, without warning, the
experience acquired a name, and then a history and then, just when I
had begun to forget about it, hair suddenly popped up, yellow hair,
and, the day after, eyes--blue eyes, misty. The nose remains
indeterminate, but noses often do. Only yesterday I felt compelled to
add a mouth. Small and red, I made it--ugh! How I hate a small red
mouth. Oh, if it amuses you--all right!"

"Laugh at it yourself, old man! It's all you can do. But what a
frightful list of blunders. If you had to tell a lie why didn't you
take Mark Twain's advice and tell a good one? The name, for
instance--why on earth did you choose 'Mary?' Even 'Marion' would have
been safer. Don't you know you can't turn a corner in Bainbridge or
anywhere else without stumbling over a Mary? There's a Mary in my
office at the present minute and--yes, by Jove, she has golden hair!"

The professor looked stubborn.

"My Mary's hair was not golden. It was yellow, plain yellow. I remember
I made a point of that."

"Well then, there's Mary Davis. You remember her?"

"The one who visited Aunt Caroline?"

"Yes. Pretty girl. About your own age! 'Twas thought in Bainbridge that
her thoughts turned youward. Her hair was yellow then, and may be again
by now. And she had blue eyes, bright blue."

"My Mary's were not bright blue. Hers were misty, like the hills."

"Forget it, old man! You'll find you won't be able to insist on shades.
Any Mary with golden, yellow, tawny or tow-colored hair, and old blue,
grey blue, Alice blue or plain blue eyes will come under Mrs. Spence's
reflective observation. Your progress will be a regular charge of the
light brigade with Marys on all sides."

"Now you're making yourself unpleasant," said the professor. "And, to
change the subject, why do you insist upon calling Desire 'Mrs.
Spence?' She calls you John."

To his questioner's infinite amazement the doctor blushed.

"She has told me I might," he admitted. "But it seemed so dashed
cheeky."

"Why? You are at least ten years older than she. And a friend of the
family."

"Ten years is nothing," said the doctor. "And I want to be her friend,
not a friend of the family. Besides, she, herself, is not at all like
the girls of twenty whom one usually meets."

"She is simpler, perhaps."

"In manner, but not in character. There is a distance, a poise,
a--surely you feel what I mean."

"Imagination, John. It is you who create the distance by clinging to
formality