This may have been partly owing to a change of mind with
regard to Mary as a subject for conversation. She had decided that
it was not good for Benis to talk about Her. Why revive memories
that are best forgotten? She never now disturbed him when he gazed
into the sunset; and when he sighed, as he sometimes did without
reason, she did not ask him why. She had even felt impatient once or
twice and, upon leaving the room abruptly, had banged the door.
So, because Mary was unavailable for discussion, desire had to think
about her. She had to wonder whether her hair was really? And
whether her eyes really were? She wanted to know. If she could find
someone who had known Mary, some entirely unprejudiced person who
would tell her, she might be able to dismiss the subject from her
mind. And surely, in Bainbridge, there must be someone?
But she had been in Bainbridge a month now. People had called. And
she was still as ignorant as ever. She had been so sure that someone
would mention Mary almost at once. She had felt that people would
simply not be able to refrain from hinting to the bride a knowledge
of her husband's unhappy past. There were so many ways in which it
might be done. Someone might say, "When I heard that Professor
Spence was married, I felt sure that the bride would have dark hair
because--oh, what am I saying! Please, may I have more tea?" But no
one, not even the giddiest flapper of them all, had said even that!
Perhaps, incredible as it might seem, Bainbridge did not know about
Mary? She had been, Desire remembered, a visitor there when Benis
met her.
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