No doubt it was only in Benis's imagination that Mary's hair was anything like it.
But nevertheless it was there that the world had gone wrong.

It was while Benis had sat gazing into that patch of amber sky that Desire, gazing too, had, for the first time, realized the Other.

Up until then, Mary had been an abstraction--thenceforth she was a personality.

That made all the difference.

Desire, throwing shells at crabs, admitted that, for her, there had been no Mary until she had heard that her hair was yellow.
It was ridiculous but it was true.