The Window-Gazer

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.