“Doesn’t she?” Aunt Caroline surveyed him with a pitying smile.  “How stupid men are!  But go along to the library.  You’ve had no decent breakfast.  I’ll send you in something to eat.  As for Bainbridge—­ leave that to me.” . . .

How curiously does a room change with the changing mind of its occupant.  Benis Spence had known his library in many moods.  It had been a refuge; it had been a prison; it had been a place of dreams.  He had liked to fancy that something of himself stayed there—­ something which met him, warm and welcoming, when he came in at the door.  He had liked to play that the room had a soul.  And, after he had brought Desire home, the idea had grown until he had seemed to feel an actual presence in its cool seclusion.  But if presence there had been, it was gone now.  The place was empty.  The air hung dull and lifeless.  The chairs stood stiff against the wall, the watching books had no greeting.  Only Yorick swung and flapped in his cage, his throat full of mutterings.

It is all very well to be a good loser.  But loss is bitter.  Here was loss, stark and staring.

Spence walked over to the neatly tidied desk and there, for an instant, the cold finger lifted from his heart.  A letter was lying on the clean blotter—­she had not gone without a word, then!  She had slipped in here to say good-bye. . . .  A very little is much to him who has nothing.

The letter was brief.  Only a few words written hurriedly with a spluttering pen: 

“I am going, Ben-is.  I think we are both sure now.  But please—­ please do not pity me.  Love is too big for pity.  You have given me so much, give me this one thing more—­the understanding that can believe me when I say that I, too, am glad to give.

“Desire.”

Benis laid the letter softly down upon the ordered desk.  No, he need not pity her.  She had had the courage to let little things go.  She, who had demanded so royally of life, now made no outcry that the price was high.  Well, . . . it need not be so high, perhaps.  He would make it as easy as might be.

The parrot was trying to attract him with his usual goblin croaks.  Benis rubbed its bent, green head.

“You’ll miss her, too, old chap,” he said, adding angrily, “dashed sentimentality!”

The sound of his own voice steadied him.  He must be careful.  Above all, he must not sink into self-pity.  He must go back to his work.  It had meant everything to him once.  It must mean everything to him again.  If he were a man at all he must fight through this inertia.  Life had tumbled him out of his shell, played with him for an hour, and now would tumble him back again—­no, by Jove, he refused to be tumbled back!  He would fight through.  He would come out somewhere, some-time.