t occurred to him that he ought to be thankful that Desire at least
was going to be happy. But he did not feel glad. He was not even sure
that she was going to be happy. Something kept stubbornly insisting
that she would have been much happier with him. Quite with-out
prejudice, had they not been extraordinarily well suited? He put the
question up to fate. The hardest thing about the whole hard matter was
the insistent feeling that a second mistake had been made. John and
Desire--his mind refused to see any fitness in the mating. Yet this
very perversity of love was something which he had long recognized with
the complacence of assured psychology.

He heard Mary's voice in the hall. He had forgotten Mary. He hoped she
would not tap upon the library door--as she sometimes did. No, thank
heaven, she had gone upstairs! That was an odd idea of Aunt Caroline's.
If he had felt like smiling he would have smiled at it. Desire jealous
of Mary? Ridiculous....

"Here comes old Bones," said Yorick conversationally.

The professor started. It was a phrase he had him-self taught the bird
during that time of illness when John's visit had been the bright spot
in long dull days. It had amused them both that the parrot seldom made
a mistake, seeming to know, long before his master, when the doctor was
near.

But today? Surely Yorick was wrong today. John would not come today.
Would never come again--but did anyone save John race up the drive in
that abandoned manner? Benis frowned. He did not want to see John. He
would not see him! But as he went to leave the library by one door John
threw open the other and stood for an instant blinded by the
comparative dimness within.

"Where are you, Benis?"

"Here."

Spence closed the door. His brief anger was swallowed up in something
else. Never, even in France, had he seen John look like this.

"We're a precious pair of dupes!" began John in a high voice and
without preliminaries. "Prize idiots--imbeciles!"

"Very likely," said Benis. "But you're not talking to New York."

He made no move to take the paper which John held out in a shaking hand.

"What is the matter with you?" he asked sternly.

"What's the matter with me? Oh, nothing. What's the matter with all of
us? Crazy--that's all! Here--read it! It's from Desire. Must have
posted it last night."

Spence put the letter aside.

"If you have news, you had better tell it. That is if you can talk in
an ordinary voice."

John