Feeling herself
so much older, in reality, than he, she assumed with delicious
naivete, the role of confidant and general adviser. What time she
could spare from Benis and the great Book she bestowed most
generously upon his friend.
During the four dragging days of waiting the appearance of Miss
Davis, she had found the distraction of Dr. John's company
particularly helpful. And then, after all, Miss Davis did not
arrive. Instead, there came a note regretting a very bad cold and
postponing the visit until its indefinite recovery. The news came at
the breakfast table.
"How long," asked Desire thoughtfully, "does a bad cold usually
last?"
"Not long--if it's just a cold," answered Benis with some gloom.
"But," more hopefully, "if it is tonsillitis it lasts weeks and if
pneumonia sets in you have to stay indoors for months."
Aunt Caroline looked over her spectacles.
"You sound," she said, "as if you wish it were pneumonia."
But in this she was, perhaps, severe. Her nephew was really not
capable of wishing pneumonia for anyone, not even a possible Nemesis
by the name of Mary. He merely felt that if such a complication
should supervene he would bear the news with fortitude. For,
speaking colloquially, the professor was finding himself very much
"in the air." Desire's mind upon the subject of this guest in
particular and of Marys in general, had become clouded to his
psychological gaze. He had thought at first that his young secretary
was jealous with that harmless sex jealousy which may almost as well
be described as "pique.
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