"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 subst.i.tuted 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 x.x.x

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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 const.i.tuted 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?"