"But Theo, . . . your feet!" she murmured distressfully. "Are they quite cut to bits?"
"No—not quite." He glanced whimsically down at his dishevelled figure.
"Lord, what a scarecrow I must be! Aren't you half-ashamed of owning me?"
"Well—naturally!" she answered, beaming upon him as she set her foot in the hollow of his hand. "I shall see something of you,—shan't I?"
"Trust me for that. See all you can of her too. She's as plucky as they make 'em: but she may need it all and more, before we're through with this, poor little soul."
He mounted, and rode with them as far as the woodsheds, where the men branched off to the Forest bungalow, leaving the two women to ride on alone: and, in obedience to Desmond's parting injunction, they kept up a steady canter most of the way.
CHAPTER XV.
"How the light light love, he has wings to fly
At suspicion of a bond."
—Browning.
The rugged peak of Bakrota was enveloped in a grey winding-sheet, impenetrable, all-pervading; a dense mass of vapour ceaselessly rolling onward, yet never rolling past. It was as if the mountain had become entangled in the folds of a giant's robe.
The Banksia rose that climbed over the verandah of the Crow's Nest had shed its first crop of blossoms. The border below was strewn with bright petals of storm-scattered flowers; while above the dank pines dripped and drooped beneath the dead weight of universal moisture. The far-off glory of the mountains was blotted out, as though it had never been; and the doll's house, with its subsidiary group of native huts, had the aspect of a dwelling in Cloudland. From within came the plash of water falling drop by drop, suggesting a vision of zinc tubs, pails, and basins, set here, there, and everywhere, to check the too complete invasion of the saturated outer world.
Just outside the drawing-room door, heedless of the mist that hung dewdrops on her lashes, and on blown wisps of hair, Quita stood, devouring with her eyes a damp note, handed to her a minute since by one of Mrs Desmond's jhampannis.