very much engaged. Quita saw no
reason to conceal her pleasure in these outings. Lenox thanked his
friend once or twice, bluntly enough, yet with evident sincerity; and
Richardson accepted his own good fortune with an unquestioning
appreciation very characteristic of the man.

His thoughts were running definitely upon this pleasant state of
things, as he drove Quita Lenox homeward through the main street of the
native city, on a glowing evening, some two weeks after Honor's visit
to the studio. Behind them clattered a small guard of native police,
without whom it would not be advisable to explore a frontier city; and
on either hand stretched a narrowing vista of open shop fronts noisy
with vituperative buyers and sellers; brilliant with piled vessels of
brass and copper, with the rainbow tints of dyed silks and muslins,
piles of parched corn and spices, oranges, bananas, and pomegranates;
their upper storeys breaking out into quaintly carved windows and
balconies, strange splashes of colour, or rough childish pictures,
innocent of proportion. And, better than these, in Quita's esteem, was
the wide street itself, packed with the noisy, leisurely life of an
Indian city:--goats and cattle; women and children; open bullock-carts
that seemed to have all eternity to travel in; princely-looking Afghan
traders in long coats and peaked turbans; Waziris, with keen, Jewish
faces framed in greasy locks that fell upon their shoulders; the _sais_
from his tail-board shouting ineffectual commands to make way for the
Sahib; long-legged fowls, leaping and fluttering up under the pony's
nose; pariahs, lazily insolent, almost allowing the wheel to graze
thigh-bone or paw, before they condescended to loaf away to a fresh
resting-place; and over all an arch of blue, so deep and passionate as
to be almost vocal; and pervading all, the indefinable, unforgettable
smell of the East:--a smell compounded of musk, spices, open drains,
and humanity.

When at last they emerged into the open, and quickened their pace,
Quita drew a breath of satisfaction, and smiled up at her companion,
who allowed his eyes to linger in hers a moment longer than the
occasion required.

Their outing had been an unusually long one; for whenever she could
find her way into the city Quita was insatiable. Again and again
Richardson had sat waiting in the sun, while she made thumb-nail
sketches of street corners, bargained with curio-sellers for the
Alexander coins