It occurred to him that he ought to be thankful that Desire at least was going to be happy.  But he did not feel glad.  He was not even sure that she was going to be happy.  Something kept stubbornly insisting that she would have been much happier with him.  Quite with-out prejudice, had they not been extraordinarily well suited?  He put the question up to fate.  The hardest thing about the whole hard matter was the insistent feeling that a second mistake had been made.  John and Desire—­his mind refused to see any fitness in the mating.  Yet this very perversity of love was something which he had long recognized with the complacence of assured psychology.

He heard Mary’s voice in the hall.  He had forgotten Mary.  He hoped she would not tap upon the library door—­as she sometimes did.  No, thank heaven, she had gone upstairs!  That was an odd idea of Aunt Caroline’s.  If he had felt like smiling he would have smiled at it.  Desire jealous of Mary?  Ridiculous. . . .

“Here comes old Bones,” said Yorick conversationally.

The professor started.  It was a phrase he had him-self taught the bird during that time of illness when John’s visit had been the bright spot in long dull days.  It had amused them both that the parrot seldom made a mistake, seeming to know, long before his master, when the doctor was near.

But today?  Surely Yorick was wrong today.  John would not come today.  Would never come again—­but did anyone save John race up the drive in that abandoned manner?  Benis frowned.  He did not want to see John.  He would not see him!  But as he went to leave the library by one door John threw open the other and stood for an instant blinded by the comparative dimness within.

“Where are you, Benis?”

“Here.”

Spence closed the door.  His brief anger was swallowed up in something else.  Never, even in France, had he seen John look like this.

“We’re a precious pair of dupes!” began John in a high voice and without preliminaries.  “Prize idiots—­imbeciles!”

“Very likely,” said Benis.  “But you’re not talking to New York.”

He made no move to take the paper which John held out in a shaking hand.

“What is the matter with you?” he asked sternly.

“What’s the matter with me?  Oh, nothing.  What’s the matter with all of us?  Crazy—­that’s all!  Here—­read it!  It’s from Desire.  Must have posted it last night.”

Spence put the letter aside.

“If you have news, you had better tell it.  That is if you can talk in an ordinary voice.”

John laughed harshly.  “My voice is all right.  Not so dashed cool as yours.  Read it!”

Spence took the sheet held out to him; but he had no wish to> read Desire’s words to John.

“If it is a private letter—­” he began.

“Oh, don’t be a bigger fool than you have been!  Unless,” with sudden suspicion, “you’ve known all along?  Perhaps you have.  Even you could hardly have been so completely duped.”