"Surely that's not true? I thought Maryon was far too confirmed a bachelor to be beguiled into the holy bonds."

"It's perfectly true," returned Fenton. "First-hand source. I ran across Rooke himself and it was he who told me. They're to be married very shortly, I believe."

Fell another awkward silence. Then:

"So old Rooke will be in the cart with the rest of us poor married men," observed Barry, whose lazy blue eyes had yet contrived to notice that Nan's slim fingers were nervously occupied in crumbling her bread into small pieces.

"In the car, rather," responded Ralph, "The lady is fabulously wealthy, I believe. Former husband, a steel magnate or something of the sort."

"Well, that will help Maryon in his profession," said Nan, "with a quiet composure that was rather astonishing. But, as usual, in a social crisis of this nature, she seemed able to control her voice, though her restless fingers betrayed her.

"Yes, presumably that's why he's marrying her," replied Ralph. "It can't be a case of love at first sight"--grimly.

"Isn't she pretty, then?" asked Penelope.

"Plain as a pikestaff"--with emphasis. "I've met her once or twice--Lady Beverley."

It appeared from the chorus which followed that everyone present knew her more or less.

"I should think she is plain!" exclaimed Kitty heartily.

"Yes, she'd need to be very well gilded," commented her husband.

"You're all rather severe, aren't you?" suggested Lord St. John.

"After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

"Not with an artist," a.s.serted Nan promptly. "He can't see beauty where there isn't any."

To the depths of her soul she felt that this was true, and inwardly she recoiled violently from the idea of Maryon's marriage. She had been bitterly hurt by his treatment of her, but to a certain extent she had been able to envisage the whole affair from his point of view and to understand it.

A rising young artist, if he wishes to succeed, cannot afford to hamper himself with a wife and contend with the endless sordid details of housekeeping conducted on a necessarily economical scale. It slowly but surely deadens the artist in him--the delicate creative inspiration that is so easily smothered by material cares and worries. Nan refused to blame Maryon simply because he had not married her then and there.

But she could not forgive him for deliberately seeking her out and laying on her that strange fascination of his when, in his own heart, he must have known that he would always ultimately place his art before love.

And that he should marry Lady Beverley, a thoroughly commonplace woman hung round with the money her late husband had bequeathed her, Maryon's very ant.i.thesis in all that pertained to the beautiful--this sickened her. It seemed to her as though he were yielding his birthright in exchange for a mess of pottage.

Where was his self-respect that he could do this thing? The high courage of the artist to conquer single-handed? Not only had he trampled on the love which he professed to have borne her--and which, in her innermost heart, she knew he _had_ borne her--but he was trampling on everything else in life that mattered. She felt that his projected marriage with Lady Beverley was like the sale of a soul.

When lunch was over, the whole party adjourned to the terrace for coffee, and as soon as she decently could after the performance of this sacred rite, Nan escaped into the rose-garden by herself, there to wrestle with the thoughts to which Ralph's carelessly uttered news had given rise.

They were rather bitter thoughts. She was aware of an odd sense of loss, for whatever may have come between them, no woman ever quite believes that the man who has once loved her will eventually marry some other woman. Whether it happens early or late, it is always somewhat of a shock. These marriages deal such a blow at faith in the deathlessness of love, and whether the woman herself is married or not, there remains always a secret and very tender corner in her heart for the man who, having loved her unavailingly, has still found no other to take her place even twenty or thirty years later.

Nan was conscious of an unspeakably deserted feeling. Maryon had gone completely out of her life; Peter, the man she loved, could never come into it; and the only man who strove for entrance was, as Penelope had said, the last man in the world to make her happy.

Nevertheless, it seemed as though with gentle taps and pushes Fate were urging them together--forcing her towards Roger so that she might escape from forbidden love and the desperate fear and pain of it.

And then she saw him coming--it seemed almost as though her thought had drawn him--coming with swift feet over the gra.s.sy slopes of the park, too eager to follow the winding carriage-way, while the fallow-deer bounded lightly aside at the sound of his footsteps, halting at a safe distance to regard the intruder with big, timorous, velvety eyes.

Nan paused in the middle of the rose-garden, where a stone sundial stood--grey and weather-beaten, its warning motto half obliterated by the tender touches of the years:

"Time flies. Remember that each breath But wafts thy erring spirit nearer death."

Rather nervously, while she waited for Trenby to join her, she traced the ancient lettering with a slim forefinger. He crossed the lawn rapidly, pausing beside her, and without looking up she read aloud the grim couplet graven round the dial.

"That's a nice cheery motto," commented Trenby lightly. "They must have been a lugubrious lot in the good old days!"

"They weren't so afraid of facing the truth as we are," Nan made answer musingly. "I wonder why we always try to shut our eyes against the fact of death? . . . It's there waiting for us round the corner all the time."

"But there's life and love to come first," flashed out Roger.

Nan looked at him thoughtfully.

"Not for everyone," she said. Then suddenly: "Why are you here to-day, Roger? I told you to come on Monday."

"I know you did. But I couldn't wait. It was horrible, Nan, just getting a few words over the 'phone twice a day to say how you were. I had to see for myself."

His eyes sought her throat where the lash of the hunting-crop had wealed it. The mark had almost disappeared. With a sudden, pa.s.sionate movement he caught her in his arms and pressed his lips against the faint scar.

"Nan!" he said hoa.r.s.ely. "Nan, say 'yes'! Say it quickly!"

She drew away from him, freeing herself from the clasp of his arms.

"I'm not sure it is 'yes.' You must hear what I have to say first.

You wouldn't listen the other day. But to-day, Roger, you must--you _must_."

"You're not going to take back your promise?" he demanded jealously.

"It wasn't quite a promise, was it?" she said gently. "But it's for you to decide--when you know everything."

"Then I'll decide now," he answered quickly. "I want you--Nan, how I want you! I don't care anything at all about the past--I don't want to know anything--"

"But you must know"--steadily. "Perhaps when you know--you won't want me."

"I shall always want you."

Followed a pause. Then Nan, with an effort, said quietly:

"Do you want to marry a woman who has no love to give you?"

He drew a step nearer.

"I'll teach you how to love," he said unevenly. "I'll make you love me--love me as I love you."

"No, no," she answered. "You can't do that, Roger. You can't."

His face whitened. Then, with his piercing eyes bent on her as though to read her inmost thoughts, he asked: