"Don't upset yourself, girlie," he said kindly. "The damage may be less than we think for. I must stay here and help; but you must be a good child, and ride on at once. You'll see her safe home for me, won't you, Maurice?"
Michael acquiesced eagerly. Unrelieved tragedy upset his nerves. He longed to escape from the consciousness of Quita's dumb despair; and when Elsie had been induced to swallow a drop of brandy that would not have warmed a sparrow, they rode off briskly through the sullen downpour.
With a breath of relief, Colonel Mayhew went up to Honor Desmond, who had just dismounted.
"What's that for?" he asked anxiously. "You and Miss Maurice are going on too, of course."
Honor shook her head.
"But you can do no earthly good by waiting. We may be an hour or more before we get up here again. It will be slow work, if . . . if Lenox is alive;—and you will be drenched to the skin."
"There are worse evils than that!" she answered with gentle immobility. "Don't trouble about me, please. Imuststay here till I know what has happened; and I think Miss Maurice will wish to stay too. We shall come to no harm. We women have nine lives, you know!"
"And if you will—you will. . . . I know that also! But at least take a nip to keep out the damp. Your husband gave me this at the last moment for the three of you."
"How like him to think of it!" she murmured, smiling unsteadily.
"Yes—itwaslike him,"—and in the expansion of the moment the warm-hearted Resident put a fatherly hand on her shoulder. "He's a deuced fine fellow, my dear, and he has found a wife that's worthy of him."
Honor blushed rose-red, and took the proffered stimulant.
"I'll give Miss Maurice some too," she said. "Don't lose a second on our account, please."
Thus urged, the good man hurried away; and Honor went straight toQuita, whose unnatural apathy cut her to the heart.
"Miss Maurice, here's brandy," she said softly. "Drink all of it, before I help you down."
Quita emptied the tumbler; and Honor, grasping her waist with both hands, lifted her out of the saddle.
"How strong you are," she said, in the toneless voice of a sleep-walker. Then her frozen anguish melted suddenly and completely. For Honor Desmond, instead of releasing her, clasped her close, kissing her, with passionate tenderness, on cheeks and brows, like wet marble: and in the midst of her bewildered misery Quita realised dimly what it might mean to possess a mother.
"Theo and I know about it all," Honor explained at length; and Quita nodded. The fact that she was crying her heart out on the shoulder of her detested rival made the whole incident dreamlike to the verge of stupefaction: and it was Honor who spoke again.
"We'll just wait here together till they come back; and shut—the worst out of our thoughts. You have splendid courage, my dear, and I think I love nothing in the world more than courage. Sit down with me now on this pile of fir-needles. It looks a little less saturated than the rest of the world."
Still keeping an arm round her, she drew her down unresisting to her side: and Quita, choking back the tears that had probably saved her brain from after-effects of the shock, looked with awakened interest at her new-found friend.
"I don't deserve that you should be so good to me," she said, humour flashing through her pain like a watery sunbeam on a day of mist. "I have hated you, with all my heart, ever since I first saw you!"
At which confession Honor pressed her closer. "Bless you for telling me!—I take it simply as the measure of—your love for him."
"Mon Dieu, no! Not now," she answered very low.
"I am glad of that too. For I want very much to be good friends withCaptain Lenox's wife."
On the last word a slow colour crept back into Quita's cheeks.
"You mustn't speak of it—yet, to any one else. There are difficulties—big difficulties . . ."
"I know;—but you may trust him to conquer them. One feels in him the sort of force that moves mountains."
Again Quita nodded. "You seem to know everything," she added, a last spark flickering in the ashes of her jealousy. "And I suppose you blamemefor it all."
"I am too ignorant of the facts to blame either of you. I only know that even if he wronged you in any way, he has been more than sufficiently punished."
At that Quita's lips quivered, and the storm of her grief broke out afresh: while the greater storm overhead, having accomplished its evil work, rolled rapidly northward, with the colossal unconcern of a giant who crushes a beetle in his path; and the first stupendous downrush of water subsided into a melancholy drizzle of rain.
In that endless hour of looking and waiting for those who seemed as if they had been blotted out for all time, Quita learned once and for all what manner of woman Honor Desmond was; learnt also something of the loyalty and reserve that had marked Eldred's intercourse with her whom he had spoken of as his best friend.
"My undissuaded heart I hearWhisper courage in my ear."—R.L.S.
Down,—steadily, interminably down the face of that formidable ravine, Theo Desmond slid, and scrambled, and climbed; holding his mind rigidly on the practical necessities of the moment, which were many and disconcerting. His stockinged feet showed dull-red streaks and blotches, where sharp stones had cut them. His hands were grazed and torn by futile clutchings at the surface of broken rocks: and the protruding neck of the brandy bottle had a trick of digging him playfully in the ribs: which made him swear. Impertinent raindrops chased each other down his cheeks and forehead; trickling into his eyes, and blinding him at critical moments when he dared not release a hand to brush them away. The inch-by-inch progress to which he was condemned fretted the hasty spirit of the man; anxiety consumed him, and conspired with impatience to beget a nightmare illusion that he had been battling with naked rock and dripping vegetation since the beginning of Time.
Once,—for all the caution with which he crept backward and downward,—his foot slipped, on the wet surface of a boulder; and, in the hope of avoiding a fall, he clutched at a small shrub, with one hand, shielding the aggressive brandy bottle with the other. But the treacherous sapling yielded under his weight; and wrenching its roots from the moist earth, he rolled over and over, knocking his head and chest violently against outlying peninsulars of rock.
Both hands were requisitioned now, in a vain effort to check a descent that had become too rapid for comfort or dignity: and before long, a musical clink, followed by a strong whiff of spirit, announced the fate of the brandy bottle.
"Damn the thing!" he exclaimed in an access of helpless fury. Then a fresh blow on his head whelmed anger and anxiety in sheer pain, and sent him rolling like a log into a kindly patch of undergrowth, which had, so far, blocked his downward view.
Here he lay awhile, half stunned, small runnels of water trickling from his clothing. But his vitality—never long in abeyance—soon reasserted itself. He sat up, and his hand went instinctively to his pocket. Drawing out the beheaded bottle, he was relieved to find that it still held a tablespoonful or more; and that his handkerchief was saturated with the precious fluid. He sucked a mouthful from it with keen satisfaction: then, using it for a wad, plugged up the bottle; and undaunted by bruises, dizziness, torn hands, and smarting feet, lost no time in starting afresh.
For the time being, progress was simpler, and less hazardous: and, once through the undergrowth, he came with disconcerting abruptness upon that which he sought.
Eight feet below him, on a merciful ledge of earth wide enough to check the fatal rebound into space, Eldred Lenox lay face downward, his left arm crumpled under him; the other flung outward as if in a last desperate effort to ward off the inevitable. Shaitan was nowhere to be seen. The sheer drop beyond told his fate.
Soldier as he was, and inured to the sight of death in its most barbarous aspect, Desmond's heart stood still as he looked down upon that powerful figure of manhood lying helpless and alone, pattered upon indifferently by the dripping heavens.
Choosing a spot that promised a soft landing-place, Desmond dropped on to the ledge; knelt beside the injured man; and speedily assured himself that life was not extinct. Unconsciousness was due to a wound on the back of his head, from which blood still trickled sluggishly through the thick black hair. The arm crumpled under him was broken below the elbow. Very gently, as though he were a child asleep, Desmond turned him on to his back. His eyes showed fixed and glazed between half-open lids, and a deep scratch disfigured his cheek. Pillowing the inert head on one arm, Desmond applied the spirit to his lips again and again, a few drops at a time: till the lids lifted heavily, and life returned with a slow shuddering breath.
Desmond bent down to him eagerly.
"Not going out this journey, Lenox, old chap."
But no answering gleam rewarded him; no movement of limb or feature. Only the lids fell again; and Desmond knew that this was no fainting fit, but collapse from probable damage to the brain.
After applying more brandy to the lips and temples without result, he removed his Norfolk coat—still warm and dry within—and with the help of two fir boughs contrived to shelter Lenox's head and chest from the chilling downpour. Then he set to work on the broken arm. The same fir,—springing sturdily from a cleft in the rock below,—provided a splint; and with two handkerchiefs (he had wrung the last drop of rain-diluted brandy from his own) he tied the injured limb skilfully and securely into place. That done, there remained nothing but to wait:—the hardest task that can be assigned to a man of action.
And to wait sitting was beyond him. Steady pacing in the cramped space available helped to deaden thought and promote warmth,—for by now his soaked shirt-sleeves clung to his arms.
He kept it up doggedly till approaching footsteps brought his damp vigil to an end; and Colonel Mayhew stepped on to the ledge.
"Alive?" he asked, glancing at the prostrate figure, and Desmond nodded.
"Can't get him round, though. Concussion, I'm afraid. A nasty wound on his head, and one arm fractured. But for that strip of undergrowth, he would have been done for. Hope to God that lazy beggar Garth hurried up after O'Malley. We won't wait here, though.—Come on,coolie-log." [Transcriber's note: The "o" in "log" is the Unicode "o-macron", U+014D.]
Colonel Mayhew going forward to lend a hand, glanced over the precipitous drop on his right, and turned hastily away again. That which had been Shaitan was visible below; and it was not pleasant to look at.
"Lenox'll be cut up about that," he muttered as they lifted him cautiously on to the reeking strip of blanket.
It was a dreary journey up that corkscrew footpath, inch-deep in running water, that led to the ordinary levels of life. Desmond kept his post by Lenox's head and shoulders, sheltering him still with the discarded coat, and clinging to the track's edge with supple, stockinged feet. But there was no preventing jars and jolts arising from broken ground, and the difficulty of carrying a litter at an almost impossible angle. Half-way up they caught sight of Dr O'Malley,—a Pickwickian figure of a man, booted and spurred,—skipping, stumbling, and slithering towards them in a fashion ludicrous enough to bring a flicker of mirth into Desmond's eyes.
They drew up when, at length, he bore down upon them with a rush of expletives by way of sympathy: for he was good-hearted and a ready man of his tongue, if not a brilliant unit of his profession. His rapid examination of Lenox ended in praise of Desmond's amateur bit of surgery, and a confirmation of his verdict—concussion of the brain.
"An' there's no telling yet, of course, if it's slight or serious. But begad be must have had a nasty tumble. Devilish lucky to get off with his life,—that's a fact. What's the nearest bungalow we can get him into? 'Tis a good eight miles to the hospital; and the sooner he's out of this d—d watering-can business the better chance for him."
Desmond turned to Colonel Mayhew.
"How about the Forest bungalow, sir? Only a couple of miles on, isn't it? Brodie must be there now; and he's the right sort, if he is a bit of an anchorite."
"Why, of course. The very thing. He's something of an experimentalist too. Keeps up a small pharmacy in one of his outhouses. He'll make room for Lenox like a shot."
"And for me too, I hope. I'm game to sleep anywhere. But I won't leaveLenox till he's fit to go into Dalhousie."
Colonel Mayhew nodded approval; and the dismal procession set out again; O'Malley enlivening its progress with highly-coloured reminiscences ofkhudaccidents he had known, and with incidental attempts at jocularity that fizzled out like damp fireworks. It was all meant kindly enough. But Desmond was thinking of both man and wife as he had seen them greet one another that morning; and an atmosphere of pseudo-hilarity jarred his nerves like a discord in music. For the man possessed that mingling of fortitude and delicacy of feeling, which stands revealed in the lives of so many famous fighters, and may well be termed the hall-mark of heroism.
In due time they came upon the two women, still sitting—drenched and patient—on their bank of soaked fir-needles; and Desmond hurried forward to get in a word or two with Quita unobserved. At sight of him—coatless, mud-bespattered, with torn clothes, and blood-stained face and hands—Honor could not repress a small sound of dismay. But Quita saw in his eyes the one thing she wanted; and may surely be forgiven if she paid small heed to his plight. Her face fell at the details of the damage done.
"Mayn't I just have a sight of him as he passes us?" she pleaded.
"Better not," he answered kindly, "You have an artist's brain, remember; and I want you to sleep a little to-night. Trust me to do every mortal thing I can for him. Honor will see you home, and I'll send a runner in with news this evening. We'll pull him through between us,—never fear."
She tried to speak her thanks; but failing, put out a hand impulsively to speak for her; and his enfolding grasp made her feel less lonely, less desperate than she had felt since the awful moment when her husband vanished into space. The fact that he was in Desmond's hands seemed a guarantee that all would go well with him. There was no logic in the conclusion; and she knew it. But logic has little to do with conviction: and many who came to know Desmond fell into this same trick of depending on him to win through the thing to which he set his band. Yet his optimism had no affinity with the cheap school of philosophy, that nurses a pleasant mind without reference to disconcerting facts. It was the outcome of that supreme faith in an Ultimate Best, working undismayed through failure and pain, which lies at the root of all human achievement: and it was, in consequence, singularly infectious and convincing.
Quita's impressionable spirit readily caught a reflection from its rays: and hope revived sent a glow through all her chilled body.
"Take a stiff whisky toddy the minute you get in," he commanded, while lifting her into the saddle. "And try to remember that over-anxiety won't mend matters. It will only exhaust your strength. I'll come in and see you whenever I can. Ride on at once," he added hastily, for the stretcher, with its pitiful burden, was close upon them. "We'll catch you up."
She obeyed with a childlike docility that touched him to the heart, and he turned quickly to his wife.
"Come on, you dear, drenched woman. You've no business to be here at all; and we mustn't keep 'em waiting."
"But Theo, . . . your feet!" she murmured distressfully. "Are they quite cut to bits?"
"No—not quite." He glanced whimsically down at his dishevelled figure."Lord, what a scarecrow I must be! Aren't you half-ashamed of owning me?"
"Well—naturally!" she answered, beaming upon him as she set her foot in the hollow of his hand. "I shall see something of you,—shan't I?"
"Trust me for that. See all you can of her too. She's as plucky as they make 'em: but she may need it all and more, before we're through with this, poor little soul."
He mounted, and rode with them as far as the woodsheds, where the men branched off to the Forest bungalow, leaving the two women to ride on alone: and, in obedience to Desmond's parting injunction, they kept up a steady canter most of the way.
"How the light light love, he has wings to flyAt suspicion of a bond."—Browning.
The rugged peak of Bakrota was enveloped in a grey winding-sheet, impenetrable, all-pervading; a dense mass of vapour ceaselessly rolling onward, yet never rolling past. It was as if the mountain had become entangled in the folds of a giant's robe.
The Banksia rose that climbed over the verandah of the Crow's Nest had shed its first crop of blossoms. The border below was strewn with bright petals of storm-scattered flowers; while above the dank pines dripped and drooped beneath the dead weight of universal moisture. The far-off glory of the mountains was blotted out, as though it had never been; and the doll's house, with its subsidiary group of native huts, had the aspect of a dwelling in Cloudland. From within came the plash of water falling drop by drop, suggesting a vision of zinc tubs, pails, and basins, set here, there, and everywhere, to check the too complete invasion of the saturated outer world.
Just outside the drawing-room door, heedless of the mist that hung dewdrops on her lashes, and on blown wisps of hair, Quita stood, devouring with her eyes a damp note, handed to her a minute since by one of Mrs Desmond'sjhampannis.
"DEAR MISS MAURICE"—(it ran)—"At last I am allowed to write and say—Come. Not this afternoon, because he had quite a long outing this morning in that blessed spell of sunshine; and he is sound asleep after it, has been for an hour and more; or of course he would send a line with this himself. Come to dinner. Half-past seven. Then you can have a long evening together without keeping him up too late. For Theo is still high-handed with him about sleep and rest. But really he has made astonishing progress since we got him over here. Dr O'Malley is quite comically elated over his recuperative power. Says he has seldom seen such a rapid and vigorous convalescence after concussion; and takes more than half the credit to himself; but I am convinced that it is you who are mainly responsible for it. He says little enough, even to Theo. Yet one can see how impatient he is to be well again, because of you; and that's half the battle. Though perhaps my prosaic zeal for concentrated food of all kinds deserves to be taken into account! Theo, who is reading every word of this over my shoulder—in spite of my insistence on the privacy ofallcorrespondence!—wishes to point out that his own genius for nursing is really at the bottom of it. (N.B.—This is simply because he wants you to be extra charming to him to-night!) But apart from all my nonsense, the point remains that among us all we have done great things in less than three weeks. Come and see for yourself, and we can squabble over our laurels at leisure!
"Theo sends sympathy andsalaams, and I think you know that I am very really 'yours,'
Quita smiled as she folded up the note, though her lashes were wet with more than mist. Tears came too readily to her eyes just now, a fact that engendered occasional bickerings between herself and Michael.
"And to think that I was blind enough to hate that dear woman," she thought. "I, who pride myself on my intuition!"
Then she scribbled a hasty note of acceptance, despatched thejhampanni, and remained standing absently by the verandah rail, looking out into nothingness; trying to grasp the fact that the longest, hardest three weeks of her life were over; that in less than four hours' time she would once more set eyes on the man who was, to all intents and purposes, her newly accepted lover; would verify in the flesh the remembrance of that wonderful night and morning.
The thought so unsteadied her, that she clenched her hands, and jerked herself together. Having more of Diana than of Venus in her composition, the intensity of her love—since avowal had levelled all barriers—was a constant surprise to her; and now she was even a little ashamed of her natural longing for the touch of hands and lips, that she had at times been disposed to scorn. None the less, she hoped, unblushingly, that she would be allowed to have him to herself for an hour, or so; hoped also—nay, confidently expected—that she would end in overruling this stern purpose of his, that irritated her, even while it compelled her admiration.
To her, as to all eager natures, the appeal of the present was all-powerful, the more so when that present offered her with both hands the best that life has to give. To sacrifice it on the altar of a problematical future seemed sheer folly; magnificent folly, perhaps, but, in the circumstances her quickened heart leaned towards a less magnificent wisdom. She detected in this unmanageable husband of hers a strain of unpretentious heroism, which delighted her in the abstract. But when the heroic puts on flesh and blood, and shoulders itself into our narrow lives, it is apt to appear a little too big for the stage; and Quita had an artist's eye for proportion, whether in pictures or in the human comedy.
Moreover, a mingling of French and Irish blood rarely results in an irksome development of the conscience, or of that moral bugbear, a sense of responsibility; and deep down, Quita knew herself to be more like her brother in both respects than she quite cared to acknowledge. For all her husband's conscientious suggestion that marriage was a "complicated affair," she persisted in regarding it simply as the crown and completion of their great love, a happiness to which they were entitled by every law human and divine. The generations still to be had not yet laid their arresting hand upon her. In her esteem, such shadowy probabilities had neither right nor power to stem the new imperious forces at work within her.
It remains to add that Eldred's avowal had not shocked or repelled her as much as he had feared. For, among Michael's promiscuous intimates in Paris, Vienna, Rome, she had seen and heard more than Lenox was likely to guess of that enslavement to drugs and absinthe to which the artist's temperament seems peculiarly prone; though she was far from realising in detail the full horror and degradation involved. She merely felt certain that—heredity or no—Eldred was, by the nature of him, incapable of travelling far down that awful road; that with her at his side to hearten and help him, he could not fail to free himself from "the accursed chain."
But they must fight the battle together. That was the Alpha and Omega of her thoughts. He had not yet measured the height and depth of her love. Let her only make this clear to him, and he must give in; if not to-night, at least before his leave was up. Years of living with Michael had accustomed her to getting her own way in all essentials. But she had yet to try her strength against the bed-rock of Scottish granite underlying her husband's surface quietness; against the terrible singleness of mind that cannot—even for Love's dear sake—view harsh facts through a medium of rosy mist.
While she stood thus, trying to see into the darkness that shrouds the coming day, even the coming hour, from inquisitive eyes, the drifting vapour all about her paled from grey to white, from white to a gossamer film; and finally uprose from the valley, like a spotless scroll rolled backward by an unseen Hand, giving gradually to view a multitude of mountains, newly washed; mountains that glowed with richest tints of purple and amethyst and rose, in the level light of afternoon. And Quita, being in a fanciful mood, saw in this "good gigantic smile" of the rain-soaked earth a happy omen; an assurance that so would the mists rise from her own life, and the sunlight prevail. A sudden recollection of the buffalo "Mèla" set her smiling.
"How idiotic I am!" she reproved herself gently;—we are apt to be gentle with our own foolishness; it never seems quite so egregious as other people's—"I might be a girl of twenty, after my first proposal, instead of nearly thirty, and a nominal wife of five years' standing."
She drew out her watch. Four o'clock. Three mortal hours before she could even think of starting. There was nothing for it but to have recourse to her easel,faute de mieux. The last words waked her normal self. They were no less than heresy, treason to her art. Michael would have disowned her, had she spoken them in his hearing! Was Art, then, so small a thing when compared with this overwhelming force of Love, which dwarfed all thoughts and acts that did not minister to its needs? It was too early days as yet to answer so large a question. She simply knew that since that first kiss had set her on the threshold of an unexplored world, Art had lost its grip; that, for the present, at all events, she did not want to paint, but to love and live!
"Pity Michael isn't here to scold me," she thought, as she turned back into the house.
But Michael was away at Jundraghat, the Rajah's summer Residency. His finished portrait had been sent off that afternoon; and he had followed it, for the pleasure of hearing Elsie's thanks and praise in person.
The little room, robbed of the picture that had been its chief ornament for many weeks, looked empty, desolate; and with a restless sigh she went over to her easel. This also was empty. Her study of a hill girl,—begun half jestingly, as a contrast to Michael's flower of Western Maidenhood,—had so grown and beautified under her hands, that it had been voted worthy of a Home Exhibition; and its case now stood against the wall, awaiting mail day. Three or four unfinished pictures leaned against the easel. Quita looked through them, aimlessly, in search of a congenial subject. But they were chiefly landscape studies; and in her present mood Nature seemed a little tame, and bloodless. Her heart cried out for something human, and she wished that Michael would come back.
Then, like a ray of light, came the required inspiration, satisfying at once the counter-claims of Art and Love. She sought out a fresh canvas, set it on the easel, and plunged, forthwith, into a rough head-and-shoulder study of her husband.
Now time no longer stood still. Michael was forgotten. And, while her brush sped hither and thither, she crooned low and clear, the song that had proved the open sesame to her cave of enchantment.
And, in the meantime, Michael—the forgotten—was manipulating a new and delicate complication in a fashion peculiarly his own.
On entering Mrs Mayhew's drawing-room, he had found, not his "moonlight maiden," as it pleased him to call her, but the Button Quail herself, who greeted him with a rather embarrassing effusion of thanks.
"And the best point about it is, that it's reallylikeElsie," she concluded, with an air of paying an exceptional tribute to his skill. "Portraits so seldomarelike people. Haven't you noticed it? That's why I generally prefer photographs. But your picture is different. There are only two things about it that don'tquiteplease me." She paused, eyeing the canvas with her head on one side; and Maurice, who was irresistibly reminded of a bird contemplating a worm, wondered idly what was coming in the way of criticism. "I wish you had allowed her to wear somethingsmarterthan that limp white silk; and I think she looks much too unpractical, day-dreaming on a verandah railing at that hour of the morning! But then, Elsieisrather unpractical; or would be," she added quickly, "if I didn't insist on her helping me with the house. That's where moat Anglo-Indian mothers make such a mistake. ButIalways say it is a mother's duty to havesomeconsideration for her girl's future husband!"
And she smiled confidentially upon the aspirant at her side. But Maurice, absorbed in critical appraisement of his own skill in rendering the luminous quality of Elsie's eyes, missed the smile; missed also most of the interesting disquisition on her education.
"Yes, yes,—no doubt," he agreed with vague politeness, and Mrs Mayhew opened her round eyes.
But the direction of his gaze was excuse enough for any breach of manners; and she returned to the charge undismayed, approaching her subject this time from a less prosaic point of view.
"Really, Mr Maurice, I never knew till now that Ihadsuch a pretty daughter! The whole effect is so charming, that I begin to think you must have flattered her!" she remarked archly; and Maurice fell headlong into the trap.
"Flattered her?Mon Dieu, no! Nature has taken care to make that impossible. For, although she falls short of true beauty, she has such delicacy of outline, of colouring, an atmosphere so ethereal, that one wants a brush of gossamer dipped in moonlight, not coarse canvas, camel's hair, and oils, if one is even to do her justice. Some day I must try water-colours, or pastels.Sans doute ça ira mieux." He was off on his Pegasus now, far above Mrs Mayhew's bewildered head. "She would make a divine Undine—moonlight, and overhanging trees. The face and figure dimly seen through a veil of water weeds.—But where is she, then?" he broke off, falling suddenly to earth like a rocket. "May one see her this afternoon? I want to hear from herself that she is satisfied."
Mrs Mayhew smiled and nodded, a world of comprehension in her eyes.
"Yes, yes, I can quite believethat. I will tell her you are here. She looked rather a wisp after the dance last night, so I sent her up to rest, for the sake of her complexion! But, ofcourse, she must come down now. You will find her more entertaining than 'la petite mère,' She has taken to calling me that lately!"
The complacent little lady took a step forward, then—a bubble with maternal satisfaction—spoke the word too much that is responsible for half the minor miseries of life.
"Do you know, Mr Maurice, it is quite charming of you to have shown me your feelings so openly, and I think the least that I can do is to assure you of my sympathy and approval. I don't feelquiteso certain about her father. He is wrapped up in the child, and man-like, wants to keep her for himself. But no doubt between us we shall persuade him to listen to reason! Now, I will go to Elsie."
But Michael made haste to interpose;—a changed Michael, puzzled to the verge of anger, yet punctiliously polite withal.
"One moment, Mrs Mayhew, please. It might be as well if you and I understood one another first. It seems that I have been clumsy in expressing myself, that I have given you a false impression. If so, I ask your pardon. Believe me, I fully sympathise with Colonel Mayhew's reluctance to part with such a daughter; and I am not arrogant enough to dream of asking him to make such a sacrifice,—on my behalf."
It was very neatly done. Michael's detached self, looking on at the little scene, applauded it as quite a masterpiece in its way. But Mrs Mayhew stood petrified. Her brain worked slowly, and it took her an appreciable time to realise that she had been something more than a fool. Then, drawing herself up to her full height—barely five feet in her heels,—she answered him with an attempt at hauteur that quite missed fire.
"Since you are soconsiderateof Colonel Mayhew's feelings, I only wonder it has not occurred to you that your conduct during the past two months has been little short of dishonourable?"
"Dishonourable?" His eyes flashed. "Mais comment?"
"You have given every one in Dalhousie the impression that you were—in love with Miss Mayhew."
His relief was obvious.
"Naturally, my dear lady. For Iamin love with her. How could a man, and an artist, be anything else? But marriage—no——" He shook his head decisively. "That is another pair of sleeves. Women are adorable. But they are terrible monopolists; and, frankly, I have no talent for the domesticities. As a lover, I am well enough. But as a husband—believe me, in six months I should drive a woman distracted! Ask Quita. She knows. If I have given Miss Mayhew cause to regret her kindness to me, I am inconsolable; though, in any case, I can never regret the privilege of having known, and—loved her."
Throughout this ingenious jumble of egoism and gallantry, his listener had been freezing visibly. On the last word she compressed her mouth to a mere line, and stabbed the unrepentant sinner with her eyes; since it was unhappily impossible to stab him with a hat-pin, which she would infinitely have preferred.
"I have never in mylifeheard any man express such improper ideas upon a serious subject," she remarked with icy emphasis. "And I amquitethankful that your peculiar views prevent you from wishing to marry my daughter."
"Bien! Then we are of one mind after all," Maurice answered cheerfully. "And since we understand each other, may I at least be permitted to see Miss Mayhew before I go?"
"See her? Certainlynot. Really, Mr Maurice, your effrontery astounds me! Understand, please, that from to-day there is anendof your free-and-easy French intimacies! Colonel Mayhew and I have to consider her good name and her future happiness; and we cannot allow you, or any man, to endanger either."
Michael shrugged his shoulders. His disappointment was keener than he cared to show; but this hopeless little woman, with her bourgeois point of view, was obviously blind and deaf to common-sense or reason.
"I would not for the world endanger Miss Mayhew's happiness, or her good name," he said, not without dignity. "And as one may not see her, there is no more to be said."
He held out his hand. But Mrs Mayhew's manners were not proof against so severe a shock to her maternal vanity. She bowed as if the gesture had escaped her notice.
"Good-bye, Mr Maurice," she said rigidly.
He returned her bow in silence, slipped the rejected hand into his pocket, and went out.
In passing through the hall he was aware of a slim white figure coming down the broad staircase; and without an instant's hesitation he stood still. In spite of "the little she-dragon in there," he would see her yet. For the knowledge that he had lost her increased her value tenfold.
"You are really pleased with it—tell me?" he said eagerly as their hands met, for he saw the question in her eyes.
"Pleased? You know I am. It ismuchtoo good of you to give me such a splendid present; and father is simply delighted. But why are you going away? I thought you would stay to tea."
He still held her hand, in defiance of a gentle attempt to withdraw it, and now he pressed it closer.
"Unhappily I must go," he said, without looking at her. "Your mother will tell you why, better than I can do. Good-bye—-petite amis. Think well of me, if you can."
He bent over her hand, kissed it lingeringly, and was gone before she could find words to express her bewilderment.
"What we love we'll serve, aye, and suffer for too."—W. Penn.
After sunset the mist came down again, thick as cotton-wool. Heaven and earth were obliterated, and a quietly determined downpour set in for the night.
Quita was still at her easel, trying bravely to disregard the collapse of her happy omen; Michael lounging in a cane chair, with Shelley and a cigarette. He had returned from Jundraghat in a mood of skin-deep nonchalance, beneath which irritation smouldered, and Quita's news had set the sparks flying. Behold him, therefore, doubly a martyr; ready, as always, to make capital out of his crown of thorns. A renewed pattering on the verandah slates roused him from the raptures of the Epipsychidion.
"Well, at least you can't think of goingnow," he said, flinging the book aside with a gesture of impatience. "That's one blessing, if the rest's a blank."
Quita, who was washing out her brushes, looked round quickly.
"I'm sorry to leave you alone in a bad mood, Michael; but I mean to go, whatever the weather chooses to say about it."
"Parbleu! But what has come to you, Quita? You are infatuated with that granite-natured Scotchman!"
"And if I am . . . I have every right to be."
Her gaze had returned to the vigorous outline on the easel, and her voice softened to an unconscious tenderness, peculiarly exasperating to a man in Michael's mixed frame of mind.
"Naturellement!" he answered with a shrug. "Being a woman, you have divine right to monopolise a man,—if the man is fool enough to submit to it. Nature is determined that you women shall not escape your real trade. That is why she takes care to make every one of you a bourgeois at heart. And all these years I have cherished the delusion that you, at least, were a genuine artist!"
"So I am. Every whit as much as yourself."
"And also—a genuine woman?"
"I hope so."
Michael smiled—a smile of superior knowledge.
"One cannot serve two masters,ma chère. That's where the complication comes in, when an artist happens also to be a woman. The creative force, mental or physical, is a master-force. Only a superhuman vitality can accomplish both with any hope of success. Succumb to your womanhood, and there's an end of your Art—voilà tout."
"But no, Michel. I won't believe that." She spoke stoutly, though cold fear was upon her that a germ of truth lurked in his statement.
"Believe it or not, as you please. You are on the high-road to make the discovery for yourself, and you will find it a case of no compromise. One of the two must predominate. You will either become an amateur artist or an amateur wife and mother. Which do you suppose it will be?"
She shut her paint-box with an impatient snap.
"I really don't know. I am not in the mood for abstract speculation."
"No. You are in the mood for concrete love-making; and in pursuit of it, you're ready to face a drenching, to leave me is the worst possible company, without a sisterly qualm, and without even troubling to put my razor in your pocket."
"Don't talk melodramatic nonsense," she rebuked him sharply. Then pity and tenderness prevailed. "If it's really as bad as that,mon cher, why on earth didn't you take yesterday's chance, and ask Elsie to be your wife? I believe she would have said 'Yes.'"
"So do I. Therefore I preferred not to ask her. Still—it's none the less maddening that because you women have this incurable mania for marriage, one should be cut off from her sweet companionship, from the inspiration that is to be found in that delectable borderland between friendship and love; and insulted into the bargain by a chit of a mother-woman, with no more brains and imagination than a sparrow! But for me, at any rate, there can be no compromise. I do not choose to profane the sanctuary of my soul, to corrupt my Art, by becoming a mere breadwinner, a slave of the hearth-rug, and the tea-cup—in fact, the property of a woman. That's what it amounts to. And I doubt if any of us relish the position when it comes to the point. Even that devoted husband of yours, after waiting five years upon your imperial pleasure, seems in no hurry to tie himself up again; or you would hear less about his conscientious scruples, I assure you. They would be swept aside, like straws before a flood."
At that Quita's eyes flashed.
"Michel, youshallnot speak so of him," she cried imperiously. "I've said already that I won't have the subject discussed. How shouldyouunderstand a man like Eldred,—you, who hardly know the meaning of the word 'conscience'?"
"Dieu merci; since its chief function seems to be to make oneself and every one else uncomfortable.—Hark at the rain! I wish you joy of your journey."
He spoke the last words to an empty room. Quita was already changing her dress hurriedly, defiantly, shutting her ears to the discouraging sounds without. Michael's half-jesting insinuation had hit her harder than he guessed; had deepened her determination to extricate herself, without loss of time, from a position that justified a suggestion so galling to her pride.
But the mere getting down from the top of Bakrota, and climbing half-way up the neighbouring hill, through a desolating world of mist and rain, was, in itself, a prospect that would have daunted a less headstrong woman. Michael returned her hasty "good-night" in a voice of resigned martyrdom, and out in the verandah, four drenchedjhampanniscowering round a hurricane-lantern, had passed beyond martyrdom to the verge of open rebellion.
They were poor men, and the Miss Sahib's slaves, they protested in chorus; but it was a very bad rain. Even with the lantern, it would be impossible to keep the path; and if harm should come to the Protector of the Poor, the Sahib would smite them without mercy. Also the "mate" [1] was even now shivering with ague; in proof whereof he so vigorously shook the lantern that it almost fell out of his hand.
But Quita was adamant. She bade them set out at once, or the Sahib would smite them there and then. Awed by a threat that would never have been executed, they hastened to assure her that she was, collectively and individually, their "father and mother," that their worthless lives were at her service, and that they would start forthwith.
Three minutes later, they were swinging cautiously along the four-foot track that corkscrews down to the level of the Mall, the foremost man thrusting the lantern well ahead, with the sole result that a great white circle showed weirdly upon the curtain of mist, through which they journeyed by faith, and not by sight. With every step of the way Quita's conviction grew that she had pushed persistence to the verge of folly; and the thought of Michael, alone and dejected, tugged at her heart. The rain formed miniature canals in the waterproof sheet that covered her; and more than once a jerk of the dandy emptied these into her lap; while the mist itself was so dense that she seemed to be breathing water instead of air. There was no denying that to-morrow would do as well as to-night. But her impatient spirit fretted against delay; and this senseless obtrusion of inanimate things,—angering her, as only the inanimate can,—drowned the still small voice of common-sense.
Nevertheless, human will and endeavour have small chance in a duel with that invisible Force, which men call Fate. In the language of the East, "it was written" that she should not get down the hill that night; and before they reached the Mall, Quita was compelled to own herself beaten.
A jerk, a crash, followed by darkness, and a thud that brought her half-overturned dandy into violent contact with the ground, fairly settled the matter. The "mate" had missed the path; and, but for an instantaneous counter-jerk on the part of the men behind, Quita would have been shot down thekhud, instead of on to the stony roadway. As it was, she thrust out both hands to save herself, while the rain pattered through the light lace scarf on to her head and neck. The lantern glass was broken, and the "mate," lamenting volubly, declared that his arm appeared to be broken also. Quita herself was ignominiously damp and bedraggled; and vanity apart, going on was out of the question. Even getting back, minus the lantern, would be a difficult matter. With tears in her eyes, and fierce disappointment at her heart, she submitted to the inevitable.
Michael greeted her with lifted eyebrows, and an exasperating chuckle.
"Thought ten minutes of it would be enough for you," he remarked coolly; and her wrath against things in general vented itself on him.
"Really, Michel, you aredetestable! It was not enough. The 'mate' lost his footing, and the lantern broke. Oh, it's cruel . . . after nearly three weeks . . ."
Her voice broke, and Michael, thankful to see her again, took one of her hands and drew her towards him.
"Pauvre chérie," he said more gently. "Don't break your heart over it. Send a note to say you'll come to-morrow, and cheer me up a bit now, like the sweet sister you are."
There was nothing else to be done. Arming an adventuroussaiswith Maurice's lantern, an alpenstock, and two notes tied up in a scrap of oiled silk, Quita choked down her misery, and did her utmost to comply with his request. But the meal was only a partial success, for the rebellious heart of her was out there in the rain, following the notes to their destination.
They did not reach it till well after eight o'clock, when those who awaited her had given up all hope, and were just sitting down to dinner.
Lenox still wore his arm in a sling, and the lines in his face looked deeper than usual. Otherwise he was quite himself again. The anxiety in his eyes gave place to dejection as Honor handed him Quita's note.
"Shall I open it for you?" she added gently.
He frowned, and thanked her. There are few things more galling to a man than helplessness over trifles. He laid the open note beside his plate, and its half-dozen lines of love took him an amazingly long while to read: for Quita, like many spontaneous natures, had the gift of making herself almost seen and heard by means of a few written words. He tried to win comfort from the thought that it was only a matter of getting through eighteen hours, after all, and roused himself resolutely to a fair semblance of cheerfulness. But both husband and wife were too keenly sympathetic to be quite successful in their attempts to change the current of his thoughts; and their own hearts were heavy with a great anxiety for Desmond's life-long friend, Paul Wyndham. A phenomenal downpour at Dera Ishmael had produced a prolific crop of fever cases, and Wyndham's had taken a serious turn. The last two days had brought such disquieting news that Desmond was already half-inclined to throw up the rest of his leave and go straight down to Paul's bedside. The possibility of broaching the subject to his wife that night so absorbed his mind that surface conversation was an effort; and all three were thankful when the meal was over.
"Bring your coffee and cigars into the drawing-room, and we'll have some music," Honor said, as they rose from the table, and Lenox looked his gratitude. Intimate speech of any kind, even with Desmond, was anathema to him just then, and his full heart went out to this woman, whose genius for divining others' needs was so unerring, because her sympathies were so deep and true.
He determined to put Quita out of his head for the evening, if she would consent to stay there; and less than five minutes after this triumph of common-sense, a slight stir in the verandah roused him to unreasoning hope that it might be she after all. But it was only Amar Singh, the bearer, with a telegram for Desmond.
His heart stood still as he tore it open; then a stifled sound of dismay brought Honor instantly to his side.
"Dearest—what is it?" she asked under her breath.
For answer he handed her the flimsy scrap of paper, and went quickly into the next room. Honor's eyes took in the curt statement at a glance.
"Leave cancelled. Return at once. Infantry for cholera camp. None of ours yet. Wyndham worse. High temperature persists. Condition critical."
A low sound escaped her, and she passed the telegram to Lenox. It was from her brother, Colonel Meredith, now in command of the regiment.
"A double blow," she murmured mechanically. "By this time it may be—all over!"
Her lips quivered, but she did not follow her husband, knowing that in the first bewilderment of grief he would prefer to be alone. And Lenox had no answer for her; had, in fact, scarcely heard what she said. Then, as his brain grasped the latter half of the telegram, he glanced at her. He had never seen her look less like herself.
"I'm afraid this has hit you hard," he said, with more of feeling in his eyes than he knew how to put into his tone. "But you mustn't take the worst for granted. Desmond won't, if I know anything of him."
"I hope not. But this is . . . Paul; and you don't know what that means to us both. Besides . . . the saints of the earth are always taken too soon."
"No, not always. Fate does sometimes make mistakes on the right side . . . by accident," he added grimly. "I suppose one of these has gone to the Strawberry Bank. I must send Zyarulla off at once to get my traps together. It means starting first thing."
She looked at him in surprise.
"Yes. But not you, surely. You're hardly fit for duty yet."
"Nonsense. Barring my arm, I'm fit for anything. And if we're in for cholera, I don't see myself leaving Dick to handle the Battery without me."
"You're bound to ask Dr O'Malley's permission, though."
"Yes, worse luck. But I fancy I shall square him. At the same time—it's hard lines——"
He broke off short. The thing did not bear speaking of.
"Itisbitterly hard lines, for you both," Honor answered, looking away from him. But she knew the best men of her service too well to suggest that, without straining a point, he might honestly be declared unfit for duty.
"At least it will be a comfort to her havingyouhere," he went on mechanically, because the thing had to be said somehow. "I'll leave a note, of course, but I'd be grateful if you'd take it for me some time in the morning. She may not understand how impossible it is for a man to hold back—on any pretext, at a time like this, and I know I can trustyouto make things clear to her. You're more than half a soldier yourself."
"So I ought to be!" Honor answered, inexpressibly touched by his confidence in her. "And of course I would go to her if I were here. But to-morrow I shall be on my way back to Dera with you both."
"Dera!—But that would be madness. Do you suppose Desmond would ever hear of such a thing?"
"I haven't supposed anything about it yet," she answered, smiling. "I only know that I can't let him go down into—all that, alone. Now I must say good-night, and go to him. We'll make all arrangements for the journey," she added, as they shook hands, "and Zyarulla will do the packing for you. So be sure and get some sleep when you have seen Dr O'Malley."
His face hardened.
"I only know one way to make sure of that," he said, avoiding her eyes.
"Oh, no, no; not that way, please."
"I imagine it'll be that or none," he answered almost roughly, as he turned away, and with a sigh Honor followed her husband into the dining-room.
He sat with his back to her, elbows planted on the writing-table, his head between his hands. But at her approach he looked up, and with a sharp contraction of heart she saw that tears stood in his eyes. A woman takes small account of her own wet lashes, but a man's tears are like drops of blood wrung from the heart.
Honor took his head between her hands, and kissed him, long and tremulously. After that there seemed no need for words on the subject nearest their hearts.
"You knew why I didn't come sooner?" was all she said, and Desmond pressed the hand resting on his shoulder. Then, seating herself opposite him on the edge of the table, she glanced at the telegraph form lying before him.
"Are you wiring for more news?"
"Yes. I want an 'urgent,' care of the Station-master, to catch me at Lahore to-morrow night, and another at Thung dak bungalow next day; unless . . . of course . . ."
"Hush, hush. Youmustnot think of that."
He frowned, and was silent. The two men loved one another as men linked by half a lifetime of toil and ambition learn to love,—or hate; and in the face of a calamity so unthinkable, even Desmond's incurable hopefulness was shaken.
"Captain Lenox believes he will be allowed to go," Honor went on after a pause. "But he's hardly fit for it, is he?"
"Not quite, perhaps, though he's made of iron under it all, and if he's set on going, I don't fancy O'Malley will stand in his way."
"I told him we would make all travelling arrangements, and you'll be sending Dunni out with this, I suppose?"
"Yes. At once. Why?"
"Because I want him to take a note to Mrs Rivers at the same time."
"Mrs Rivers? Would you sooner go to her than stay on here?"
Honor smiled.
"Do you really imagine I shall stay on here?"
"Why not? It would save the trouble of moving; and you wouldn't feel lonely with the little chap for company."
"But, you dear, foolish man, can't you see that it's you I want?" And she leaned forward, speaking quickly to stave off interruption. "Don't make a fuss about it, please; because I have settled everything in my mind. I'll ask Mrs Rivers to take baby and Parbutti for me. I know she gladly will. As for me, of course I go down to Dera to-morrow, and do what I can for you all."
At that Desmond straightened himself; and Honor foresaw one of those pitched battles, which, between natures equally imperious and hot-headed, were unavoidable from time to time; while Desmond, because he meant to have his own way, dared not let her see how profoundly he was moved by this culminating proof of her devotion.
"My dear Honor, the thing is out of the question," he said decisively. "It's splendid of you even to think of coming down. But it would be unpardonable in me to allow it, so be a sensible woman and put the notion out of your head, once for all. You know you could never bear to leave little Paul when it came to the point."
"I could . . . I could. Oh, Theo, don't be unreasonable over this."
"The unreasonableness is yours, my dear. If this is going to be bad, we may all be off into camp before the week's out."
"Well, then, Frank would take me in . . . and at least I should be on the spot—in case . . . Oh, Theo, Imustcome! Why on earth shouldn't I be there just as much as Frank, and that little missionary woman, Mrs Peters?"
"Frank" Olliver, a Major's wife, was the only other woman in the regiment, and hill stations were not (as she would have expressed it) "in her line." But Desmond was immovable.
"That's quite another matter. Being there already, they naturally wouldn't desert their post. But you are here, thank God, safe out of it all; and I must insist on your remaining here, if it's only for my sake." A half smile dispelled the gravity of his face. "I've a notion that when you married me you promised, among other things, to obey me!"
"Well, I was driven to. It was the only way to get you. But I'm sure most of us make that promise with mental reservations. In certain cases I should not dream of obeying you, Theo, and this is one!"
"But if I flatly refuse to take you with me?"
"I suppose I should have to follow on alone."
He looked at her straightly for a moment. Then: "I don't think you would deliberately defy me, Honor," he said in a level tone. "I couldn't put up with that, even from you."
There was a short silence. She saw that in direct opposition to his will she could go no further. But the woman who loves, and knows herself beloved, has subtler weapons at command. Setting her two hands upon his shoulders, and bringing her beautiful face very close to his, Honor returned her husband's look with a smile so mutely beseeching, that his fortitude, already undermined by the news from Dera, began to waver, and she saw it.
"My very dearest," she said, on a low note of tenderness, "of course I would never defy you. But don't break my heart by pushing me on one side, and leaving me up here alone, idle, anxious, when there is real work—woman's work—waiting to be done down there. I'm as strong as a church, you know that. And I could help with Paul when he is convalescent. We could have him in the bungalow. I know separation is bound to come some day. But not in this terrible fashion, and not yet.Please, Theo, not yet."
Then, because tears threatened, she leaned down till her forehead rested against his shoulder, and furtively dried her lashes with the back of her hand. When a strong woman lays aside her strength, and relies on the inherent power of her womanhood, no man on earth is a match for her. Desmond could only surrender at discretion, and take her altogether to himself.
"And you began by saying you would never defy me!" he whispered into her ear. "What else do you call this, I wonder? You incurable woman! Is it really because you are so keen to help, or chiefly because you want to be in my pocket? Which?"
"Chiefly because I want to be in your pocket," she answered without shame, and he kissed her bowed head.
"But mind you," his tone changed abruptly, "I have no business to give in to you; and if any harm should come of it, I could never forgive myself. I believe I should blow my brains out on the spot."
At that she lifted her head and stood up beside him.
"Theo, youshallnot say such dreadful things."
"It's no more than the truth," he answered, with a touch of defiance. "Lord, how you women, and the children you give us, complicate life for a man! Yet it's not worth a brass farthing without you both."
"Thank you for owning that much!—Now I must write my note, and see about packing. Come up soon, dear. There's an endless deal to do before we can think of going to bed."
On his way up to join her twenty minutes later, Desmond looked into Lenox's small room. Zyarulla had strewn the floor with books, boots, clothes, and a couple of boxes, preparatory to going into action. His master, enveloped in a cloud of blue smoke, sat afar off directing the plan of campaign. A great peace pervaded his aspect, and the unmistakable fragrance that filled the room brought two deep lines into Desmond's forehead.
"Just looked in to find out how you were getting on," said he. "Not seen O'Malley already, have you?"
"No. But his verdict is a foregone conclusion, so we're going ahead with things. Your wife's not really coming, is she?"
"Yes. I did my best to prevent it; but there's no gainsaying her."
"Great Scott, she's a plucky woman! You must have plenty to see to both of you. Don't let me keep you, old chap, I'm all right."
"Glad to hear it. You'll sleep. That's certain. But I wish to goodness you'd given Nature a chance."
"Nature wouldn't have givenmea chance," the other answered with sudden heat. "And there's a limit to what a man can stand. By the way," he added in an altered tone, "I can't tell you how sorry I am about Wyndham. But you must hope for the best."
"Thanks," Desmond answered quietly. "Good-night."
The door of his wife's room stood ajar, and in passing it to go to his dressing-room, his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a muffled sob. Treading softly, he pushed the door open, and looked in.
A night-light in the basin, and one candle on the dressing-table showed him a tall white figure bending over the rail of the cot where his son lay asleep. Honor had discarded her dinner dress for a light wrapper, and her loosened hair fell in a dusky mass almost to her knees.
For a few seconds Desmond stood watching her, uncertain whether to intrude upon her grief or no. He knew her peculiar dread of separation from those she loved, knew that throughout the sixteen mouths of her child's life she had never left him for more than a few hours except to go to Chumba, and then not without remonstrance. Yet she was leaving him now of her own free will, for an indefinite time, and in the full knowledge of the grim possibilities ahead. It is in such rare moments of revelation that a man realises dimly what it may mean for a woman dowered with the real courage and dignity of self-surrender to give herself to him; that he is vouch-safed a glimpse into that mystery of love, which cynics of the decadent school dismiss as "amoristic sentiment," a fictitious glorification of mere natural instinct. But Desmond took a simpler, more reverential view of a quality which he believed to be the most direct touch of the Divine in man, and which he had proved to be the corner-stone of his wife's character.
He went forward at length, but so noiselessly that Honor had no idea of his presence till his arms came round her from behind, and drew her up so close against him that her wet cheek touched his own.
"Theo . . . that wasn't fair!" she protested with a little broken laugh.
"Not quite. But I couldn't resist it."
Then they stood silent, looking down at the sleeping child.
He lay on his back, one half-opened hand flung high above his head, and the fair soft face, in its halo of red-gold 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.