"We'll just wait here together till they come back; and shut—the worst out of our thoughts. You have splendid courage, my dear, and I think I love nothing in the world more than courage. Sit down with me now on this pile of fir-needles. It looks a little less saturated than the rest of the world."
Still keeping an arm round her, she drew her down unresisting to her side: and Quita, choking back the tears that had probably saved her brain from after-effects of the shock, looked with awakened interest at her new-found friend.
"I don't deserve that you should be so good to me," she said, humour flashing through her pain like a watery sunbeam on a day of mist. "I have hated you, with all my heart, ever since I first saw you!"
At which confession Honor pressed her closer. "Bless you for telling me!—I take it simply as the measure of—your love for him."
"Mon Dieu, no! Not now," she answered very low.
"I am glad of that too. For I want very much to be good friends with
Captain Lenox's wife."
On the last word a slow colour crept back into Quita's cheeks.
"You mustn't speak of it—yet, to any one else. There are difficulties—big difficulties . . ."
"I know;—but you may trust him to conquer them. One feels in him the sort of force that moves mountains."
Again Quita nodded. "You seem to know everything," she added, a last spark flickering in the ashes of her jealousy. "And I suppose you blame me for it all."