Desire waited.  And, as she waited, she thought.  And, as she thought, she questioned.  What had Benis meant when he had said, in that whimsical way of his, “Well, my dear, it is your idea”?  If he had not approved of it, why hadn’t he said so?  It had seemed such a sensible idea.  An idea of which anyone might approve. . . .  Why also had Sergeant Timms been so reluctant to approach Miss Martin with the bare (and, Desire thought, beautiful) truth?  Because he feared it would rob her of an illusion?  But illusions are surely something which people are better without?—­aren’t they?

The Sergeant came at last, twirling his cap and looking hot.

“Well?” asked Desire nervously.

“She’d like you to go in, Mrs. Spence, if you can spare the time.  She took it quite quiet.  ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ says she.  And never a question.”

The two looked at each other and Desire saw her own doubt plainly reflected upon the honest gaze of Robert Timms.

“I’ll go in,” she said.  “The doctor will take me home.”

In the invalid’s room there was only quietness.  Miss Martin sat in her chair by the window; her plain, thin face had not sought to turn from the searching light.  Desire felt her heart begin to beat with the beginnings of an understanding as new as it was revealing.

“Don’t be sorry,” Miss Martin’s reassurance was instant.  “I am glad to know. . . .  I always did know, anyway . . . and it did not make any difference . . .  If you can understand.”

Desire nodded.  “He must have been very wonderful,” she said.  In that new and nameless understanding she forgot that only that morning she had referred to the dead musician as a “derelict” and “no good for anything.”

“Yes,” said the invalid musing.  “Not quite like the rest of us.  And I see now that he never would have been.  I used to think—­but the difference was too deep.  It was fundamental. . . .  I feel . . . as if he knew it . . . and just wandered on.”

“But you?” Desire ventured this almost timidly.  The quietness seemed to intensify in the room.  Then the invalid’s voice, serene, distant.

“I? . . .  There is no hurry. . . .  He has his fiddle, you see. . . .”  Miss Martin smiled and the smile held no bitterness.  So might a mother have smiled over a thoughtless child who turns away from a love he is too young to value.

Desire was silent.

“I did not know love was like that,” she said after a long pause.  “But perhaps I do not know anything about love at all.”

The older woman looked at her with quiet scrutiny.

“You will,” she said.

After that they talked of other things until the doctor came to take Desire home.

“Queer thing,” he said as he threw in the clutch, “I believe she looks a little better already.  That was an excellent idea of yours.”

“It was anything but an excellent idea.”  Desire’s tone was taut with emotional reaction.  “Fortunately, it did no harm.  But I don’t know what you were thinking of to allow it.”