She sank down, forthwith, upon the gra.s.sy slope, in which the fire of a June sun still lingered; and clasping her hands about her knees, looked up at him invitingly. By way of response he stretched himself full length, a little below her, resting on his elbow in such a position as afforded him a clear view of her profile, that gleamed, like a cameo against a background of deodars.

"Smoke," she said softly.

"No. I think not."

His tone had a touch of constraint, and a lone silence fell.

The strange solitude about them was no stranger than the enchantment of being alone in it together; and there was that in their hearts that made speech difficult.

They sat looking northward toward the moonlit hollow where the station camp cl.u.s.tered close to the forest's edge. Behind the camp--a ma.s.s of unbroken shadow--it climbed up and upward to the mystery of a sky, powdered with the gold-dust of faint stars, on which its jagged outline was printed black as ink. Beyond that again, one majestic snow-peak,--like a stainless soul rising out of a tomb,--gleamed in the light of an increasingly brilliant moon. The crowd round the bonfire had crumbled into a hundred insignificant seeming units; and the fire itself, no longer aspiring to the stars, glowed like an angry eye in the dusky face of the glade.

Presently Quita spoke.

"There is so endlessly much to say, that I don't know where to begin.

And after all, I am utterly content just to feel that you are there; that I have really got you back at last."

"You have had me, body and soul, these five years," he answered simply.

"It is I who have gained you, by some miracle of your womanhood that I shall never fathom."

"If you set it down to your own manhood, you might be nearer the mark.

You are very much too humble, Eldred; and I love you for it,--always did."

"Always?"

"I verily believe so."

"Good G.o.d! I never misjudged you, did I? If you . . . cared _then_, why ever did you leave me?"

"Because you gave me no time to take it in. But I am sure now that the germ was there. I think your . . . kisses must have waked it into life. That was why they upset me so. And when I came back, I meant to . . . Oh why should we rake it all up again? It hurts too much."

"But I must know everything now, Quita. You meant to tell me,--was that it?"

"Yes. Though I own it was rather late in the day. Then you sprang it upon me with that letter. I detest the man who wrote it, and I always shall. There was just enough of truth in it, and in your bitter reproaches, to make me feel the hopelessness of lame explanations.

Besides, your anger frightened me, though I didn't show it; and I simply acted on a blind impulse to escape from the unknown things ahead; to get back to the love and work I could understand."

"My poor darling! What a blackguard I was to you!"

"Hush! You are not to say that."

"I will. It's true. But . . . didn't you care a great deal for the other chap?"

"I imagined I did. Girls can't always a.n.a.lyse new feelings of that sort. I can see now that it was chiefly mental sympathy between us, on my side at least. But I only discovered that when the real thing came--in a flash."

"When was that?" he asked on a note of eagerness.

"One May morning on the Kajiar road! I knew then that I must have cared always, without guessing it. But your coolness roused my pride; and I vowed that if you had wiped me out of your heart, I would die sooner than let you suspect my discovery. Yet all the while I longed for you to know it; and in the end, goaded by your blindness, and your astonishing want of conceit, I break my pride into a hundred little bits. _Ai-je ete a.s.sez femme_?" she concluded with a whimsical smile.

One of her hands lay on the gra.s.s beside him. He covered it with his own.

"And was the amazing discovery responsible for the Garth episode?" His tone had a hint of anxiety.

"For the latter part of it, yes; though we have been friends all the winter. He is at least moderately intelligent; and an intelligent egoist is always interesting. Besides, companionship is the breath of life to me, you understand; and I seldom manage to make friends with women."

"The other kind of friendship is an edged tool."

"And therefore irresistible! It's like fencing with the b.u.t.tons off the foils."

"You speak from much practical experience?"

"Yes. I have had my share of it. But please believe me, Eldred,"--she hesitated,--"I have been as loyal to you in word and deed, all these years, as if I had borne your name, and lived under your roof. In spite of my weakness for edged tools, I have never let any man tell me that he loved me since you told me so yourself, in the dark ages. And if a few have wanted to do so, I could hardly help that, could I?"

"No more than you could help breathing or sleeping," he answered with a slow strong pressure of her hand.

"I know I ought not to have let Major Garth see so much of me after I saw how it was with him, but--since it's the whole truth to-night--I confess your aloofness hurt me so, that I wanted to see if I could rouse you to a spark of feeling by hurting you back, and I chose the weapon readiest to my hand."

"You struck deep with it. Does the knowledge give you any satisfaction?"

"It fills my cup of shame to overflowing. Yet,--come to think of things, you did much the same without realising it."

"Which makes a vast difference, surely?"

"Not to me, _mon ami_. It is only G.o.d who judges by the intention; possibly because He never suffers from the action."

"Quita! That's irreverent!"

"Is it? I'm sorry if it sets your Scottish p.r.i.c.kles on end! Are you . . . a very religious man, Eldred?"

"I believe in G.o.d," he answered simply.

A short silence followed the statement. Then Quita spoke.

"But you see, don't you, dear man, that I spoke truth. My pain was none the less sharp because you inflicted it unwittingly. It's one of the things people are apt to forget."

"Your pain? Before G.o.d I never dreamed that any act of mine could give you a minute's uneasiness; though Mrs Desmond . . ."

"Don't begin about Mrs Desmond, please!" She drew her hand away with a touch of impatience. "She is everything that is perfect, of course.

But I hate her; and I believe I always shall."

Lenox turned on his elbow and looked up into her face.

"My dear . . . I can't let you speak so of my best friend. We owe her everything, you and I. You shall hear about it all one of these days.

And apart from that, she is . . ."

"Yes, yes. I can see what she is, clearly enough. A superbly beautiful woman, outside and in, who possesses a good deal of influence over you. I can be just to her, you see, if I am . . . jealous."

"Jealous? Nonsense. The word is an insult to her, and to me."

She reddened under the reproof in his tone.