"Climb high, love high, what matter! Still . . .
Feet, feelings, must descend the hill."
—Browning.

On a certain afternoon of early March, Quita Lenox stood at her easel, in the small room she had fitted up as a studio, palette in one hand, long-handled brush in the other, two broken lines of irritation between her brows.

The verandah door stood wide; and through it the breath of spring came in to her, velvet soft, compact of a hundred nameless scents, mingled with the paramount scent of roses. For March is India's rose month: and in the midst of so much that is unlovely, the roses of Dera Ishmael Khan are things to marvel at, and thank Heaven for. Quita's rambling compound was packed with them, from the plebeian Cabbage, to the lordly MarÉchal Neil. Three golden buds of the latter drooped over the white ribbon bow at her waist: and a bowl of dark red ones stood on the untidy table behind her.

But even the subtle-sweet influence of the day failed to sooth the creases out of her forehead. For the panel picture on her easel would not 'behave'; her scattered ideas refused to range themselves: and the fount of inspiration seemed dried up within her: trifles insignificant enough to the 'lay' mind: but for the artist, whether of pencil, or brush, or chisel, they spell despair. All the morning she had wrestled with the picture half defiantly, as it were against the stream. Such work is seldom satisfactory; and since lunch she had been engaged in blotting it all out ruthlessly, bit by bit.

The refractory creation of her spirit was a small panel in oils: a subject picture, more or less symbolical, such as she did not often attempt:—a broken hillside, of Himalayan character: bare blocks of granite, dripping with recent rain, their dark corners and interstices alight with shy wild flowers and ferns: a stone-set path zigzagging among them, and half-way up the path, the figures of a man and woman: the man ahead, upon a jutting ledge of rock, half turning with down-stretched hand to draw the woman up after him, his vigorous form backed by a sky of driving cloud. Of the woman's face, as she lifted it to his, nothing could be seen save the outline of cheek and brow. Her bowed shoulders and the lines of her figure expressed effort, tinged with weariness. Below her, the topmost half of a deodar sprang upward, a suggestion of wind in its drooping bows: and through torn grey cloud, a sun-ray, striking across the two figures, waked coppery gleams in the woman's dark hair, and points of brightness on drenched rock and fern.

All these things were as yet conveyed rather than expressed: the figures, in particular, being still little more than studies suggesting both the strain and exhilaration of ascent. On a strip of cardboard propped above the canvas, four lines were scribbled in pencil.

"Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn till night, my friend."

Quita read and pondered the words for the hundredth time: but the hint of melancholy in them only increased her vague feeling of annoyance, and the lines deepened between her brows.

It was her first serious attempt at a picture after four months of idleness, and 'amateur scribblings'—so she designated them in her letters to Michael; and for the time being brain and hand seemed to have lost their cunning. She needed the stimulant of criticism, of discussion, to oil the wheels and set the machine going afresh. If only Michael were here, how they would have argued and squabbled, to their souls' content, over values, and proportions and effects of light and shade; and what a fine day's work would have sprung from it all!

"I really think I must get him down here for a week or two," she thought. "Just to give me a fillip in the right direction."

Fired by the notion, she made one or two ineffectual dabs at the woman's draperies: then, flinging down brush and palette, sank into a deep, cushioned chair sacred to her husband, as a small table bearing ash-tray, pipes, and a pile of corrected proofs, bore witness. She glanced through them lazily, with softened eyes: then, as if drawn by a magnet, her gaze returned to the picture.

"Horrid depressing thing!" the reflected. "And yet . . how attractive! The general character of it is rather like Eldred himself. I suppose I could produce nothing that wasn't at this stage! They are both up-hill subjects, certainly; worth tackling; and not to be mastered in a day."

But for all that she was little used to wrestling with her art. The touch of genius in her was of the spontaneous, rather than of the painstaking order; and a remembered word of Michael's rose up to disconcert her. "Succumb to your womanhood and there is an end of your Art." Irritating man! What business had he to make random shots so near to the truth. Yet it was not the whole truth; and hers was the chance to prove it.

Certainly for the past six months and more, she had succumbed unreservedly to her womanhood; had endured without a pang the temporary eclipse of her art. What need to strive after the presentation, the expression of life, when she had penetrated to the core of it: was living it buoyantly, fervently, with every faculty of heart and spirit? By nature a being of extremes, she was apt to fling all her energies in one direction at a time: and in these last months of so-called idleness she had been mastering the rudiments of the finest and most complex of all arts,—the art of living in closest human relationship with 'a creature of equal, if of unlike frailties'; an art that must be mastered afresh, year by year: because life, as we know it, is rooted in change; and if a husband and wife are not imperceptibly growing towards one another, they are almost infallibly growing in the other direction. But for the artist woman self-surrender is no natural instinct: it is a talent to be consciously acquired, if she ever acquire it at all: and although Quita had, in some sort, been through the fire, she was still a novice in those 'profound and painless lessons of love,' that can only be taught in the incomparable school of marriage.

Meanwhile, she was learning her husband,—in his own phrase,—like a new language; and enjoying the process, despite its undeniable difficulty. For the man was by temperament inarticulate, and a solitary: propensities aggravated by six years of bitterness, and stifled passion. Let his love be never so deep and true, the spell of isolation, the spirit that drives men into the wilderness, was as strong in him as the need to share thought and feeling with the heart nearest her own was in his wife. At no time could he have been classed among the frankly unthinking men who slip into marriage as composedly as they slip into a new suit of clothes: and at five-and-thirty, the complete readjustment of life and habit demanded by this exquisite yet exacting bond could not be arrived at without some degree of conscious strain and compromise.

The past few weeks had revealed to both, more or less clearly, the 'sea of contrarieties' through which they were called upon to steer without capsizing; had brought them to that critical turning-point when the first rapture of passion in possession subsides imperceptibly, into an emotion deeper and more stable; when the insignificant outer world resumes its normal proportions; and individuality reasserts itself, often with disconcerting results!

Hence Quita's revived zeal to finish a picture begun and flung aside months ago; and Eldred's unusually prompt response to a request from an Editor friend in England for a set of articles on Tibet, whose holy of holies had not then been unveiled and described for the benefit of man's insatiable curiosity.

He was in his study now, finishing the first of them in time for the homeward mail: unconsciously enjoying a return to the familiar occupation. The writing of it had engrossed more of his mind and leisure during the last week than Quita chose to consider quite admissible in those early days. Her own absorption in her picture was quite another matter, be it understood! And, in truth, she would gladly have had him in the studio, ensconced in his own chair, and available for argument or love-making according to her mood. Hitherto she had resisted temptations to invade his study when she knew him to be at work. But this afternoon a vague spirit of unrest had gotten hold of her, making the thought of his diligence, and complacent detachment from her, peculiarly exasperating; and before long exasperation drove her to the door of his sanctum.

It stood ajar: and pushing it open, she went softly in. His back was towards her, and his concentration so complete that he was not aware of her till she stood at his elbow. Then he started and looked up with a smothered exclamation of doubtful character.

"Hullo, my lady, I thought this was against regulations! What's up?"

She perched lightly on the arm of his chair.

"Nothing's up. I'm rather 'down,' that's all; or I wouldn't have infringed your territorial rights! Do leave off being a model of industry, and come into the studio."

"But, my dear girl, . . why?"

"Because I want you. Isn't that reason enough? There'll be plenty of time to finish grinding out dry-as-dust facts about Tibet after tea."

"I'm afraid not. I told Desmond I'd get down to the tent-pegging early. Is it really anything important, lass?" he added, controlling his impatience with an effort.

"Oh dear, no, not the least in the world!" She was on her feet now: head erect: dignity incarnate. "Unless it is important to do what your wife asks you with good grace. But I believe little illusions of that kind are warranted not to outlast four months of marriage."

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. If it ever comes to 'duty' between you and me, I shall pack my kit and go, I promise you. It's the reality or nothing for me.—But don't hurry your work on my account, mon ami," she added, on her way to the door. "I shall probably drive over to Honor's, and leave you in peace till dinner-time. In fact, you have my permission to dine at mess for a change, if it would amuse you."

And as he turned quickly with remonstrance on his lips, the door closed behind her. With a sigh that ended in a smile, he took up his pen again: wishing her back the moment she was out of reach. For beneath his surface equanimity, the man in him was still thrilling under the emotion and astonishment of absolute possession; under the hallowing sense of permanence that at once calmed and exalted the fever heat of passion.

But Quita returned to her studio feeling more out of tune than ever. It was her own foolish fault, of course, for interrupting him: a form of knowledge that has never yet made for consolation. And while she stood alone before her picture, wondering whether she really would order the trap and go over to the Desmonds, footsteps in the verandah heralded Honor's appearance in the doorway:—a glowing Honor, looking remarkably young and fresh in a long, loose alpaca coat, and a shady Leghorn in which roses nodded: the peach-bloom of health back in her cheeks, the old buoyant stateliness in her step and carriage.

Quita flew to her with a little cry.

"Honor, you dear woman! How engaging of you to turn up, just when I was wanting you, and feeling too lazy to go and find you."

The kiss that passed between them was a real one; not the perfunctory peck of greeting that usurps its name. For, as flowers most exquisite spring from strangely unpromising soil, so had those two weeks of isolation and heart-hunger on the unloveliest hill-top of Northern India generated an enduring friendship between these two women, so unlike in outward seeming: a deeper thing than the facile feminine interchange of Christian names and kisses.

"Come your ways in, you patent radiator of happiness!" And Quita would have thrust her friend into Eldred's chair: but Honor, catching sight of the picture, went eagerly up to it.

"My dear, how remarkable! When did you begin it?"

"Ages ago, in Dalhousie; and now I want to finish it. But the lamp of inspiration won't burn. I'm afraid the wick's gone mouldy from disuse."

But Honor was reading the lines above the canvas.

"Ah, I see! Christina Rossetti," she said. "Quita, you must finish this. It's going to be very good. I love that little poem."

"Yes, you would. I've always rebelled against it. But last year when everything seemed such a struggle, the lines haunted me so, that I tried to get rid of them by turning them into a picture; and that's the result. Rather like Eldred and me! He's always dragging me up on to higher ground: yet he's so divinely unconscious of it all the time."

"Dear fellow!" Honor said softly. "But he hasn't done all the lifting. You've made a new man of him, Quita."

"Have I?" Sudden seriousness shadowed her eyes. "It was the least I could do, . . considering all things. Only . . I wish he wasn't quite so inward; so in love with his own company."

"You'll change that, in time."

"Do you think so? I wonder."

She bent in speaking to look through three or four small canvases that stood with their faces to the wall.

"I want to show you the pair to my Up-Hill picture. It's another Rossetti, Amor Mundi; and the contrast pleases me. I've taken the opening lines:

"'Oh where are you going, with your love-locks flowing,
On the west wind blowing, along this valley track?'
'The down-hill path is easy; come with me, an' it please ye;
We shall escape the up-hill, by never turning back.'
So they two went together, in glowing August weather,
The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right . .'

There now, can't you see them going down and down . . . ?"

With a quick turn of the wrist she brought the picture into view, and set it on the table in a good light.

"Can't you feel the soft wind against their faces, . . the ease, the swiftness, and the thrill of it all; the thrill of yielding to earth and the beauty of earth, of giving up for a while one's futile strugglings to reach the moon?"

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. For the small picture was heavy with heat and colour, and the glamour of high mid-summer; the sky's blue intensity glowing between masses of white thunderous cloud; the hillsides clothed in their August splendour of purple, and pink, and green: and down the white track that sloped to the valley a man and a woman, hand in hand, the woman leading, appeared to be coming straight out of the picture. Her flying hair, and the sweep of her draperies, showed the speed of their going; and the ecstasy of it shone in the faces of both.

"It's a powerful little poem," Quita exclaimed. "As they go on they meet with grisly portents, the track gets steeper, and they are afraid. But by that time it is 'too steep for hill-mounting, and too late for cost-counting; the down-hill path is easy, but there's no turning back.'"

Honor gave a little shiver.

"It's a wonderful bit of work," she said. "But is it always the man who leads up, and the woman who leads down, Quita?"

"No. By no manner of means! I happened to see it so in those two instances. Probably the sainted Christina saw it the other way round.—But come and sit in Eldred's chair now, and let's get back to realities."

"Realities? Why, my dear, your pictures touch the height and depth of the biggest realities. I never knew you did that sort of thing."

"I don't as a rule. But those poems possessed me."

"Well, I can only say, go on and do more."

"I will . . if I can." And gently pushing Honor into the chair, she settled herself on the carpet, and flung an arm over her friend's knee. "It's high time I started work again. I've been idling far too long."

Honor smiled. "Don't be in a hurry to put an end to it, dear. It's one of the divinest and most profitable kinds of idling you will ever know. You are building up your future in these first months together."

Quita's sigh was a little anxious, though not sad.

"Are we? Well, I hope we've got the foundations right," she said, looking thoughtfully up into the other's face. Something in its veiled brilliance caught her attention, and bent her flexible mind in another direction. "Do you know, Honor," she went on, "you've blossomed out amazingly just lately. Your eyes are shining like two stars, as if you had some heavenly secret hidden behind them."

"It's an open secret, and a very human one!" Honor answered, smiling.
"You are well on the way to discovering it for yourself."

With a low sound, Quita captured the hand lying near her own.

"Oh, you utter woman!" she murmured. "Is it still so beautiful . . . after three years?"

Honor's colour deepened. "It's more beautiful. Much more beautiful.
Because now . . there are two of them."

There was a moment of silence, while Quita fidgeted with the great square sapphire on her friend's wedding-finger.

"You'll think me dreadful," she said at last. "But I'm not quite sure that I see the logic of that. For the present, at all events, I only want Eldred, and these . . my spirit children," she indicated her pictures with a little nervous laugh. "You must make allowances for the artist woman, Honor. She so seldom feels and does the things she ought to feel and do!"

"That's just why she is apt to be so refreshing!—But believe me, Quita, the most perfect marriage is not quite perfect till it becomes 'the trio perfect,' three persons and one love. That's not fantastic idealism but simple fact. Besides," she hesitated and caressed a stray tendril of Quita's hair, "doesn't it seem to you a bigger thing, on the whole, to make men and women to the best of one's power, than to make books or pictures, even fine ones?"

"Yes, in some ways . . it does. And for that very reason I doubt whether I am fitted to make them. It's a gift, an art, like everything else. Not the creating of them, of course. That's a privilege, or a fatality, as the case may be! But the moulding of them, after they are created. You can't deny that they complicate things: and even at this stage, I find marriage a far more complicated affair than I imagined it to be. Didn't you?"

Honor's smile was sufficient evidence to the contrary. But she was old-fashioned enough to have a difficulty in talking about the hidden poem of her life.

"Perhaps we were exceptions, Theo and I," she said at last. "We knew one another . . intimately, before starting; and to live with him, and . . in him, seemed to come as natural as breathing. But then, my dear, I'm simply a wife and a mother: not a woman of genius, like you."

"Aren't you, indeed? Don't pulverise me with sarcasms, please! In my opinion this exquisite passion of yours for being 'simply a wife and a mother' is in itself a kind of genius: perhaps the highest there is. You see and feel the essential beauty of both relations so vividly that you make one see and feel it also; just as certain other kinds of women make one half-ashamed of being a woman at all! Yours is the temperament that gives, Honor, . . gives royally; and is always sure of return because it looks for none. While as for me, my present complications are the natural outcome,—multiplied by six years,—of my long-ago blindness and folly, that sprang from my capacity for taking, without a thought of giving in return. You see, Eldred and I have both an ample time to crystallise in different directions: and the years we let slip may be trusted to exact their debt to the uttermost farthing.—Ah, there he is!"

The words were a mere throb of the heart. She was on her feet when the man entered: and Honor, watching her face, thought she had never seen it so nearly beautiful. She herself rose also, with a prompt excuse for departure.

"I haven't even seen Theo since breakfast," she said as they shook hands. "Tent-pegging days are hopeless: and I promised to go down early. Don't trouble to come out with me, please."

But Lenox insisted: and on his return found Quita back at her canvas, to all appearance working diligently at a difficult bit of detail in one corner. She greeted him with lifted brows.

"Finished your article already?"

"No."

"Then what on earth are you doing, loafing about in here? I'm busy. I want to get this bit done before I go out."

"Do you though?" but instead of retreating, he came closer, deliberately confiscated palette and brushes, and drew her into his arms.

"Shall I send Desmond a 'chit,' to say 'I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come'?"

"Yes,—do. He'll forgive you."

"And shall we go for a long ride across country, when I'm through with my work: and look in at the tent-pegging later?"

For answer she leaned against him with a sigh of content.