dispelled
his disturbing train of thought.

CHAPTER VIII.

STICK TO THE FRONTIER.

"We know our motives least in their confused beginning."
--BROWNING.

Honor sat alone in the drawing-room, a basket of socks and stockings
at her elbow, her thoughts working as busily as her needle. This girl
had reduced the prosaic necessity of darning to a fine art; and since
Evelyn's efforts in that direction bore an odd resemblance to
ill-constructed lattice windows, Honor had taken pity on the
maltreated garments very early in the day.

Evelyn herself was at the tennis-courts, with the Kresneys and Harry
Denvil, a state of things that had become increasingly frequent of
late; and a ceaseless murmur of two deep voices came to Honor's ears
through the open door of the study, where Desmond was talking and
reading Persian with his friend Rajinder Singh.

Honor enjoyed working to the accompaniment of that sound. It had grown
pleasantly familiar during the past week, in which Desmond had been
cut off from outdoor activities. When the Persian lesson was over, he
would come in to her for a talk. Then there would be music, and
possibly a game of chess; for Desmond was an enthusiastic player. They
had spent one or two afternoons in this fashion already, since the
night of the fire; and their intimacy bid fair to ripen into a very
satisfying friendship.

To the end of time, writers and thinkers will continue to insist upon
the impossibility of such friendships; and to the end of time, men and
women will persist in playing with this form of fire. For it is
precisely the possibility of fire under the surface which lends its
peculiar fascination to an experiment old as the Pyramids, yet
eternally fresh as the first leaf-bud of spring.

In the past five years Honor had established two genuine friendships
with men of widely different temperaments; and she saw herself
now--not without a certain quickening of heart and pulse--in a fair
way to establishing a third.

The hum of voices ceased; there were footsteps in the hall; a few
hearty words of leave-taking from the Englishman, and two minutes
later he stood before her, his left sleeve hanging limp and empty; the
arm and shoulder strapped tightly into place beneath the flap of his
coat.

"Not gone out yet?" he said, a ring of satisfaction in his tone.
"Going to join Ladybird at the club later on?"

"No. As she had this eng