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.

"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 r