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!