"Come your ways in, you patent radiator of happiness!" And Quita would have thrust her friend into Eldred's chair: but Honor, catching sight of the picture, went eagerly up to it.
"My dear, how remarkable! When did you begin it?"
"Ages ago, in Dalhousie; and now I want to finish it. But the lamp of inspiration won't burn. I'm afraid the wick's gone mouldy from disuse."
But Honor was reading the lines above the canvas.
"Ah, I see! Christina Rossetti," she said. "Quita, you must finish this. It's going to be very good. I love that little poem."
"Yes, you would. I've always rebelled against it. But last year when everything seemed such a struggle, the lines haunted me so, that I tried to get rid of them by turning them into a picture; and that's the result. Rather like Eldred and me! He's always dragging me up on to higher ground: yet he's so divinely unconscious of it all the time."
"Dear fellow!" Honor said softly. "But he hasn't done all the lifting. You've made a new man of him, Quita."
"Have I?" Sudden seriousness shadowed her eyes. "It was the least I could do, . . considering all things. Only . . I wish he wasn't quite so inward; so in love with his own company."
"You'll change that, in time."
"Do you think so? I wonder."