"No. I haven"t booked a single further engagement. The ha"pence are due to an avuncular relative who has a quite inexplicable penchant for an idle niece."
"My congratulations. Still, I hope this unexpected windfall isn"t going to keep you off the concert platform altogether?"
"Not more than my own distaste for playing in public," she answered.
"I"d much rather write music than perform."
"I can hardly believe you really dislike the publicity? The fascination of it grows on most of us."
"I know it does. I suppose that accounts for the endless farewell concerts a declining singer generally treats us to."
There was an unwonted touch of sharpness in her voice, and Fenton glanced at her in some surprise. It was unlike her to give vent to such an acid little speech. He could not know, of course, that Kitty"s light-hearted remark concerning Peter Mallory"s facilities for studying the feminine temperament was still rankling somewhere at the back of her mind.
"There"s a big element of pathos in those farewell concerts," he submitted gently. "You pianists have a great advantage over the singer, whose instrument must inevitably deteriorate with the pa.s.sing years."
Nan"s quick sympathies responded instantly.
"I think I must be getting soured in my old age," she answered remorsefully. "What you say is dreadfully true. It"s the saddest part of a singer"s career. And I always clap my hardest at a farewell concert. I do, really!"
Fenton smiled down at her.
"I shall count on you, then, when I give mine."
Nan laughed.
"It"s a solemn pledge--provided I"m still c.u.mbering the ground. And now, tell me, are you singing here this evening?"
"I promised Mrs. Seymour. Would you be good enough to accompany?"
"I should love it. What are you going to sing?"
"Miss Craig and I proposed to give a duet."
"And here comes Kitty--to claim your promise, I guess."
A few minutes later the two singers" voices were blending delightfully together, while Nan"s slight, musician"s fingers threaded their way through intricacies of the involved accompaniment.
She was a wonderful accompanist--rarest of gifts--and when, at the end of the song, the restrained, well-bred applause broke out, Peter Mallory"s share of it was offered as much to the accompanist as to the singers themselves.
"Stay where you are, Nan," cried Kitty, as the girl half rose from the music-seat. "Stay where you are and play us something."
Knowing Nan"s odd liking for a dim light, she switched off most of the burners as she spoke, leaving only one or two heavily shaded lights still glowing. Mallory crossed the room so that, as he stood leaning with one elbow on the chimney-piece, he faced the player, on whose aureole of dusky hair one of the lights still burning cast a glimmer.
While he waited for her to begin, he was aware of a little unaccustomed thrill of excitement, as though he were on the verge of some discovery.
Hesitatingly Nan touched a chord or two. Then without further preamble she broke into the strange, suggestive music which Penelope had described as representing the murder of a soul. It opened joyously, the calm beginnings of a happy spirit; then came a note of warning, the first low muttering of impending woe. Gradually the simple melody began to lose itself in a chaos of calamity, bent and swayed by wailing minor cadences through whose torrent of hurrying sound it could be heard vainly and fitfully trying to a.s.sert itself again, only to be at last weighed down, crushed out, by a cataclysm of despairing chords.
Then, after a long, pregnant pause--the culminating silence of defeat--the original melody stole out once more, repeated in a minor key, hollow and denuded.
As the music ceased the lights sprang up again and Nan, looking across the room, met Mallory"s gaze intently bent upon her. In his expression she could discern that by a queer gift of intuition he had comprehended the whole inner meaning of what she had been playing. Most people would have thought that it was a magnificent bit of composition, particularly for so young a musician, but Mallory went deeper and knew it to be a wonderful piece of self-revelation--the fruit of a spirit sorely buffeted.
Almost instantaneously Nan realised that he had understood, and she was conscious of a fierce resentment. She felt as though an unwarrantable intrusion had been made upon her privacy, and her annoyance showed itself in the quick compression of her mouth. She was about to slip away under cover of the applause when Mallory laid a detaining hand upon her arm.
"Don"t go," he said. "And forgive me for understanding!"
Nan, sorely against her will, looked, up and met his eyes--eyes that were irresistibly kind and friendly. She hesitated, still anxious to escape.
"Please," he begged. "Don"t leave me"--his lips endeavouring not to smile--"in high dudgeon. It"s always seemed such an awful thing to be left in--like boiling oil."
Suddenly she yielded to the man"s whimsical charm and sank down again into her chair.
"That"s better." He smiled and seated himself beside her. "I couldn"t help it, you know," he said quaintly. "It was you yourself who told me."
"Told you what?"
"That the world hadn"t been quite kind."
Nan felt a sudden reckless instinct to tempt fate. There was already a breach in her privacy; for this one evening she did not care if the wall were wholly battered down.
"Tell me," she queried with averted head, "how--how much did you understand?"
Mallory scrutinised her reflectively.
"You really wish it?"
"Yes, really."
He was silent a moment. Then he spoke slowly, as though choosing his words.
"Fate has given you one of her back-handers, I think, and you want the thing you can"t have--want it rather badly. And just now--nothing seems quite worth while."
"Go on," she said very low.
He hesitated. Then, as if suddenly making up his mind to hit hard, as a surgeon might decide to use the knife, he spoke incisively:
"The man wasn"t worth it."
Nan gave a faint, irrepressible start. Recovering herself quickly, she contrived a short laugh.
"You don"t know him--" she began.
"But I know you."
"This is only our second meeting."
"What of that? I know you well enough to be sure--quite sure--that you wouldn"t give unasked. You"re too proud, too a.n.a.lytical, and--at present--too little pa.s.sionate."
Nan"s face whitened. It was true; she had not given unasked, for although Maryon Rooke had never actually asked her to marry him, his whole att.i.tude had been that of the demanding lover.
"You"re rather an uncanny person," she said at last, slowly. "You understand--too much."