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
End of Project Gutenberg's The Window-Gazer, by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay