throb of the heart. She was on her feet when the
man entered: and Honor, watching her face, thought she had never seen
it so nearly beautiful. She herself rose also, with a prompt excuse
for departure.

"I haven't even _seen_ Theo since breakfast," she said as they shook
hands. "Tent-pegging days are hopeless: and I promised to go down
early. Don't trouble to come out with me, please."

But Lenox insisted: and on his return found Quita back at her canvas,
to all appearance working diligently at a difficult bit of detail in
one corner. She greeted him with lifted brows.

"Finished your article already?"

"No."

"Then what on earth are you doing, loafing about in here? I'm busy. I
want to get this bit done before I go out."

"Do you though?" but instead of retreating, he came closer,
deliberately confiscated palette and brushes, and drew her into his
arms.

"Shall I send Desmond a 'chit,' to say 'I have married a wife, and
therefore I cannot come'?"

"Yes,--do. He'll forgive you."

"And shall we go for a long ride across country, when I'm through with
my work: and look in at the tent-pegging later?"

For answer she leaned against him with a sigh of content.

CHAPTER XXVII.

"Elfin and human, airy and true;
* * * * * *
Your flowers and thorns you bring with you."
--R.L.S.

But the stumbling-block reasserted itself, and prevailed.

The articles on Tibet were solid affairs, for a solid journal; twelve
of them, to be paid for on acceptance; and since Lenox needed the money
to clear off debts incurred when furnishing and pay for their trip to
Kashmir, he decided to get them written as soon as might be, before the
stealthy increase of heat made mental effort a burden. Thus, while the
Battery absorbed his mornings, Tibet made unlawful inroads upon his
afternoons and evenings; and the narrow margin of leisure thus left to
him did not by any means satisfy Quita's healthy appetite for
companionship. More than once she attempted remonstrance, pitched in
the wrong key, only to be routed by the unanswerable argument that the
work must be done, and that there was no other time in which to do it.
Finally, in a mood between pride and resignation, she shrugged her
shoulders and turned elsewhere for companionship; for interests to fill
the long hours which Eldred's devotion to work left empty on her hands.

And here, in a virtue pushed to the confines of vice, in