"To Roger! Nan, you don't mean it? It isn't true?"

"It is--perfectly true. Have you anything to say against it?"--defiantly.

"Everything. He's the last man in the world to make you happy."

"Time will decide that. In any case he's coming on Monday for my answer. And that will be 'yes.' So you and Ralph can have your banns put up with a clear conscience--as the only just cause and impediment is now removed."

Penelope was silent.

"You ought to be rather pleased with me than otherwise," insisted Nan.

When at length Penelope replied, it was with a certain gravity.

"My dear, matrimony is one of the affairs of life in which it is fatal to accept second best. You can do it in hats and frocks--it's merely a matter of appearances--although you'll never get quite the same satisfaction out of them. But you can't do it in boots and shoes. You have to walk in those--and the second best wear out at once. Matrimony is the boots and shoes of life."

"Well, at least it's better to have the second quality--than to go barefoot."

"I don't think so. Nan, do wait a little. Don't, in a fit of angry pique over Maryon Rooke, go and bind yourself irrevocably to someone else."

"Penny, the bluntness of your methods is deplorable. Instead of insinuating that I am accepting Roger as a _pis-aller_, it would be more seemly if you would congratulate me and--wish me luck."

"I do--oh, I do, Nan. But, my dear--"

"No buts, please. Surely I know my own business best? I a.s.sure you, Roger and I will be a model couple--an example, probably, to you and Ralph! You'll--you'll say 'yes' to him to-morrow when he comes back again, won't you, Penny?"

"He isn't coming back to-morrow."

"I think he is." Nan smiled. "You'll say 'yes' then?"

Penelope looked at her very straightly.

"Would you marry Roger in any case--whether I accepted Ralph or not?"

she asked.

Nan lied courageously.

"I should marry Roger in any case," she answered quietly.

A long silence ensued. Presently Nan broke it, her voice a little sharpened by the tension of the moment.

"So when Ralph comes back you'll be--kind to him, Penny? You'll give him the answer he wants?"

Penelope's face was hidden by a curtain of dark hair. After a moment an affirmative came softly from behind the curtain.

With a sudden impulse Nan threw her arms round her and kissed her.

"Oh, Penny! Penny! I do hope you'll be _very_ happy!" she exclaimed in a stifled voice. Then slipped from the room like a shadow--very noiselessly and swiftly--to lie on her bed hour after hour staring up into the blackness with wide, tearless eyes until sheer bodily exhaustion conquered the tortured spirit which could find neither rest nor comfort, and at last she slept.

CHAPTER XII

THE DOUBLED BARRIER

Except for one of Trenby's frequent telephone calls, enquiring as to Nan's progress, Sat.u.r.day pa.s.sed uneventfully enough until the evening.

Then, through the clear summer dusk Kitty discerned the Mallow car returning from the station whither it had been sent to meet Ralph's train.

Hurrying down the drive, she saw Ralph lean forward and speak to the chauffeur who slowed down to a standstill, while he himself sprang out and came eagerly to her side.

"You angelic woman!" he exclaimed fervently. "How did you manage it?

Will she--will she really--"

"I think she will," answered Kitty, smiling. "So you needn't worry.

But I'm not the _dea ex machina_ to whom you owe the 'happy ending.'

Nan managed it--in some incomprehensible way of her own."

"Then blessed be Nan!" said Ralph piously, as he opened the door of the car for her to enter. Two minutes' further driving brought them to the house.

Following his hostess's instructions, Ralph remained outside, and as Kitty entered the great hall, alone, a white-clad figure suddenly made as though to escape by a further door.

"Come back, Penny," called Kitty, a hint of kindly mischief in her voice. "You'll just get half an hour to yourselves before the dressing-bell rings. Afterwards we shall expect to see you both, clothed and in your right minds, at dinner."

The still look of happiness that had dwelt all day in Penelope's eyes woke suddenly into radiance, just as you may watch the calm surface of the sea, when the tide is at its full, break into a hundred sparkling ripples at the vivifying touch of a wandering breeze.

She turned back hesitatingly, looking all at once absurdly young and a little frightened--this tall and stately Penelope--while a faint blush-rose colour ran swiftly up beneath the pallor of her skin, and her eyes--those nice, humorous brown eyes of hers that always looked the world so kindly and honestly in the face--held the troubled shyness of a little child.

Kitty laid a gentle hand on her arm.

"Run along, my chicken," she said, suddenly feeling a thousand years old as she saw Penelope standing, virginal and sweet, at the threshold of the gate through which she herself had pa.s.sed with happy footsteps years ago--that gate which opens to the wondering fingers of girlhood, laid so tremulously upon love's latch, and which closes behind the woman, shutting her into paradise or h.e.l.l.

"Run along, my chicken. . . . And give Ralph my blessing!"

It was not until the next day, towards the end of lunch, that Ralph shot his bolt from the blue. Other matters--which seemed almost too good to be true in the light of Penelope's unqualified refusal of him three days ago--had occupied his mind to the exclusion of everything else. Nor, to give him his due, was he in the least aware that he was administering any kind of shock, since he was quite ignorant as to the actual state of affairs betwixt Nan and Maryon Rooke.

It was Kitty herself who inadvertently touched the spring which let loose the bolt.

"What's the news in town, Ralph?" she asked. "Surely you gleaned _something_, even though you were only there for a single night?"

Fenton laughed.

"Would I dare to come back to you without the latest?" he returned, smiling. "The very latest is that Maryon Rooke is to be married."

A silence followed, as though a bombsh.e.l.l had descended in their midst and scattered the whole party to the four winds of heaven.

Then Kitty, making a desperate clutch at her self-possession, remarked rather superficially: