"Man cannot live by bread alone, Penny--nor scenery either. I just yearned for London. So I came."

The next morning, much to Nan's surprise, brought neither letter nor telegram from Roger.

"I quite expected a wire: 'Return at once. All will be forgiven,'" she said frivolously, as lunch time came and still no message.

"Perhaps he isn't prepared to forgive you," suggested Ralph.

Nan stared at him without answering, her eyes dilating curiously. She had never even dreamed of such a possibility, and a sudden wild hope flamed up within her.

"It's rather a knock to a man's pride, you know, if the girl he's engaged to does a bolt the moment his back's turned," pursued Ralph.

"It was madness!" said Penelope with the calmness of despair.

Nan remained silent. Neither their praise nor blame would have affected her one iota at the moment. All that mattered was whether, without in the least intending to do it, she had cut the cords which bound her so irrevocably. Was it conceivable that Roger's pride would be so stung by her action in running away from Trenby Hall during his absence that he would never wish to see her again--far less make her his wife?

She had never contemplated the matter from that angle. But now, as Ralph put it before her, she realised that the att.i.tude he indicated might reasonably be that of most men in similar circ.u.mstances.

Her heart beat deliriously at the very thought. If release came this way--by Roger's own decision--she would be free to take it! The price of the blunder she had made when she pledged herself to him--a price which was so much heavier than she could possibly have imagined--would be remitted.

And from the depths of her soul a fervent, disjointed prayer went up to heaven:

"G.o.d, G.o.d, please don't let him forgive me--don't let him ever forgive me!"

CHAPTER XXV

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

Nan was rather silent as the Fentons' big car purred its way through the crowded streets towards Westminster. For the moment the possible consequences of her flight from Trenby Hall had been thrust aside into a corner of her mind and her thoughts had slipped back to that last meeting with Maryon, when she had shown him so unmistakably that she, at least, had ceased to care.

She had hated him at the moment, rejoicing to be free from the strange, perverse attraction he held for her. But, viewed through the softening mists of memory, a certain romance and charm seemed to cling about those days when she had hovered on the border-line of love for him, and her heart beat a little faster at the thought of meeting him again.

Ralph Fenton had only a vague knowledge of the affair, but he dimly recollected that there had been something--a pa.s.sing flirtation, he fancied--between Maryon and Nan in bygone days, and he proceeded to chaff her gently on the subject as they drove to the studio.

"Poor old Rooke will get a shock, Nan, when we dump you on to him this afternoon," he said. "He won't be antic.i.p.ating the arrival of an old flame."

She flushed a little, and Ralph continued teasingly:

"You'll really have to be rather nice to him! He's paid pretty dearly for his foolishness in bartering love for filthy lucre."

Penelope frowned at her husband, much as one endeavours to frown down the observations of an _enfant terrible_.

"Don't be such an idiot, Ralph," she said severely.

He grinned delightedly.

"Old fires die hard, Penny. Do you think it is quite right of us to introduce Nan on the scene again? She's forbidden fruit now, remember."

"And doubtless Maryon _will_ remember it," retorted Penelope tartly.

"I think," pursued Fenton, "it's not unlike inserting a match into a powder barrel. Rooke"--reflectively--"always reminds me somewhat of a powder barrel. And Nan is by no means a safety match--warranted to produce a light from the legitimate box and none other!"

"I wish," observed Nan plaintively, "that you wouldn't discuss me just as if I weren't here."

They all laughed, and then, as the car slowed down to a standstill at Maryon's door, the conversation came to an end.

Rooke had established himself in one of the big and comparatively inexpensive houses in Westminster, in that pleasant, quiet backwater which lies within the shadow of the beautiful old Abbey, away from the noisy stream of general traffic. The house had formerly been the property of another artist who had built on to it a large and well-equipped studio, so that Rooke had been singularly fortunate in his purchase.

Nan looked about her with interest as the door swung open, admitting them into a fair-sized hall. The thick Eastern carpet, the dim, blue-grey hangings on the walls, the quaint brazen lamps--hushing the modern note of electric light behind their thick gla.s.s panes--spoke eloquently of Maryon. A faint fragrance of cedar tinged the atmosphere.

The parlourmaid--unmistakably a twentieth-century product--conducted them into a beautiful Old English room, its walls panelled in dark oak, while heavy oaken beams traversed the ceiling. Logs burned merrily on the big open hearth, throwing up showers of golden sparks. Above the chimneypiece there was a wonderful old plaster coat-of-arms, dating back to the seventeenth century, and the watery gleams of sunshine, filtering in through the diamond panes of latticed windows, fell lingeringly on the waxen surface of an ancient dresser. On the dresser shelves were lodged some willow-pattern plates, their clear, tender blue bearing witness to an early period.

"How like Maryon it all is!" whispered Nan.

And just then Rooke himself came into the room. He had altered very little. It was the same supple, loose-limbed figure that approached.

The pointed Van Dyck beard was as carefully trimmed, the hazel eyes, with their misleading softness of appeal, as arresting as of old.

Perhaps he bore himself with a little more a.s.surance. There might have been a shade less of the Bohemian and a shade more of the successful artist about him.

But Rooke would never suffer from the inordinate complacency which spoils so many successful men. Always it would be tempered by that odd, cynical humour of his. Beautiful ladies who gushed at him merely amused him, and received in return some charming compliment or other that rang as hollow as a kettle-drum. Politicians who came to him for their portraits were gently made to feel that their favourite oratorical att.i.tude--which they inevitably a.s.sumed when asked to pose themselves quite naturally--was not really overwhelmingly effective, while royalties who perforce condescended to attend his studio--since he flatly declined to paint them in their palaces--found that he was inclined to overlook the matter of their royal blood and to portray them as though they were merely men and women.

There was an amusing little story going the rounds in connection with a certain peeress--one of the "new rich" fraternity--who had recently sat to Rooke for her portrait. Her husband's t.i.tle had presumably been conferred in recognition of the arduous services--of an industrial and financial nature--which he had rendered during the war. The lady was inclined to be refulgent on the slightest provocation, and when Rooke had discussed with her his ideas for her portrait she had indignantly repudiated his suggestion that only a simple evening gown and furs should be worn.

"But it will look like the picture of a mere n.o.body," she had protested. "Of--of just anyone!"

"Of anyone--or someone," came Rooke's answer. "The portrait of a great lady should be able to indicate . . . which."

The newly-fledged peeress proceeded to explain that her own idea had been that she should be painted wearing her state robes and coronet--plus any additional jewels which could find place on her person.

Maryon bowed affably.

"But, by all means," he agreed. "Only, if it is of them you require a portrait, you must go to Gregoire Marni. He paints still-life."

Rooke came into the room and greeted his visitors with outstretched hands.

"My dear Penelope and Ralph," he began cordially. "This is good of busy people like yourselves--"

He caught sight of the third figure standing a little behind the Fentons and stopped abruptly. His eyes seemed to flinch for a moment.

Then he made a quick step forward.

"Why, Nan!" he exclaimed. "This is a most charming surprise."

His voice and manner were perfectly composed; only his intense paleness and the compression of his fine-cut nostrils betrayed any agitation.

Nan had seen that "white" look on his face before.

Then Penelope rushed in with some commonplace remark and the brief tension was over.

"Come and see my Mrs. T. Van Decken," said Rooke presently. "The light's pretty fair now, but it will be gone after tea."