Part 55 (1/2)

”I know now that I made a terrible mistake. He is not kind. He is not good. I am terrified of him. But the fear which makes me brave against other fears is the thought of leaving you. I try to remember my father.

If I had been like him I could have worked for you and we might have been happy. Perhaps my mother was timid. I don't remember her.

”I don't know what to put in this letter, or how to make you understand. I loved your father. He was not a bad man. I am sure he never harmed anyone. He would have taken care of me all his life. But he didn't live. It was Dr. Farr who found out about the English wife.

He pointed out that you would have no name and offered to give you his.

”I did you a great wrong. His name--better far to have no name than his! I am sure it is a wicked name. So I want you to know that it is not yours. You have no name by law, but I think, now, that there are worse things. Your father's name was Harry Strangeways. His people are English, a good family but very strict. I could not let them know about us. They would never have forgiven Harry. It would have been like slandering the dead. Do not blame him, little Desire, for I am sure he meant to do right. He was always light-hearted. And kind--always kind.

Your laugh is just like his. Think of us both, if you can, with kindness--your unhappy Mother.”

Long before Desire came to the end of the crumpled sheets her tears were falling hot and thick upon them. Tears which she had not been able to shed for her own broken hope came easily now for this long vanished sorrow. Her mother! How pitifully bare lay the shortened story of that smothered life. Desire's heart, so much stronger than the heart of her who gave it birth, filled with a great tenderness. She saw herself once more a little frightened child. She felt again that sense of Presence in the room. And knew that, for a child's sake, a gentle soul had not made haste to happiness.

For that gay scamp, her father, Desire had no tear. And no condemnation. Her mother had loved him. Her gentleness had seen no flaw. Lightly he had taken a woman to protect through life--to neglect, as lightly, the little matter of living. Desire let his picture slip unhindered from her mind.

There was relief, though, in the knowledge that she owed no duty there--or here. The instinct which had always balked at kins.h.i.+p with the strange old man who had held her youth in bondage had not been the abnormal thing she once had feared it was. She had fought through--but it was good to know that she had fought with Nature, not against her.

At least she could start upon her new life clean and free....

A pity, though, that life should lie like ashes on her lips!

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

Nevertheless, and despite the taste of ashes, one must live and take one's morning bath. Desire thought, not without pleasure, of the pool beneath the tree. Wrapped in her blue kimona, her leaf-brown hair braided tightly into a thick pigtail and both hands occupied with towels and soap, she pushed back the tent flap and stepped out into the green and gold of morning.

The first thing she saw was Benis sitting on a fallen log and waiting.

He had been waiting a long time. In the flas.h.i.+ng second before he saw her, Desire had time to draw one long breath of wonder. After that, there was no time for anything. The professor's patience suddenly gave out.

He had intended to begin with an explanation. But it is a poor lover who can't find a better beginning than that ... And what could Desire do, with towels in one hand and soap in the other?

When he released her at last, blus.h.i.+ng and glowing, it was to find the most urgent need for explanation past.

”Idiots, weren't we?” asked Benis happily.

Desire agreed. But her eyes questioned.

”There isn't any Mary, you see,” he told her hastily. ”Never was; never could be. (Let me take your soap?) Mary was a figment--mortal mind, you know. Your fault entirely.”

”But--”

”Yes, I know. But I did it to please you. I am a truthful person, really. (Let me take your towels?) And I thought you had more sense--Oh, Desire, darling!”

”But--”

”Oh, I was a fool, too. I admit it. I thought you were fretting about John. Fancy your fretting about dear old Bones! I thought--oh well, it seems silly enough now. But the day I found you crying over his photo-graph--”