And he had said he needed her!

Mechanically, she began to straighten the desk, restoring the
professor's notes to their proper places. She was feeling almost
sanguine again when her hand fell upon the photograph.

We say "the" photograph because, of all photographs in the world,
this one was the one most fatal to Desire's new content. She picked
it up casually. Photographs have no proper place amongst notes of
research. Desire, frowning her secretarial frown, lifted the
intruder to remove it and, lifting, naturally looked at it. Having
looked, she continued looking.

It was an arresting photograph. Desire had not seen it before. That
in itself was surprising, since one of Aunt Caroline's hardest-to-
bear social graces was the showing of photographs. She had
quantities of them--tons, Desire sometimes thought. They lived in
boxes in different parts of the house, and were produced upon most
unlikely occasions. One was never quite safe from them. Even the
spare room had its own box, appropriately covered with chintz to
match the curtains.

This photograph, Desire saw at once, would not fit into Aunt
Caroline's boxes. It was too big. And it was very modern. Most of
Aunt Caroline's collection dated from the "background" period of
photographic art. But this one was all person. And a very charming
person too.

Photographs are often deceiving. But one can usually catch them at