark water. The same
+light must lie upon the clearing on the mountain ... where was Li Ho?
+Was he awake--and watching? Had he warned the girl? Or was she
+sleeping, weary with the journey, while only one frail old Chinaman
+stood between her and a terror too grim to guess ...
+
+A long interval ... the sailing moon ... the swish of parting water
+as the launch cut through ...
+
+"Must be thereabouts now," said the boat-man suddenly. "I'll slow her
+down. Keep your eye skinned for the landing."
+
+A period of endless waiting, while the launch crept cautiously along
+the rocky shore--then a darker shadow in the shadows and the boat-man's
+excited "Got it!" The launch slipped neatly in beside the float.
+
+"Want any help?" asked the boat-man curiously as his passenger sprang
+from the moving launch.
+
+Spence did not hear him. He was already across the sodden planks. Only
+the up-trail now lay between him and the end--or the beginning. The
+shadows of the trees stretched waving arms. He felt strong as steel,
+light as air as he sprang up the wooded path....
+
+It was just as he had pictured it--the cottage in its square of silver
+... the sailing moon!
+
+But the cottage was empty.
+
+He knew at once that it was empty. He dared not let himself know it.
+With a doggedness which defied conviction, he dragged his feet,
+suddenly heavy, across the rough grass. The door on the veranda was
+open. Why not?--the door of an empty house.... He went in.
+
+The moonlight showed the old familiar things, the chinks in the wall,
+the rickety table, the couch, the stairway! ... He stumbled to the
+stairway. He forced his leaden feet to mount it.... It was pitch
+dark there. The upper doors were shut.... "Her door--on the right."
+He said this to himself as if prompting a stupid little boy with a
+lesson ... In the darkness his hand felt for the door-knob ... but
+why open the door? ... There was no life behind it. He knew that....
+There was no life anywhere in this horrible emptiness.... "Death,
+then." He muttered, as he flung back the door.
+
+There was nothing there ... only moonlight ... nothing ... yes,
+something on the floor ... some-thing light and lacy, crushed into
+shapelessness ... Desire's hat.
+
+He picked it up. The wires of its chiffon frame, broken and twisted,
+fell limp in his hand.
+
+There was no other sign in the room. The bed was untouched. The Thing
+which had wrecked its insatiate rage upon the hat had not lingered.
+Spence went out slowly. There would be time for everything now--since
+time had ceased to matter. He laid the hat aside gently. There might be
+work for his hands to do.
+
+With mechanical care he searched the cottage. No trace of disturbance
+met him anywhere until he reached the kitchen. Something had happened
+there Over-turned chairs and broken table--a door half off its hinge.
+Someone had fled from the house this way ... fled where?
+
+There were so many places!
+
+In his mind's eye Spence saw them ... the steep and slippery cliff,
+with shingle far below ... the clumps of dense bracken ... the
+deep, dark crevices where water splashed! ...
+
+He went outside. It was not so bright now. There were clouds on the
+moon. One side of the clearing lay wholly in shadow. He waited and, as
+the light brightened, he saw the thing he sought--trampled bracken, a
+broken bush.... He followed the trail with a slow certitude of which
+ordinarily he would have been incapable.... It did not lead very
+far. The trees thinned abruptly. A rounded moss-covered rock rose up
+between him and the moon ... and on the rock, grotesque and darkly
+clear, a crouching figure--looking down....
+
+A curious sound broke from Spence's throat. He stooped and sprang. But
+quick as he was, the figure on the rock was quicker. It slipped aside.
+Spence heard a guttural exclamation and caught a glimpse of a yellow
+face.
+
+"Li Ho!"
+
+The Chinaman pulled him firmly back from the edge of the moss-covered
+rock.
+
+"All same Li Ho," he said. "You come click--but not too dam click."
+
+"I know. Where is he?"
+
+It was the one thing which held interest for Bern's Spence now.
+
+Li Ho stepped gingerly to the edge of the rounded rock. In the clear
+light, Spence could see how the moss had been scraped from the margin.
+
+"Him down there," said Li Ho. "Moon-devil push 'um. Plenty stlong
+devil!" Li Ho shrugged.
+
+Spence's clenched hands relaxed.
+
+"Dead?" he asked dully.
+
+"Heap much dead," said Li Ho. "Oh, too much squash!" He made a gesture.
+
+Benis was not quite sure what happened then. He remembers leaning
+against a tree. Presently he was aware of a horrible smell--the smell
+of some object which Li Ho held to his nostrils.
+
+"Plenty big smell," said Li Ho. "Make 'urn sit up."
+
+Benis sat up.
+
+"Where is--" he began. But his throat closed upon the question. He
+could not ask.
+
+"Missy in tent," said Li Ho stolidly. "Missy plenty tired. Sleep velly
+good."
+
+Spence tried to take this in ... tent ... sleep ...
+
+"Li Ho tell missy house no so-so," went on the China-man, pressing his
+evil-smelling salts closer to his victim's face. "Missy say 'all
+light'--sleep plenty well in tent; velly fine night."
+
+Benis tried feebly to push the abomination away from his nose.
+
+"Desire ... alive?" he whispered.
+
+"Oh elite so. Velly much. Moon-devil velly smart but Li Ho much more
+clever. Missy she no savey--all light."
+
+Spence began to laugh. It was dangerous laughter--or so at least Li Ho
+thought, for he promptly smothered it with his "velly big smell." The
+measure proved effective. The professor decided not to laugh. He held
+himself quiet until control came back and then stood up.
+
+"I thought she was dead, Li Ho," he said.
+
+In the half light the inscrutable face changed ever so little.
+
+"Li Ho no let," said the Chinaman simply. "You better now, p'laps?" he
+went on. "We go catch honor-able Boss before missy wake." Spence
+nodded. He felt extraordinarily tired. But it seemed that tiredness did
+not matter, would never matter. The empty world had become warm and
+small again. Desire was safe.
+
+Together he and Li Ho slid and scrambled down the mountain's face, by
+ways known only to Li Ho. And there, on a strip of beach left clean and
+wet by the receding tide, they found the dead man. Beside him, and
+twisted beneath, lay the green umbrella.
+
+"How did it really happen, Li Ho?" asked Spence. Not that he expected
+any information.
+
+"Moon-devil velly mad," said Li Ho. "Honorable Boss no watch step.
+Moon-devil push--too bad!"
+
+"And the fight in the kitchen? And on the trail?"
+
+Li Ho shook his head.
+
+"No fight anywhere," he said blandly.
+
+"And this long rip in your coat?"
+
+"Too much old coat--catch 'um in bush," said Li Ho.
+
+So when they lifted the body and it was found that the arm beneath the
+torn coat was useless, Spence said nothing. And somehow they managed to
+carry the dead man home.
+
+It was dawn when they laid him down. Birds were already beginning to
+twitter in the trees. Desire would be waking soon. The world was going
+to begin all over presently. Spence laid his hand gently on the
+Chinaman's injured arm.
+
+"You saved her, Li Ho," he said. "It is a big debt for one man to owe
+another."
+
+The Chinaman said nothing. He was looking at the dead face--a curious
+lost look.
+
+"He velly good man one time," said Li Ho. "All same before moon-devil
+catch 'um."
+
+"You stayed with him a long time, Li Ho. You were a good friend."
+
+Li Ho blinked rapidly, but made no reply.
+
+"Will you come with us, Li Ho?" The inscrutable, oriental eyes looked
+for a moment into the frank eyes of the white man and then passed by
+them to the open door--to the dawn just turning gold above the sea. The
+uninjured hand rose and fell in an indescribable gesture.
+
+"Li Ho go home now!"
+
+The words seemed to flutter out like birds into some vast ocean of
+content.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+Desire was waking. She had slept without a dream and woke wonderingly
+to the shadows of dancing leaves upon the white canvas above her. It
+was a long time since she had slept in a tent--a lifetime. She felt
+very drowsy and stupid. The brooding sense of fatality which had made
+her return so dreamlike still numbed her senses. She had come back to
+the mountain, as she had known she must come. And, curiously enough, in
+returning she had freed herself. In coming back to what she had hated
+and feared she had faced a bogie. It would trouble her no more. For all
+that she had lost she had gained one thing, Freedom. But even freedom
+did not thrill her. She was too horribly tired.
+
+Idly she let her thought drift over the details of her home-coming. Li
+Ho had been so surprised. His consternation at seeing her had been
+comic. But he had asked no questions, and had given her breakfast in
+hospitable haste. In the cottage nothing was altered. It was as if she
+had been away overnight. And against this changelessness she knew
+herself changed. She was outside of it now. It could never prison her
+again.
+
+While she drank Li Ho's coffee, Dr. Farr had come in. He had been told,
+she supposed, of her return, for he showed no surprise at seeing
+her--had greeted her absently--and sat for a time without speaking, his
+long hands folded about the green umbrella. This, too, was familiar and
+added to the "yesterday" feeling. He had not changed. It was her
+attitude toward him which was different. The curious fear of him, which
+she had hidden under a mask of indifference, was no longer there to
+hide. Even the fact of his relationship had lost its sharp
+significance. She was done with the thing which had made it poignant.
+Parentage no longer mattered. So little mattered now.
+
+She had spoken to him cheerfully, ignoring his mood, and he had replied
+irritably, like a bad-tempered child who resents some unnecessary claim
+upon its attention. But she did not observe him closely. Had she done
+so, she might have noticed a curious glazing of the eyes as they lifted
+to follow her--shining and depthless like blue steel.
+
+"I do not expect to stay long, father," she told him. "Only until I
+find something to do. I am a woman now, you know, and must support
+myself."
+
+She spoke as one might speak to a child, and he had nodded and mumbled:
+"Yes, yes ... a woman now ... certainly." Then he had begun to
+laugh. She had always hated this silent, shaking laugh of his. Even now
+it stirred something in her, something urgent and afraid. But she was
+too tired to be urged or frightened. She refused to listen.
+
+In the afternoon she had sat out in the sun, not thinking, willing to
+be rested by the quiet and drugged by the scent of pine and sea. To her
+had come Sami, appearing out of nothing as by magic, his butter-colored
+face aglow with joy. Sami had almost broken up her weary calm. He was
+so glad, so warm, so alive, so little! But even while he snuggled
+against her side, her Self had drifted away. It would not feel or know.
+It was not ready yet for anything save rest.
+
+Li Ho had made luncheon, Li Ho had brought tea. Otherwise Li Ho had
+left her alone. About one thing only had he been fussy. She must not
+sleep in her old room. It was not aired. It needed "heap scrub." He had
+arranged, he said, a little tent "all velly fine." Desire was passive.
+She did not care where she slept.
+
+When bedtime had come, Li Ho had taken her to the tent. It was cozily
+hidden in the bush and, as he had promised, quite comfortable. But she
+thought his manner odd. "Are you nervous, Li Ho?" she asked with a
+smile.
+
+The Chinaman blinked rapidly, disdaining reply. But in his turn asked a
+question--his first since her arrival. Had the honorable Professor
+Spence received an insignificant parcel? Desire replied vaguely that
+she did not know. What was in the parcel?
+
+"Velly implotant plasel," said Li Ho gravely. "Honorable husband arrive
+plenty click when read um insides."
+
+There had seemed no sense to this. But Desire did not argue. She did
+not even attend very carefully when Li Ho added certain explanations.
+He had found, it appeared, some papers which had belonged to her mother
+and had felt it his duty to send them on.
+
+"Where did you find them, Li Ho?"
+
+Instead of answering this, Li Ho, after a moment's hesitation, had
+produced from some recess of his old blue coat an envelope which he
+handled with an air of awed respect.
+
+"Li Ho find more plasel too. Pletty soon put um back. Honorable Boss
+indulge in fit if missing."
+
+"Which means that it belongs to father and that you have--borrowed it?"
+suggested she, delicately.
+
+"No b'long him. B'long you," said Li Ho, thrusting the packet into her
+hand. And, as if fearful of being questioned further, he had taken the
+candle and departed.
+
+"Leave me the candle, Li Ho," she had called to him. But he had not
+returned. And a candle is a small matter. She was used to undressing in
+the dusk. Almost at once she had fallen asleep.
+
+Now in the morning, as she lay and watched the shadows of the leaves,
+she remembered that, though he had taken the candle, he had left the
+letter. It lay there on the strip of old carpet beside her cot. Desire
+withdrew her attention from the leaves and picked it up. With a little
+thrill she saw that Li Ho had been right. It was her own name which was
+written across the envelope ...
+
+Her own name, faded yet clear on a wrinkled envelope yellowed at the
+edges. The seal of the envelope had been broken....
+
+Sometime in her childhood Desire must have seen her mother's writing.
+Conscious memory of it was gone, but in the deeper recesses of her mind
+there must have lingered some recognition which quickened her heart at
+sight of it.
+
+A letter from the dead? No wonder Li Ho had handled it with reverence.
+With trembling fingers the girl drew it from its violated covering.
+
+"Little Desire"--the name lay like a caress--"if you read this it will
+be because I am not here to tell you. And, there is no one else. My
+great dread is the dread of leaving you. If I could only look into the
+future for one moment, and see you in it, safe and happy, nothing else
+would matter. But I am afraid. I have always been too much afraid. You
+are not like me. I try to remember that. You are like your grandfather.
+He was a brave man. His eyes were grey like yours. He died before you
+were born and he never knew that Harry was not really my husband. I did
+not know it either, then. You see, he had a wife in England. I suppose
+he thought it did not matter. But when he died, it did matter. There
+was no one then on whom either you or I had any claim. I should have
+been brave enough to go on by myself. But I was never brave.
+
+"It was then that Dr. Farr, who had been kind through Harry's illness,
+asked me to marry him. He was a middle-aged man. He said he would take
+care of w both. You were just three months old.
+
+"I know now that I made a terrible mistake. He is not kind. He is not
+good. I am terrified of him. But the fear which makes me brave against
+other fears is the thought of leaving you. I try to remember my father.
+If I had been like him I could have worked for you and we might have
+been happy. Perhaps my mother was timid. I don't remember her.
+
+"I don't know what to put in this letter, or how to make you
+understand. I loved your father. He was not a bad man. I am sure he
+never harmed anyone. He would have taken care of me all his life. But
+he didn't live. It was Dr. Farr who found out about the English wife.
+He pointed out that you would have no name and offered to give you his.
+
+"I did you a great wrong. His name--better far to have no name than
+his! I am sure it is a wicked name. So I want you to know that it is
+not yours. You have no name by law, but I think, now, that there are
+worse things. Your father's name was Harry Strangeways. His people are
+English, a good family but very strict. I could not let them know about
+us. They would never have forgiven Harry. It would have been like
+slandering the dead. Do not blame him, little Desire, for I am sure he
+meant to do right. He was always light-hearted. And kind--always kind.
+Your laugh is just like his. Think of us both, if you can, with
+kindness--your unhappy Mother."
+
+Long before Desire came to the end of the crumpled sheets her tears
+were falling hot and thick upon them. Tears which she had not been able
+to shed for her own broken hope came easily now for this long vanished
+sorrow. Her mother! How pitifully bare lay the shortened story of that
+smothered life. Desire's heart, so much stronger than the heart of her
+who gave it birth, filled with a great tenderness. She saw herself once
+more a little frightened child. She felt again that sense of Presence
+in the room. And knew that, for a child's sake, a gentle soul had not
+made haste to happiness.
+
+For that gay scamp, her father, Desire had no tear. And no
+condemnation. Her mother had loved him. Her gentleness had seen no
+flaw. Lightly he had taken a woman to protect through life--to neglect,
+as lightly, the little matter of living. Desire let his picture slip
+unhindered from her mind.
+
+There was relief, though, in the knowledge that she owed no duty
+there--or here. The instinct which had always balked at kinship with
+the strange old man who had held her youth in bondage had not been the
+abnormal thing she once had feared it was. She had fought through--but
+it was good to know that she had fought with Nature, not against her.
+At least she could start upon her new life clean and free....
+
+A pity, though, that life should lie like ashes on her lips!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+Nevertheless, and despite the taste of ashes, one must live and take
+one's morning bath. Desire thought, not without pleasure, of the pool
+beneath the tree. Wrapped in her blue kimona, her leaf-brown hair
+braided tightly into a thick pigtail and both hands occupied with
+towels and soap, she pushed back the tent flap and stepped out into the
+green and gold of morning.
+
+The first thing she saw was Benis sitting on a fallen log and waiting.
+He had been waiting a long time. In the flashing second before he saw
+her, Desire had time to draw one long breath of wonder. After that,
+there was no time for anything. The professor's patience suddenly gave
+out.
+
+He had intended to begin with an explanation. But it is a poor lover
+who can't find a better beginning than that ... And what could Desire
+do, with towels in one hand and soap in the other?
+
+When he released her at last, blushing and glowing, it was to find the
+most urgent need for explanation past.
+
+"Idiots, weren't we?" asked Benis happily.
+
+Desire agreed. But her eyes questioned.
+
+"There isn't any Mary, you see," he told her hastily. "Never was; never
+could be. (Let me take your soap?) Mary was a figment--mortal mind, you
+know. Your fault entirely."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Yes, I know. But I did it to please you. I am a truthful person,
+really. (Let me take your towels?) And I thought you had more
+sense--Oh, Desire, darling!"
+
+"But--"
+
+"Oh, I was a fool, too. I admit it. I thought you were fretting about
+John. Fancy your fretting about dear old Bones! I thought--oh well, it
+seems silly enough now. But the day I found you crying over his
+photo-graph--"
+
+"Her photograph," interposed Desire shakily.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"It was Mary's photograph. I found it on your desk."
+
+"It was John's, when I saw it."
+
+"Yes--but you didn't see it soon enough."
+
+"Oh--you young deceiver! But once you went to John's office and came
+away smiling."
+
+"Why not? I went to find Mary. And I didn't find her. When the real
+Mary came--"
+
+"There is no real Mary."
+
+"Oh, Benis--isn't she?"
+
+"She positively isn't."
+
+"But you said--"
+
+"I lied, my dear. It was a jolly good lie, though."
+
+"A lie is never--"
+
+"No, but this one was. You wouldn't have married me if I hadn't. And
+you told a whopper yourself once. You said that children--" but Desire
+refused to listen.
+
+Later on, as they sat together on the log with a squirrel hiding
+provender in one of Desire's slippers and another chattering agreeably
+in Benis's ear, he told her briefly the history of the night. That is,
+he told her all that he thought it needful she should know. Of the
+scraps of diary in his pocket he said nothing,--some day, perhaps, when
+she had become used to happiness, and the cottage on the mountain was
+far away. But now--of what use to drag out the innermost horror or add
+an awful query to her memory of her mother's death? The old man was
+gone--let the past go with him.
+
+Desire listened silently. Sorrow she could not pretend. The suddenness
+of the end was shocking and death is ever awful to the young. But the
+eyes she lifted to her husband, though solemn, were not sad. When he
+had finished, she slipped into his hand, with new, sweet shyness, the
+letter which lifted forever the shadow of the dead man from across
+their path.
+
+Benis Spence read it with deep thankfulness. Fate was indeed making
+full amends. No dread inheritance now need narrow the way before them.
+It meant--he stole a glance at Desire who was industriously emptying
+her slipper. The curve of her averted cheek was faintly flushed. The
+professor's whimsical smile crept out.
+
+"Let me!" he said. He took her slipper from her and, kneeling, felt her
+breath like flowers brush his cheek.
+
+"It was a whopper, Benis," Desire whispered.
+
+Looking up, he saw the open gladness of her face.
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Window-Gazer, by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
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