memory of the west lawn and very naturally
misread it. Mary's regretful decision to challenge no morning
comparison in the sunlight on any lawn was interpreted as regret of a
much more tender nature. Desire's eyes grew cold and dark with shadow
as she left her charming visitor to her wistful rest.

That Mary Davis was the lady of her husband's one romance, she had no
longer any doubt. Anyone, that is, any man, might love deeply and
hopelessly a woman of such rare and subtle charm. Possessing youth in
glorious measure herself, Desire naturally discounted her rival's lack
of it. With her, the slight blurring of Mary's carefully tended
"lines," the tired look around her eyes, the somewhat cold-creamy
texture of her delicate skin, weighed nothing against the exquisite
finish and fine sophistication which had been the gift of the added
years.

In age, she thought, Mary and Benis would rank each other. They were
also essentially of the same world. Neither had ever gazed through
windows. Both had been free of life from its beginning. Love between
them might well have been a fitting progression.

The one fact which did not fit in here was this--in the story as told
by Benis the affair had been one of unreciprocated affection. This
presupposed a blindness on the lady's part which Desire began
increasingly to doubt. She had already reached the point when it seemed
impossible that anyone should not admire what to her was entirely
admirable. Even the explanation of a prior attachment (the "Someone
Else" of the professor's story), did not carry conviction. Who else
could there be--compared with Benis?

No. It looked, upon the face of it, as if there had been a mistake
somewhere. Benis had despaired too soon!

This fateful thought had been crouching at the door of Desire's mind
ever since Mary had ceased to be an abstraction. She had kept it out.
She had refused to know that it was there. She had been happy in spite
of it. But now, when its time was fully come, it made small work of her
frail barriers. It blundered in, leering and triumphant.

Men have been mistaken before now. Men have turned aside in the very
moment of victory. And Benis Spence was not a man who would beg or
importune. How easily he might have taken for refusal what was, in
effect, mere withdrawal. Had Mary retreated only that he might pursue?
And had the Someone Else been No One Else at all?

If this were so, and it seemed at least possible, the retreatin