"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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sage 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 p.r.i.c.king 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. "G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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, c.u.mbered 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 t.i.tle upside down. It was not a t.i.tle which she knew, nor, if t.i.tles 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 a.s.surance, 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 pa.s.sable 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 pa.s.sers-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.