“And is there no one—­no friend, from whom you could naturally inquire?  You feel you wouldn’t care to ask anyone?”

“Ask?  Good heavens, no—­certainly not!”

“Men are queer,” said Desire naively.  “A woman would just simply have to ask.”

“She would.”

“You think me inquisitive?” Her quick brain had not missed the dry implication of his tone.  “But you see I had to know something.  It’s all right, I’m sure.  But it would have been so much—­more comfortable if she were quite married.”

(Oh course it would—­why in thunder hadn’t he thought of that?  The professor was much annoyed with himself.)

“She is probably quite, utterly married long ago,” he said gloomily.  “What possible difference can it make?”

“None.  Don’t look so bitter!  Perhaps I should not have asked questions.  I won’t ask any more—­except one.  Would you mind very much telling me her name?”

Her name!

The harassed man looked wildly around.  But there was no escape.  Not even Sami was in sight.  Only a jeering crow flapped black wings and laughed discordantly.

“Just her first name, you know,” added Desire reasonably.

“Oh yes—­certainly.  No, of course I don’t mind.  I am quite willing to tell you her name.  But—­do you mean her real name or—­or—­the name she was usually called?” The professor was sparring wildly for time.

“Wasn’t she called by her real name?”

“Well—­er—­not always.”

Desire’s eyebrows became very slanting.  “Any name will do,” she said coldly.

The professor gathered himself together.  “Her name,” he said triumphantly, “Was—­is Mary.”

He had done well for himself this time!  His questioner was plainly satisfied with the name Mary.  Perhaps lying gets easier as you go on.  He hoped so.

“My mother’s name was Mary,” said Desire.  “It is a lovely name.”

Spence felt very proud of himself.  Not only had he produced a lovely name in the space of three seconds and a half, but he had also provided a not-to-be-missed opportunity of changing the subject.

“I suppose you do not remember your mother,” he said tentatively.

“Oh yes, I do, although I was quite small when she died.  Father says I fancy some of the things I remember.  Perhaps I do.  I always dream very vividly.  And fact and dream are easily confused in a child’s mind.  My most distinct memories are detached, like pictures, with-out any before or after to explain them.  There is one, for instance, about waking up in the woods at night, wrapped in my mother’s shawl and seeing her face, all frightened and white, with the moon, like a great, silver eye, shining through the trees.  But I can’t imagine why my mother would be hiding in the woods at night.”

“Why hiding?”

“There is a sense of hiding that comes with the memory—­without anything to account for it But, although I do not remember connected incidents very well, I remember her—­the feeling of having her with me.  And the terrible emptiness afterwards.  If she had gone quite away, all at once, I couldn’t have borne it.”