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
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