Still,
we might put it in place of Cousin Amelia Spence on the drawing-room
mantel. What do you think, my dear?"
"I think we might," said Desire. Her tone was admirably judicial but
her thoughts were not. . . . If the Mary of the visit were no other
than the Mary of the faun-eyed photograph, why then--
Why then, no wonder that Benis had lost interest in the great Book!
CHAPTER XXX
To give exhaustive reasons for the impulse which brought Miss Mary
Davis to Bainbridge at this particular time would be to delve too
deeply into the complex psychology of that lady. But we shall not be
far wrong if we sum up the determining impulse in one word--
curiosity.
The news of Benis Spence's unexpected marriage had been something of
a shock to more than one of his friends. But especially so to Mary
Davis. Upon a certain interesting list, which Miss Davis kept in her
well-ordered mind, the name of this agreeable bachelor had been
distinctly labelled "possible." To have a possibility snatched from
under one's nose without warning is annoying, especially if the
season in possibilities threatens to be poor. The war had sadly
depleted Miss Davis' once lengthy list. And she, herself, was five
years older. It would be interesting, and perhaps instructive, to
see the young person from nowhere who had still further narrowed her
personal territory.
"It does seem rather a shame," she confided to a select friend or
two, "that clever men who have escaped the perils of early matrimony
should in maturity turn back to the very thing which constituted
that peril.
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