"I can't help it. Roger and I never see things in the same light, and--and oh, Sandy, you might try to understand!" she ended appealingly.

"I think I do," he returned. "But it isn't cricket, Nan. You can kick me out of the house if you like for saying it, but I don't think you ought to have Maryon Rooke around so much."

She flushed hotly.

"He's painting my portrait," she protested.

"Taking a jolly long time over it, too--and making love to you in the intervals, I suppose."

"Sandy!"

"Well, isn't he?" Sandy's green eyes met hers unflinchingly.

"Anyway, _I'm_ not in love with _him_."

"I should hope not," he observed drily, "seeing that you're going to be Mrs. Trenby."

She gave an odd little laugh.

"That wouldn't make an insuperable barrier, would it? I don't suppose--love--notices whether we're married or single when it comes along."

Something in the quality of her voice filled him with a sudden sense of fear. Hitherto he had attributed the trouble between Nan and Roger entirely to the difference in their temperaments. Now, for the first time, a new light was flashed upon the matter. Her tone was so sharply bitter, like that of one chafing against some actual happening, that his mind leaped to the possibility that there might be some more tangible force arrayed against Roger's happiness. And if this were the case, if Nan's love were really given elsewhere, then, knowing her as he did, Sandy foresaw the likelihood of some rash and headlong ending to it all.

He was silent, pondering this aspect of the matter. She watched him curiously for a few moments, then, driven, by one of those strange impulses which sometimes fling down all the barriers of reserve, she broke into rapid speech.

"You needn't grudge me Maryon's friendship! I've lost everything in the world worth having--everything real, I mean. Sometimes I feel as though I can't bear it any longer! And Maryon interests me . . . he's a sort of mental relation. . . . When I'm with him I can forget even Peter for a little. . . ."

She broke off, pacing restlessly backwards and forwards, her hands interlocked, her face set in a white mask of tragedy. All at once she came to a standstill in front of Sandy and remained staring at him with an odd kind of surprise in her eyes.

"What on earth have I been talking about?" she exclaimed, pa.s.sing her hand across her forehead and peering at him questioningly. "Sandy, have you been listening? You shouldn't listen to what other people are thinking. It's rude, you know." She laughed a little hysterically.

"You must just forget it all, Sandy boy."

Sandy had been listening with a species of horror to the sudden outpouring. He felt as though he had overheard the crying of a soul which has reached the furthest limit of its endurance. In Nan's disjointed, broken sentences had been revealed the whole piteous truth, and in those two short words, "_Even Peter_!" lay the key to all he had found so difficult to understand. It was Peter Mallory she loved--not Roger, nor Maryon Rooke!

He had once met Mallory and had admired the man enormously. The meeting had occurred during the summer preceding that which had witnessed Nan's engagement to Roger. Peter had been paying a flying week-end visit to the Seymours, and Sandy had taken a boy's instinctive liking to the brilliant writer who never "sw.a.n.ked," as the lad put it, but who understood so well the bitter disappointment of which Duncan McBain's uncompromising att.i.tude towards music had been the cause. And this was the man Nan loved and who loved her!

With instinctive tact, Sandy refrained from any comment on Nan's outburst. Instead, he pushed her gently into a chair, talking the while, so that she might have time to recover herself a little.

"I tell you what it is, Nan," he said with rough kindness. "You've overdone it a bit working at that concerto, and instead of giving yourself a holiday, you've been tiring yourself still more by sitting for your portrait. You may find Rooke mentally refreshing if you like, but posing for him hour after hour is a confounded strain, physically.

Now, you take your good Uncle Sandy's advice and let the portrait slide for a bit. You might occupy yourself by making arrangements for the production of the concerto."

"I don't feel any interest in it," she said slowly. "It's funny, isn't it, Sandy? I was so keen about it when I was writing it. And now I think it's rotten."

"It isn't," said Sandy. "It's good stuff, Nan. Anyone would tell you so."

"Do you think so?" she replied, without enthusiasm.

He regarded her with an expression of anxiety.

"Oh, you mustn't drop the concerto," he protested. "That's always been your trick, Nan, to go so far and no further."

"It's a very good rule to follow--in some things," she replied enigmatically.

"Well, look here, will you hand the ma.n.u.script over to me and let me show it to someone?"

"No, I won't," she said with decision. "I hate the concerto now. It has--it has unpleasant a.s.sociations. Let it rest in oblivion."

He shrugged his shoulders in despair.

"You're the most aggravating woman I know," he remarked irritably.

In an instant Nan was her own engaging self once more. It was instinctive with her to try and charm away an atmosphere of disapproval.

"Don't say that, Sandy," she replied, making a beseeching little _moue_. "You know it would be awfully boring if I always did just exactly what you were expecting me to do. It's better to be aggravating than--dull!"

Sandy smiled. Nan was always quite able to make her peace with him when she chose to.

"Well, no one can complain that you're dull," he acknowledged.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

TOWARDS UNKNOWN WAYS

The afternoon post had just been delivered and the postman was already whizzing his way down the drive on his scarlet-painted bicycle as Lady Gertrude unlocked the private post-bag appertaining to Trenby Hall.

This was one of the small jobs usually delegated to her niece, but for once the latter was away on holiday, staying with friends at Penzance.

The bag yielded up some bills and a solitary letter, addressed in Isobel's looped and curly writing. It was not an easy hand to read, and Lady Gertrude produced her pince-nez to a.s.sist in deciphering it.

For the most part it dealt with small incidents of her visit and dutiful enquiries concerning the progress of estate and domestic affairs at the Hall during her absence. But just before the end--where it might linger longest in the memory--came a paragraph which riveted Lady Gertrude's attention.

"And how about Nan's portrait?" Isobel had written. "I suppose by this time it is finished and adorning the picture gallery? That is, if Roger has really succeeded in persuading Mr. Rooke to part with it. It certainly ought to be an _exceptional_ portrait, judging by the length of time it has taken to accomplish! Dear Aunt Gertrude, I cannot help thinking it was a mistake that Nan didn't give Mr. Rooke the sittings at his studio in town or, better still, have waited until after her marriage. People in the country are so apt to be censorious, aren't they? And there has been a good deal of comment on the matter, I _know_. I didn't wish to worry you about it, but I feel you and Roger really ought to know this."

"Letter from Isobel, mother? What's her news?"

Roger came striding into the room exactly as Lady Gertrude finished the perusal of her niece's epistle. She looked up with eyes that gleamed like hard, bright pebbles behind her pince-nez.

"The kind of news to which I fear we shall have to grow accustomed,"

she said acidly. "It appears that Nan is getting herself talked about in connection with that artist who is painting her portrait."

By the time she had finished speaking Roger's face was like a thundercloud.

"What do you mean? What does Isobel say?" he demanded.

"You had better read the letter for yourself," replied his mother, pushing it towards him.