old hair, bore the impress of
the angelic, that only comes with sleep, and vanishes like magic at the
lifting of the eyelids.

Suddenly Desmond tightened his hold of her, and by a mutual impulse
their lips met.

[1] Headman.

CHAPTER XVII.

"Our frailties are invincible, our virtues barren; and the battle goes
sore against us to the going down of the sun."--R.L.S.

The rain, which had set in with such quiet determination at sunset,
fulfilled its promise of continuing through the night: and the
pattering on the slates that had mingled with Quita's latest thoughts
greeted her, with derisive iteration, when she opened her eyes next
morning. But its power to thwart her was at an end. Now that daylight
was come, nothing short of a landslip could withhold her from the thing
she craved. The thought leaped in her brain before she was fully
awake. "And after all, why should I wait till the afternoon," was her
practical conclusion. "I'll go down at eleven."

With that she sprang out of bed, and slipping on a dull blue
dressing-gown, hurried into the dining-room, where she and Michael
always met for _chota hazri_.

Here she found him, in Japanese smoking suit and slippers, smiling
contentedly over an item of his early post.

"What's pleasing you, _mon cher_?" she asked absently, depositing a
light kiss on his hair. For a woman in love--and a man no less--is as
royally indifferent to the joys and sorrows of all creation as
childhood itself.

"A letter from my pretty Puritan. It is not for nothing that she has
those straight brows, and that small resolute chin. She will not be
thrust down any man's throat for all the hen-sparrows in Christendom!"

"Why--what does she say?" Quita asked, peering critically into the
teapot, and wondering how it would feel to pour out Eldred's early tea!

"Listen then; and judge for yourself:

"'DEAR MR MAURICE,---There seems to have been an unlucky
misunderstanding between you and mother yesterday. But I hope this
need not make any real difference in our friendship. Because I think
we have always understood each other, haven't we? Of course if my
parents prefer that we should not be about together quite so much,
there is no help for it. But at least I would like you to know that I
am still, as I always have been, your friend (if you wish it)

"'ELSIE MAYHEW.'"

"_Tiens_! How is that for your 'child of twenty'? It is the letter of
a woman; and a woman with