"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."
"You mean men like them young?" said a select friend with brutal candor.
"I mean they like them too young. In the case I'm thinking of, the girl is a mere child. And quite uncultured. What possibility of intellectual companionship could the most sanguine man expect?"
"None. But they don't want intellectual companionship." Another select friend spoke bitterly. "I used to think they did. It seemed reasonable. As the basis for a whole lifetime, it seemed the only possible thing. But what's the use of insisting on a theory, no matter how abstractly sound, if it is disproved in practice every day? Remember Bobby Wells? He is quite famous now; knows more about biology than any man on this side of the water. He married last week. His wife is a pretty little creature who thinks protoplasm another name for appendicitis."