t her lips. "Whose photograph was it, Aunt?"

"Why, Mary Davis' photograph, of course. The one she gave to Benis when
she was last here. I hope you do not mind my taking it from your room,
Benis? My intention was to have it framed. People do like to see
themselves framed. I thought it might be a delicate little attention.
But if she is coming tonight, it is too late now. Still, we might put
it in place of Cousin Amelia Spence on the drawing-room mantel. What do
you think, my dear?"

"I think we might," said Desire. Her tone was admirably judicial but
her thoughts were not.... If the Mary of the visit were no other
than the Mary of the faun-eyed photograph, why then--

Why then, no wonder that Benis had lost interest in the great Book!

CHAPTER XXX

To give exhaustive reasons for the impulse which brought Miss Mary
Davis to Bainbridge at this particular time would be to delve too
deeply into the complex psychology of that lady. But we shall not be
far wrong if we sum up the determining impulse in one word--curiosity.

The news of Benis Spence's unexpected marriage had been something of a
shock to more than one of his friends. But especially so to Mary Davis.
Upon a certain interesting list, which Miss Davis kept in her
well-ordered mind, the name of this agreeable bachelor had been
distinctly labelled "possible." To have a possibility snatched from
under one's nose without warning is annoying, especially if the season
in possibilities threatens to be poor. The war had sadly depleted Miss
Davis' once lengthy list. And she, herself, was five years older. It
would be interesting, and perhaps instructive, to see the young person
from nowhere who had still further narrowed her personal territory.

"It does seem rather a shame," she confided to a select friend or two,
"that clever men who have escaped the perils of early matrimony should
in maturity turn back to the very thing which constituted that peril."

"You mean men like them young?" said a select friend with brutal candor.

"I mean they like them too young. In the case I'm thinking of, the girl
is a mere child. And quite uncultured. What possibility of intellectual
companionship could the most sanguine man expect?"

"None. But they don't want intellectual companionship." Another select
friend spoke bitterly. "I used to think they did. It seemed reasonable.
As the basis for a whole lifetime, it seemed the only possible thing.
But what's the use of insisti