With her, the slight blurring of Mary's carefully tended
"lines," the tired look around her eyes, the somewhat cold-creamy
texture of her delicate skin, weighed nothing against the exquisite
finish and fine sophistication which had been the gift of the added
years.
In age, she thought, Mary and Benis would rank each other. They were
also essentially of the same world. Neither had ever gazed through
windows. Both had been free of life from its beginning. Love between
them might well have been a fitting progression.
The one fact which did not fit in here was this--in the story as
told by Benis the affair had been one of unreciprocated affection.
This presupposed a blindness on the lady's part which Desire began
increasingly to doubt. She had already reached the point when it
seemed impossible that anyone should not admire what to her was
entirely admirable. Even the explanation of a prior attachment (the
"Someone Else" of the professor's story), did not carry conviction.
Who else could there be--compared with Benis?
No. It looked, upon the face of it, as if there had been a mistake
somewhere. Benis had despaired too soon!
This fateful thought had been crouching at the door of Desire's mind
ever since Mary had ceased to be an abstraction. She had kept it
out. She had refused to know that it was there. She had been happy
in spite of it. But now, when its time was fully come, it made small
work of her frail barriers.
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