"I'm afraid not. I told Desmond I'd get down to the tent-pegging early. Is it really anything important, lass?" he added, controlling his impatience with an effort.
"Oh dear, no, not the least in the world!" She was on her feet now: head erect: dignity incarnate. "Unless it is important to do what your wife asks you with good grace. But I believe little illusions of that kind are warranted not to outlast four months of marriage."
He brought his hand sharply down on the table.
"Quita, you are talking childish nonsense. Why the dickens can't you leave me in peace till I'm through? I shan't be much longer now: and you can lecture me on the whole duty of husbands all the evening, if you've a mind to."
"Indeed I've not. Duty never gets a word in edgeways, while Love is master of the house. If it ever comes to 'duty' between you and me, I shall pack my kit and go, I promise you. It's the reality or nothing for me.—But don't hurry your work on my account, mon ami," she added, on her way to the door. "I shall probably drive over to Honor's, and leave you in peace till dinner-time. In fact, you have my permission to dine at mess for a change, if it would amuse you."
And as he turned quickly with remonstrance on his lips, the door closed behind her. With a sigh that ended in a smile, he took up his pen again: wishing her back the moment she was out of reach. For beneath his surface equanimity, the man in him was still thrilling under the emotion and astonishment of absolute possession; under the hallowing sense of permanence that at once calmed and exalted the fever heat of passion.
But Quita returned to her studio feeling more out of tune than ever. It was her own foolish fault, of course, for interrupting him: a form of knowledge that has never yet made for consolation. And while she stood alone before her picture, wondering whether she really would order the trap and go over to the Desmonds, footsteps in the verandah heralded Honor's appearance in the doorway:—a glowing Honor, looking remarkably young and fresh in a long, loose alpaca coat, and a shady Leghorn in which roses nodded: the peach-bloom of health back in her cheeks, the old buoyant stateliness in her step and carriage.
Quita flew to her with a little cry.
"Honor, you dear woman! How engaging of you to turn up, just when I was wanting you, and feeling too lazy to go and find you."
The kiss that passed between them was a real one; not the perfunctory peck of greeting that usurps its name. For, as flowers most exquisite spring from strangely unpromising soil, so had those two weeks of isolation and heart-hunger on the unloveliest hill-top of Northern India generated an enduring friendship between these two women, so unlike in outward seeming: a deeper thing than the facile feminine interchange of Christian names and kisses.