Desire was seated upon a moss-covered rock, hugging her knees and gazing out to sea. It was her favorite attitude and, according to Professor Spence, a very dangerous one, especially in connection with a moss-covered rock. He would have liked to point out this obvious fact but that would have been fussy—and fussy the professor was firmly determined not to be. Aunt Caroline was fussy. The best he could do was to select another rock, not so slippery, and to provide an object lesson as to the proper way of sitting upon it. Unfortunately, Desire was not looking. They had come a little way "up trail"—at least Desire had said it was a little way, and her companion was too proud of his recovered powers of locomotion to express unkind doubt of the adjective. There had been no rainy days for a week. The air was sun-soaked, and salt-soaked, and somewhere there was a wind. But not here. Here some high rock angle shut it out and left them to the drowsy calm of wakening Summer. Below them lay the blue-green gulf, white-flecked and gently heaving; above them bent a sky which only Italy could rival—and if Miss Farr with her hands clasped round her knees were to move ever so little, either way, there was nothing to prevent her from falling off the face of the mountain. The professor tried not to let this reflection spoil his enjoyment of the view. He reminded him-self that she was probably much safer than she looked. And he remembered Aunt Caroline. Still—
"Don't you think you might sit a little farther back?" he suggested carelessly.
"Why?"
"I can't talk to the back of your head."
"Talk!" dreamily, "do you really have to talk?"
Naturally the professor was silent.
"That's rude, I suppose," said Desire, suddenly swinging round (a feat which brought Spence's heart into his mouth). "I don't seem to acquire the social graces very rapidly, do I?"
"I thought," the professor's tone was somewhat stiff, "that we came up here for the express purpose of talking."
"Y-es. You did express some such purpose. But—must we? It won't do any good, you know."
"I don't know. And it will do good. One can't get anywhere without proper discussion."
The girl sighed. "Very well—let's discuss. You begin."
"My month," said Spence firmly, "is almost up. I shall have to move along on Friday."
"On Friday?" If he had intended to startle her, he had certainly succeeded. "Was—was the arrangement only for a month?" she asked in a lowered voice.
"The arrangement was to continue for as long as I wished. But only one month's payment was made in advance. With Friday, Dr. Farr's obligation toward me ends. He is not likely to extend it."
She sat so still that he forgot how slippery the moss was and thought only of the growing shadow on her face.
"But, the work!" she murmured. "We are only just beginning. I wish—oh, I shall miss it dreadfully."
"'It,'" said Spence, "is not a personal pronoun."
"I shall miss you, too, of course."
"Well, be careful not to overemphasize it."
Her grey eyes looked frankly and straightly into his. Their clear depths held a rueful smile. "You are conceited enough already," she said, "but if it will make you feel any better, I don't mind admitting that I shall miss you far, far more than you deserve."
"Spoken like a lady!" said Spence warmly. "And now let us consider my side of it. After the month that I have spent here—do you really think that I intend to go away—like that?"
"There is only one way of going, isn't there?"
"Not at all. There are various ways. Ways which are quite, quite different."
"You have thought of some other—some quite different way?"
"Yes. But I daren't tell it to you while you sit on that slippery rock. It is a somewhat startling way and you might—er—manifest emotion. I should prefer to have you manifest it in a less dangerous place."
Desire's very young laugh rippled out. "Fussy!" she said. But nevertheless she climbed down and sat demurely upon stones in the hollow. There was an unfamiliar light in her waiting eyes, the light of interest and of hope.
Spence, rather to his consternation, realized that it was up to him to justify that hope. And he wasn't at all sure ... however, he had to go through with it, ... There was a fighting chance, anyway.
"Let's think about the work for a moment," he began nervously. "That work, my book, you know, is simply going all to pot if you can't keep on with it. You can see yourself what it means to have a competent secretary. And you like the work. You've just admitted that you like it."
He saw the light begin to fade from her eyes. She shook her head.
"If you are going to suggest that I go with you as your secretary," she said with her old bluntness, "it is useless. I have tried that way out. I won't try it again." Her lips grew stern and her eyes dark with some too bitter memory.
"I honestly don't see what Dr. Farr could do," said Spence tentatively.
"You would," said Dr. Farr's daughter with decision.
"And anyway," proceeding hastily, "that wasn't what I was thinking of. I knew that you would refuse to go as my secretary. I ask you to go as my wife."
Desire rose.
"Is this where I am expected to manifest emotion?" she asked dryly.
"Yes. And you're doing it! I knew you would. Women are utterly unreasoning. You won't even listen to what I have to say."
The girl moved slowly away.
"And I can't get up without help," he added querulously.
Desire stopped. "You can," she said.
"I can't. Not after that dreadful climb."
"Then I shall wait until you are ready. But we do not need to continue this conversation."
The professor sighed. "This," he said, "is what comes of taking a woman at her word."
"What?"
"I might have known," he went on guilefully, "that you didn't really mean it. No young girl would."
"Mean what?"
"That you had no room in your scheme of things for ordinary marriage. Of course you were talking nonsense. I beg your pardon."
"Will you kindly explain what you mean!"
"I will if you will sit down so that I may talk to you on my own level. You see, your determination not to marry struck me very much at the time because it voiced my own—er—determination also. I said to myself, 'Here are two people sufficiently original to wish to escape the common lot.' I thought about it a great deal. And then an idea came. It was, I admit, the inspiration of a moment. But it grew. It certainly grew."
Desire sat down again and folded her hands over her knees.
"I will listen."
"It is very simple," he hastened to explain. "Simplicity is, I think, the keynote of all true inspiration. An idea comes, and we are filled with amazement that we have so long ignored the obvious. Take our case. Here are we two, strongly of one mind and wanting the same thing. A perfectly feasible way of getting that thing occurs to me. Yet when I suggest this way you jump up and rush away."
"I haven't rushed yet."
"No. But you were going to. And all because you cannot be logical. No woman can."
His listener brushed this away with a gesture of impatience.
"I can prove it," went on the wily one. "You object to marriage, yet you covet the freedom marriage gives. Now what is the logical result of that? The logical result is fear—fear that some day you may want freedom so badly that you will marry in order to get it."
"It is not—I won't."
"I knew you would not admit it. But it is true all the same. The other night when you said 'marriage is hideous,' I saw fear in your eyes. There is fear in your eyes now."
The girl dropped her eyes and raised them again instantly. Her slanting eyebrows frowned.
"Nevertheless," she said, "I shall not marry."
"But you will, as an honest person, admit the other part of the proposition—that you want something at least of what marriage can give?"
"Yes."
"Well then—that states your case. Now let me state mine. I, too, have an insuperable objection to marriage. My—er—disinclination is probably more soundly based than yours, since it is built upon a wider view of life. But I, too, want certain things which marriage might bring. I want a home. Not too homey a home, in the strictly domestic sense (Aunt Caroline is strictly domestic) but a—a congenial home. I want the advice and help of a clever woman together with the sense of permanence and security which, in our imperfect state of civilization, is made possible only by marriage. And I, too, have my secret fear. I am afraid that some day I may be driven—in short, I am afraid of Aunt Caroline."
Desire's inquiring eyebrows lifted.
"A man—afraid of his aunt?"
"Yes," gloomily, "it is men who are afraid of aunts. It is not at all funny," he added as her eyes relaxed, "if you knew Aunt Caroline you wouldn't think so. She is determined to have me married and she has a long life of successful effort behind her. One failure is nothing to an aunt. She is always quite certain that the next venture will turn out well. And it usually does. In brief, I am thirty-five and I go in terror of the unknown. If I do not marry soon to please myself, I shall end by marrying to please someone else. Do you follow me?"
"Make it plainer," ordered Desire soberly. "Make it absolutely plain."
"I will. My proposition is, in its truest and strictest sense, a marriage of convenience. Marriage, it appears, can give us both what we want, a formal ceremony will legalize your position as my secretary and free you entirely from the interference of your father. It will permit you to accept freely my protection and everything else which I have. Your way will be open to the things you spoke of the other night, freedom, leisure, money, travel, books. The only thing we are shutting out is the thing you say you have no use for—love. But perhaps you did not mean—"
"I did."
"Then, logically, my proposal is sound."
"Am I to take all these things, and give nothing?"
"Not at all. You give me the things I want most, freedom, security, the grace of companionship, and collaboration in my work, so long as your interest in it continues. I will be a safely married man and you—you will be a window-gazer no longer. There is only one point"—the speaker's gaze turned from her and wandered out to sea—"I can be sure of what I can bring into your life," his voice was almost stern, "but I warn you to be very sure of what you will be shutting out."
"You mean?"
"Children," said Spence crisply.
"I do not care for children."
The professor's soberness vanished. "Oh—what a whopper!" he exclaimed.
"I mean, I do not want children of my own."
"But supposing you were to develop a desire for them later on?"
She nodded thoughtfully.
"I might," she acknowledged. "But in my case it would be merely the outcropping of a feminine instinct, easily suppressed. I am not at all afraid of it. Look at all the women who are perfectly happy without children."
"Hum!" said the professor. "I am looking at them. But I find them unconvincing. There are a few, however, of whom what you say is true. You may be one of them. How about Sami?"
"Sami? Oh, Sami is different. He is more like a mountain imp than a child. I don't think Sami would seem real anywhere but here. If anyone were to try to transplant him he might vanish altogether. Poor little chap—how terribly he would miss me!" finished Desire artlessly.
She had accepted the possibility, then! Spence's heart gave a leap and was promptly reproved for leaping. This was not, he reminded himself, an affair of the heart at all. It was a coldly-thought-out, hard-headed business proposition. Such a proposition as his father's son might fittingly conceive. The thing to do now was to stride on briskly and avoid sentiment.
"Then as we seem to agree upon the essentials," he said, "there remains only one concrete difficulty, your father. He would object to marriage as to other things, I suppose?"
"Yes, but we should have to ignore that."
"You wouldn't mind?" somewhat doubtfully.
"No. I have always known that a break would come some day. It isn't as if he really cared. Or as if I cared. I don't. If I should decide that there is an honest chance for freedom, a chance which I can take and keep my self-respect, I am conscious of no duty that need restrain me."
Spence said nothing, and after a moment she went on.
"Why should I pretend—as he pretends? I loath it! Day after day, even when there is no one to see, he keeps up that horrible semblance of affection. And all the time he hates me. I see it in his eyes. And once or twice—" She hesitated and then went rapidly on without finishing her sentence. "There is some reason why it is to his advantage to keep me with him. But it imposes no obligation upon me. I do not even know what it is."
"Perhaps Li Ho may know?"
"Li Ho does know. Li Ho knows everything. But when I asked him he said, 'Honorable boss much lonely—heap scared of devil maybe.' Li Ho always refers to devils when he doesn't wish to tell anything."
"I've noticed that. He's a queer devil himself. Would he stay on, do you think?"
"Yes. And that's odd, too. In some way Li Ho is father's man. It's as if he owned him. There must be a story which explains it. But no one will ever hear it. Li Ho keeps his secrets."
Spence nodded. "Yes. Li Ho and his kind are the product of forces we only guess at. I asked a man who had spent twenty years in China if he had learned to understand the Oriental mind. He said he had learned more than that, he had learned that the Oriental mind is beyond understanding. But—aren't we getting away from our subject? Let's begin all over again. Miss Farr, I have the honor to ask your hand in marriage."
She was silent for so long a time that the professor had opportunity to think of many things. And, as he thought, his heart went down—and down. She would refuse. He knew it. The clean edge of her mind would cut through all his tangle of words right to the core of the real issue, And the core of the real issue was not as sound as it would need to be to satisfy her demands. For in that core still lay a possibility, the possibility of love. He had not eliminated love. Many a man has loved after thirty-five. Many a girl who has sworn—but no, she would not admit this possibility in her own case. It was only in his case that she would recognize it. She would see the weak spot there.... She would refuse. He could feel refusal gathering in her heart. And his own heart beat hotly in his throat. For if this failed, what other way was left? Yet to go and leave her here, alone in that rotting cottage on the hill.... the prey of any ghastly fate.... no, it couldn't be done. He must convince her. He must.
"My friend," said Desire (he loved her odd, old-fashioned way of calling him "my friend"), "I admit that you have tempted me. But—I can't. It wouldn't be fair. It is easy to feel sure for one's self but it's another thing to be sure for others. A marriage of that kind would not satisfy you. You say your outlook is wider than mine and of course it is. But I have seen more than you think. Even men who are tremendously interested in their work, like you, want—other things. They want what they call love, even if to them it always sinks to second place, if indeed it means nothing more than distraction. And love would mean more than that to you. I have an instinct which tells me that, in your case, love will come. You must be free to take it."
It was final. He felt its finality, and more than ever he swore that it should not be so. There must be an argument somewhere—wait!
"Supposing," said Spence haltingly, "Supposing.... supposing I am not free now? Supposing love has come—and gone?"
He was not a good liar. But his very ineptitude helped him here. It tangled the words on his tongue, it brought a convincing dew upon his forehead. "I'd rather not talk about it," he finished. "But you see what I mean."
"Yes. I hadn't thought of that. It might make a difference. I should want to be very sure. If there were any chance—"
"There is no chance. Positively none. That experience, which you say you feel was a necessary experience in my case, is over and done with. It cannot recur. I am not the man to—to—" he was really unable to go on. But she finished it for him.
"To love twice," said Desire, looking out over the sea. "Yes I can understand that—what did you say?"
"I think I may be able to walk now," said the professor.
With the recovery of a leg sufficiently workable in the matter of climbing stairs, Dr. Farr's boarder had resigned the family couch in the sitting-room and had retired to his spartan chamber under the eaves. From its open window that night he watched the moon. Let nothing happen to the universe in the meantime, and there would be a full moon on Friday night. The professor hoped that nothing would happen.
She had not exactly said "Yes" yet. He must not forget that. But it could do no harm to feel reasonably sure that she was going to. He did not conceal from himself that he had brought things off remarkably well. That last argument of his had been a masterpiece of strategy. There were other, shorter, words which might have described it. But they were not such pleasant words. And when a thing is necessary it is just as well to be pleasant about it. No harm had been done. Quite the opposite. Desire's one valid objection had been neatly and effectually disposed of. And now the matter could be dropped. It would be forgotten.... What did it amount to in any case? Other men lied every day saying they had never loved. He had lied only once in saying that he had.... At the same time it might be very embarrassing to.... yes, certainly, the matter must be dropped!
They would, he supposed, find it necessary to elope.... No sense in looking for trouble! The old gentleman had been odder than ever the last day or so. He had ceased even to pretend that his guest's presence was anything but an annoyance. He had refused utterly to enter into any connected conversation and had been restless and erratic to a degree. "Too muchy moon-devil," according to Li Ho. That very afternoon he had met them coming down from their talk upon the rocks and the ironic courtesy of his greeting had been little less than baleful. At supper he had remarked sentimentally upon the flight of time, referring to the nearness of Friday in a way eminently calculated to speed the parting guest.
Friday, at latest, then? If they were to go they would go on Friday.—Friday and the full moon.
In the meantime he felt no desire for sleep. The moon, perhaps? Certainly there is nothing in the mere business-like prospect of engaging a permanent secretary to cause insomnia. The professor supposed it was simply his state of health in general. It might be a good idea to drop a line to his medical man. He had promised to report symptoms. Besides, it was only fair to prepare John. The candle was burnt out, but the moon would do—pad on knee, he began to write....
"Beloved Bones—I am writing in the hope that the thought of you may cause cerebral exhaustion. I find the moon too stimulating. Otherwise I rejoice to report myself recovered. I can walk. I can climb hills. I can un-climb hills, which is much worse, and I eat so much that I'm ashamed to look my board money in the face. You might gently prepare Aunt Caroline by some mention of an improved appetite.
I had a letter from Aunt Caroline yesterday. That is to say, three letters. When you included (by request) "positively no letter writing" in my holiday menu, you did not make it plain who it was that was positively not to write. So, although she tells me sadly that she expects no answers, Aunt Caroline positively does. I may say at once that I know all the news.
On the other hand, there is some news which Aunt Caroline does not know. Owing to your embargo on letters, I have not been able to inform my Aunt of the progress of my book, nor of my discovery of the perfect secretary. I have not, in short, been able to tell her anything.
So you will have to do it for me.
But first, as man to man, I want to ask you a question. Having found, by an extraordinary turn of luck, the perfect secretary, would you consider me sane if I let her go? Of course you would not. I asked myself the same question yesterday and received the same answer.
So I have asked her to marry me.
I put it that way because I know you like to have things broken to you. And now, having heard all your objections (oh, yes, I can hear them. Distance is only an idea) I shall proceed to answer them.—
No. It is not unwise to marry a young girl whom I scarcely know. Why man! That is part of the game. Think of the boredom of having to live with some one you know? Someone in whose house of life you need expect no odd corners, no unlooked for turnings, no steps up, or down, no windows with a view? Only a madman would face such monotony.
No. It is not unfair to the other party. The other party has a mind and is quite capable of making it up. She will not marry me unless she jolly well wants to. Far more than most people, I think, she has the gift of decision. Neither is it as if what I have to offer her were not bona fide. Take me on my merits and I'm not a bad chap. My life may have been tame but it has been clean. (Only don't tell Aunt Caroline). I have a sufficiency of money. What I promise, I shall perform. And as for ancestors—Well, I refer everyone to Aunt Caroline for ancestors. If Miss Desire marries me she will receive all that is in the bond and any little frills which I may be able to slip in. (There will not be many frills, though, for my lady is proud.)
Yes. Aunt Caroline will make a fuss. I trust you will bear up under it for my sake. I think it will be well for her to learn of my marriage sufficiently long before our return to insure resignation, at least, upon our arrival. After the storm the calm, and although, with my dear Aunt, the calm is almost the more devastating, I trust you will acquit yourself with fortitude.
And now we come to the only valid objection, which you have, strong-mindedly, left until the last—my prospective father-in-law! He is a very objectionable old party, and I do not mind your saying so. But one simply can't have everything. And Bainbridge is a long way from Vancouver. Also, as a husband I can take precedence, and, by George, I'll do it! So you see your objection is really an extra inducement. It is only by marrying the daughter of Dr. Farr that I can protect Dr. Farr's daughter.
Are you satisfied now? I don't know whether I mentioned it, but she hasn't actually said "yes" yet. She had certain objections, or rather a certain objection which I found it necessary to meet in a—a somewhat regrettable manner. I was compelled to adopt strategy. She thought our proposed contract (we do things in a business manner) might not be quite fair to me. She was ready to admit that I was getting a good thing in secretaries but she feared that, later on, I might wish to make a change. I had to meet this scruple somehow and I seemed to know by instinct that she would not believe me if I expounded those theories of love and marriage which you know I so strongly hold. Pure reason would not appeal to her. So I had to fall back upon sentiment. Instead of saying, "I shall never love. It is impossible," I said, "I have loved. It is over."
Sound tactics, don't you think? ... Well I don't care what you think! I have to get this girl safely placed somehow.
We shall have to elope probably. Fancy, an elopement at thirty-five! The father seems to consider her continued presence here as vital to his interest, though why, neither of us can understand. Well, I'm not exactly afraid of the old chap but it will certainly be easier for her if there are no wild farewells. Therefore we shall probably fold our tent like the Arabs and steal away as silently as the "Tillicum" will allow.
Li Ho will have to be told. He will know anyway, so we may as well tell him. It appears that whatever may be the reasons for keeping a young girl buried here, they do not extend to Li Ho. It will not be the first time that his Chinese inscrutability has assisted at a (temporary) departure.
I shall let Aunt Caroline know as soon as the act is irrevocable and shall inform you at the same time so that you may not be unprepared. You realize, I suppose, that you will be accused of being accessory? Didn't you tell me that a trip would do me good?
We shall not come home for a few weeks. My secretary has spoken of an old Indian whom she knows, a perfect mine of simon-pure folk-lore. He lives some-where up the coast, about a day's journey, I think. We may visit him. With her to interpret for me, I may get some very valuable notes. I may add that we are both very keen on notes. When we have done what can be done out here, we shall come home. The fall and winter we shall spend upon the book. My secretary will insist upon attending to business first. And then—well, then she wants to go shopping. So we shall have to go where the good shops are.
What does she wish to buy? Oh, not much—just life, the assorted kind.
B. H. S.
It was the day before Friday. Friday, so very near, seemed already palpably present in the surcharged air of the cottage. No one mentioned it, but that made its nearness more potent. At his usual hour for dictation, Professor Spence had come out upon the narrow veranda. But, although his secretary was there, pencil in hand, he had not dictated. Instead he had sat contemplating Friday so long that his secretary tapped her foot in impatience.
"Are you really lazy?" she asked, "Or are you just pretending to be?"
"I am really lazy. All truly gifted people are. You know what Wilde says, 'Real industry is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do.'"
The prompt, "Who is Wilde?" of the secretary did not disconcert him. He had discovered that her ignorance was as unusual as her knowledge.
"Who is Wilde? Oh, just a little bit of English literature. Christian name of Oscar. You'll come across him when you go shopping."
A faint pucker appeared between the secretary's eye-brows.
"You are coming shopping, aren't you?" asked Spence, faintly stressing the verb.
"I—want to."
"That's settled then."
The pucker grew more pronounced. The secretary resigned all hope of dictation and laid down her pencil.
"Tomorrow," reminded Spence gently, "is Friday."
"Yes, I know. And if I go, do I—we—go tomorrow?"
"It would be advisable."
"The time doesn't matter," mused Desire. "But—do you mind if I speak quite plainly?"
"Not at all. You have hardened me to plain speaking."
"I have been thinking over what you told me. It does make a difference. I see that I need not be afraid of—of what I was afraid of. It's as if—as if we had both had the measles."
"You can take—" began Spence, but stopped him-self. It would never do to remind her that one may take the measles twice.
"Of course you won't believe it, not for a long time anyway," she went on in the tone of an indulgent grand-mother, "but love is only an episode. You are fortunate to be well over it."
Spence sighed. He hadn't intended to sigh. It just happened. Fortunately it was the correct thing.
"I don't want to distress you," kindly, "but we were rather vague the other night. I understood the main fact, but that is about all. You didn't tell me what happened after."
The professor's chair, which had been tilted negligently back, came down with a thud.
"After?" he murmured meekly. "After—?"
"I mean," prompted Desire gently, "did she marry the other man?"
"The other man? I—I don't know." The professor was willing to be truthful while he could. But instantly he saw that it wouldn't do.
"You—don't—know?" If ever incredulity breathed in any voice it breathed in hers. It gave our weak-kneed liar the brace that he needed.
"No," he said sadly, "they were to have been married—I have never heard."
"Oh! Then, of course, she did not live in your home town."
"Didn't she?" asked Spence, momentarily off guard. "Oh, I see what you mean—no, naturally not."
"I thought that perhaps you might have been boy and girl together," dreamily. "It so often happens."
"It does," said Spence. "But it didn't."
"And is there no one—no friend, from whom you could naturally inquire? You feel you wouldn't care to ask anyone?"
"Ask? Good heavens, no—certainly not!"
"Men are queer," said Desire naively. "A woman would just simply have to ask."
"She would."
"You think me inquisitive?" Her quick brain had not missed the dry implication of his tone. "But you see I had to know something. It's all right, I'm sure. But it would have been so much—more comfortable if she were quite married."
(Oh course it would—why in thunder hadn't he thought of that? The professor was much annoyed with himself.)
"She is probably quite, utterly married long ago," he said gloomily. "What possible difference can it make?"
"None. Don't look so bitter! Perhaps I should not have asked questions. I won't ask any more—except one. Would you mind very much telling me her name?"
Her name!
The harassed man looked wildly around. But there was no escape. Not even Sami was in sight. Only a jeering crow flapped black wings and laughed discordantly.
"Just her first name, you know," added Desire reasonably.
"Oh yes—certainly. No, of course I don't mind. I am quite willing to tell you her name. But—do you mean her real name or—or—the name she was usually called?" The professor was sparring wildly for time.
"Wasn't she called by her real name?"
"Well—er—not always."
Desire's eyebrows became very slanting. "Any name will do," she said coldly.
The professor gathered himself together. "Her name," he said triumphantly, "Was—is Mary."
He had done well for himself this time! His questioner was plainly satisfied with the name Mary. Perhaps lying gets easier as you go on. He hoped so.
"My mother's name was Mary," said Desire. "It is a lovely name."
Spence felt very proud of himself. Not only had he produced a lovely name in the space of three seconds and a half, but he had also provided a not-to-be-missed opportunity of changing the subject.
"I suppose you do not remember your mother," he said tentatively.
"Oh yes, I do, although I was quite small when she died. Father says I fancy some of the things I remember. Perhaps I do. I always dream very vividly. And fact and dream are easily confused in a child's mind. My most distinct memories are detached, like pictures, without any before or after to explain them. There is one, for instance, about waking up in the woods at night, wrapped in my mother's shawl and seeing her face, all frightened and white, with the moon, like a great, silver eye, shining through the trees. But I can't imagine why my mother would be hiding in the woods at night."
"Why hiding?"
"There is a sense of hiding that comes with the memory—without anything to account for it But, although I do not remember connected incidents very well, I remember her—the feeling of having her with me. And the terrible emptiness afterwards. If she had gone quite away, all at once, I couldn't have borne it."
"Do you mean that she had a long illness?" asked Spence, greatly interested.
"No. She died suddenly. It was just—you will call it silly imagination—" she broke off uncertainly.
"I might call it imagination without the adjective."
"Yes. But it wasn't. It was real. The sense, I mean, that she hadn't gone away. Nothing that wasn't real would have been of the slightest use."
"It all depends on how we define reality. What seems real at one time may seem unreal at another."
She nodded.
"That is just what has happened. I am not sure, now. The sense of nearness left me as I grew up. But at that time, I lived by it. Do you find the idea absurd?"
"Why should I? Our knowledge of our own consciousness is the absurdity. All we know is that our normal waking consciousness is only one special type. Around it lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different, and quite as real. Sometimes we, or it, or they, break through. I am paraphrasing James. Do you know James?"
"I have read 'Daisy Miller.'"
"This James was the Daisy Miller man's brother."
"Did he believe in the possibility of the dead helping the living?"
"He believed in all kinds of possibilities. But I don't think he considered that possibility proven."
"It couldn't be proved, could it?" asked Desire thoughtfully. "Experiences like that are so intensely individual. One cannot pass them on."
"Can you describe yours at all?"
"Hardly. It was just a feeling of Presence. A sense of her being there. It came at all sorts of times and in all sorts of places. We lived in Vancouver when mother died. It was a much smaller town then, not like the city you have seen. But after her death we moved about a great deal, never staying very long anywhere, until we came here. There were—experiences." Her eyes hardened. "But, as long as I had that sense I am speaking of, I was safe. I used to have long crying fits in the dark, a kind of blind terror of everything. And after one of them it nearly always came. I never questioned it. Never once did I ask myself, 'Is it mother?'. I just knew that it was. There seemed nothing unusual about it."
"Was there no one, no woman, to take care of you?"
"There were—women." Desire's lips tightened into a thin red line. "We did not travel alone. Once I remember terrifying a—a friend of father's who was 'looking after' me. She heard me crying in my little, dark room one night, and as soon as she could slip away, came in. She was a kindly sort. But when she got there I was quite content and happy—which surprised her much more than the crying had done. She asked me what had 'shut me up,' and I said 'My mother is here—go away.' She turned quite pasty-white and the candle shook so that the hot grease fell upon my hands."
"What a life for a child!" exclaimed Spence in sudden rage. "Desire dear, you must come with me! I couldn't—couldn't leave you here. I—oh, dash it! I mean, it's so evident, isn't it, that we need each other?"
"You really and truly need me?" doubtfully.
"Really and truly."
"But if I come, you ought to know something of the life I have lived. You must realize that I am not an innocent young girl."
"Aren't you?" The professor found it difficult to say this with the proper inflection. It did not sound as business-like as he could have wished. But she was too much absorbed to notice.
"No. I've seen things which young girls do not see. I have heard things which are never whispered before them. No one cared particularly what I saw or heard. When I was smaller there was always someone—some 'housekeeper.' They were all kinds. None of them ever stayed long. Looking back, it seems as if they passed like lurid shadows. Only one of them seemed a real person. The others were husks. Her name was Lily. She was very stout, her face was red and her voice loud. But there was something real about Lily. And she was fond of children. She liked me. She went out of her lazy way to teach me wisdom—oh, yes, it was wisdom," in answer to Spence's horrified exclamation, "hard, sordid wisdom, the only wisdom which would have helped me through the back alleys of those days. I am unspeakably grateful to Lily. She spared me much, and once she saved me—I can't tell you about that," she finished simply.
Spence bit his lip on a word to which the expression of his face gave force and meaning. But Desire was not looking at him.
"Do you see why I am different from other girls?" She asked gravely.
The professor restrained himself. "I see that you are different," he said. "I don't care why. But I'm glad that you have told me what you have. It explains something that has bothered me—" he paused seeking words. But she caught up his thought with lightning intuition.
"You mean it explains why marriage isn't beautiful to me, like it may be to a sheltered girl? Yes. I wanted you to see that. It may be holy, but it isn't holy to me. I want to live my life apart from all that. To me it is smirched and sodden and hateful. And now, do you still wish me to come and be your secretary?"
"Now more than ever," said Spence. It was only the sealing of a business transaction. But greatly to his annoyance he could not entirely control a certain warmth and eagerness.
Desire held out a frank hand.
"Then I will marry you when you are ready," she said.
Being a delayed letter from Dr. John Rogers to his friend and patient, Benis Hamilton Spence.
DEAR Idiot: I knew you would get it—and you got it. Perhaps after this you will learn to treat your sciatic nerve with proper respect. But there is a worse complaint than sciatica. It lasts longer. Certain symptoms of it are indicated in the things which your letter leaves unsaid. Beans, old thing, you alarm me.
Now here is a sporting offer. If you'll drop it and come home at once I'll promise never to tell Aunt Caroline. Come the moment you can put foot to the ground. And, until then, I recommend strict seclusion and no nursing. Nursing might well be fatal. Stick to Li Ho. He is your only chance.
Your Aunt Caroline sends her love. (I told her I was writing you directions for further treatment). She feels the deprivation of your letters keenly. She can't see why the writing of a nice, chatty letter to one's only living Aunt should prove an undue drain upon nervous energy. Life has taught her not to expect consideration from relatives, but it does seem hard that her only sister's boy should treat her as if she were the scarlet fever. To allow himself to be ordered away from home for a rest cure was certainly less than courteous. To anyone not understanding the situation it would almost imply that his home was not restful. And after all the trouble she had taken even to the extent of strained relations with those Macfarland people who own a rooster. If the slight had been aimed entirely at herself she could have taken it silently, but when it included the three or four charming girls whom she had asked to visit (one at a time) for the purpose of providing pleasant company, she felt obliged to protest. Although protest, she knew, was useless. All this, however, she could have borne. The thing that she could scarcely forgive was the slight offered to his native town by a departure three days before the set date, thereby turning his "going away" tea into a "gone away"—an action considered by all (invited) Bainbridge as a personal insult.
Pause here for breath.
To continue. Your Aunt Caroline does not believe in rest cures anyway. She thinks poultices are much more effective. It stands to reason that if a thing is in, it ought to come out. Rest cures are just laziness. But, thank goodness, she never expected anything from the Spence family but laziness. And she had told her sister so before she married into it....
Allow an hour here for ancestral history with appropriate comment and another hour for a brief review of your own conduct from youth up and we come within measurable distance of a few words by me. I took up the point of the four or five nice girls who had been invited to visit. I put the whole thing down to shock and pointed out that patience is required. A return to physical normality, I said, would doubtless bring with it a reviving interest in the sex. It was indeed very fortunate, I told her, that you were, at present, indifferent. Any question of selecting a life partner in your present nervous state would be most dangerous. Your power of judgment, I pointed out, was temporarily jarred and out of gear. You might marry anybody. The only safe, the only humane way, was to give you time to recover yourself.
"Power of judgment!" said Aunt Caroline. "Do you mean to tell me that my sister's son is in danger of becoming an idiot?"
I said not exactly an idiot. Yet your strong disinclination toward marriage could certainly be traced to a shocked condition of the nerves. Certain fixed ideas—
"Fixed ideas!" said your Aunt. She has a particularly annoying habit of repeating one's words. "Benis has always had fixed ideas—though when he was young," she added with satisfaction, "I knew how to unfix them. If this absurd rest cure can do anything to cure chronic stubbornness, I've nothing to say. Why, even his father was easier to manage."
"Benis," I said, "considers himself very like his father."
"Does he?" retorted your dear Aunt with withering scorn. "He is just as much like his father as a lemon is like a lobster."
This ended our conversation. But the effect of it is still with me. Last night I dreamed of lemons and today I prescribed lobster for a man with acute dyspepsia. I tell you what, you old shirker, it's up to you to come home and bear your own Aunt. I'm through. Bones.
P.S. The office nurse has been changed since you left. I have now Miss Watkins, returned from overseas. I think you knew her—name of Mary? Very good looking—almost her only fault.
P.P.S. What you say about your pleasant old gentle-man with the umbrella sounds very much like masked epilepsy. Ought to be under treatment. I should say dangerous.
S.O.S. Aunt Caroline has just 'phoned to know whether all letter-writing is barred or if not, wouldn't it be helpful if you were to drop a line to a few of your young-friends? For herself she expects nothing, but she does think, etc., etc., etc.!
Come back! B.