"And now, my dearest" (Lenox wrote), "what more can I say, except—be of good courage, and write to me often. The rest, and there's a good deal of it, can't be put upon paper. That's the curse of separation. Start a picture, and throw your heart into your work, as I must into mine. God knows when I shall see you again. But trust me, Quita, as soon as ever I can, and dare, to put an end to this intolerable state of things.—Till then, and always, your devoted husband,——E. L."
It was the first time he had signed himself thus: and the envelope was addressed 'Miss Maurice'! The irony of it cut her to the quick. Tears of self-pity, flooding her eyes, startled her back to reality; and sent her stumbling towards her own room. But before she could reach it, Michael's voice arrested her.
"Come on, Quita," he shouted good-humouredly. "Where are you off to?
I want my breakfast."
She turned upon him a face distorted with grief.
"Parbleu, chérie, qu'y-a-t'il a maintenant?" he demanded, with an odd mingling of irritation and concern.
"Cholera at Dera Ishmael—Eldred's gone down this morning. . . ." Then tears overwhelmed her, and he turned sharply away. "Oh go, . . . go, and have your breakfast, Michel; and let me be. I want nothing, nothing, but to be left alone."
And vanishing into her room, she bolted the door behind her.
Maurice frowned, and sighed. In all his knowledge of her, Quita had never so completely lost her self-control. It was quite upsetting: and he disliked being upset the first thing in the morning. It put him out of tune for the rest of the day. But after all . . one must eat. And he retraced his steps to the dining-room.
"I wish to heaven she had never discovered this uncomfortable husband of hers!" he reflected as he went "Since he will neither marry her, nor leave her alone; and it is we who have to suffer for his heroics!"
For all that, he found speedy consolation in the thought that at ten o'clock a new 'subject' was coming to sit to him:—a wrinkled hag, whom he had met on his way back from Jundraghat, bent half double under a towering load of grass, her neutral-tinted tunic and draped trousers relieved by the scarlet of betel-nut on her lips and gums, and by a goat's-hair necklet strung with raw lumps of amber and turquoise, interset with three plaques of beaten silver;—the only form of savings bank known to these simple children of the hills.