Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 10, 2025
String-bed. "Why was the pause prolonged, but that singing should issue thence? Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized!" Browning. Quita Lenox lay back in a long low chair, lost in thought, her hands clasped behind her head, the folds of her dull-blue tea-gown trailing on the carpet.
But one had to tell you. It's Honor . . ." He could get no further: but his eyes were terribly eloquent; and the silence held them all as in a vice. The awakening woman in Quita gave her courage to break it. "May I go to her?" she pleaded. "And help her . . if one can?" Though the plea was addressed to Desmond, she glanced first at Lenox, and read approval in his eyes. But Desmond shook his head.
"I am glad of that too. For I want very much to be good friends with Captain 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.
Desmond remarked, handing her empty cup across to his wife. Quita laughed. "You are incorrigible!" said she. "But there is still this to think of. With your friends coming and going, how am I to be . . accounted for till I have seen . . Eldred? If I am Miss Maurice, par exemple, what am I doing in Dera Ishmael? And if not . . ? Mon Dieu, but it's an ignominious tangle.
"Dear, I did. More than you imagine. But I wanted . . to help you in spite of yourself; and I hoped we could fight it out together." He shook his head. "Don't think me brutal, Quita, but a man's got to fight out this sort of thing alone with his own soul . . and God. You can only help just by . . loving me, and believing that I shall pull through.
He brought his hand sharply down on the table. "Quita, you are talking childish nonsense. Why the dickens can't you leave me in peace till I'm through? I shan't be much longer now: and you can lecture me on the whole duty of husbands all the evening, if you've a mind to." "Indeed I've not. Duty never gets a word in edgeways, while Love is master of the house.
"N . . no," he said at length. "Better stop and play with Dick. When I come back I'll get you up into the trap, old man, and take you for a drive before dinner. Who's coming, Quita? Just the Desmonds and Courtenay?" "Yes; and the Ollivers." "I'm glad. She's good company." "Which is more than I can say of him," Quita remarked, as the door closed behind her husband. "And he takes me in. Poor me!
Honor stood silent, gazing at the picture with rapt interest. To this deep-hearted passionate woman, whose sympathies stretched upward and downward along the whole gamut of human feeling, its appeal was far stronger than Quita in whom passion was mainly an imaginative quality was likely to realise.
Is he the sort that would be likely to understand . . our very incomprehensible position?" Honor took a leather frame from the table beside her, and put it into Quita's hands. "If you are any judge of faces, that's the best answer I can give you." Quita scanned the picture abstractedly for several seconds. "Yes. He'll do," was her verdict.
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.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking