"Who rang up?" asked Ralph.
"It was Kitty. She"s back in town. I"ve told her Nan is here, and she"s coming round at once. She said she"d got some bad news for her, but I think it"ll have to be kept from her. She isn"t fit to stand anything more just now."
Ralph pulled out his watch.
"I"m afraid I can"t stay to see Kitty," he said. "I"ve that oratorio rehearsal fixed for half-past ten."
"Then, my dear, you"d better get off at once," answered Penelope with her usual common sense. "You can"t do any good here, and it"s quite certain you"ll upset things there if you"re late."
So that when Kitty arrived, a few minutes later, it was Penelope alone who received her. She was looking very blooming after her sojourn in the south of France.
"I"ve left Barry behind at Cannes," she announced. "The little green tables have such a violent attraction for him, and he"s just evolved a new and infallible system which he wants to try. Funnily enough, I had a craving for home. I can"t think why--just in the middle of the season there! But I"m glad, now, that I came." Her small, piquant face shadowed suddenly. "I"ve bad news," she began abruptly, after a pause. Penelope checked her.
"Hear mine first," she said quickly. And launched into an account of the happenings of the last three days--Nan"s quarrel with Roger, her sudden rush up to town and unexpected meeting with Peter at Maryon"s studio, and finally the distraught condition in which she had discovered her last night after Peter had gone.
"Oh, Penny! How dreadful! How dreadful it all is!" exclaimed Kitty pitifully, when the other had finished. "I knew that Peter cared a long time ago. But not Nan! . . . Though I remember once, at Mallow, wondering the tiniest bit if she were losing her heart to him."
"Well, she"s done it. If you"d seen them last night, after they"d parted, you"d have had no doubts. They were both absolutely broken up."
Kitty moved restlessly.
"And I suppose it"s really my fault," she said unhappily. "I brought them together in the first instance. Penny, I was a fool. But I was so afraid--so afraid of Nan with Maryon. He might have made her do anything! He could have twisted her round his little finger at the time if he"d wanted to. Thank goodness he"d the decency not to try--that."
Penelope regarded her with an odd expression.
"Maryon"s still in love with Nan," she observed quietly, "I saw that at the studio."
Kitty laughed a trifle harshly.
"Nan must be "Maryon-proof" now, anyway," she a.s.serted.
Penelope remained silent, her eyes brooding and reflective. That odd, magician"s charm which Rooke so indubitably possessed might prove difficult for any woman to resist--doubly difficult for a woman whose entire happiness in life had fallen in ruins.
The entrance of the maid with a telegram gave her the chance to evade answering. She tore open the envelope and perused the wire with a puzzled frown on her face. Then she read it aloud for Kitty"s benefit, still with the same rather bewildered expression.
"_Is Nan with you? Reply Trenby, Century Club, Exeter._"
"I don"t understand it," she said doubtfully.
"_I_ do!"
She and Kitty both looked up at the sound of the mocking, contemptuous voice, Nan was standing, fully dressed, on the threshold of the room.
"Nan!" Penelope almost gasped. "I thought you were still asleep!"
Nan glanced at her curiously.
"I"ve not been asleep--all night," she said evenly. "I asked your maid for a cup of tea some time ago. How d"you do, Kitty?"
She kissed the latter perfunctorily, her thoughts evidently preoccupied. She was very pale and heavy violet shadows lay beneath her eyes. To Penelope it seemed as though she had become immensely frailer and more fragile-looking in the pa.s.sage of a single night.
Refraining from comment, however, she held out the telegram.
"What does it mean, Nan?" she asked. "I thought you said you"d left a note telling Roger you were coming here?"
Nan read the wire in silence. Her face turned a shade whiter than before, if that were possible, and there was a smouldering anger in her eyes as she crushed the flimsy sheet in suddenly tense fingers and tossed it into the fire.
"No answer," she said shortly. As soon as the maid had left the room, she burst out furiously:
"How dare he? How _dare_ he think such a thing?"
"What"s the matter?" asked Penelope in a perturbed voice.
Nan turned to her pa.s.sionately.
"Don"t you see what he means? _Don"t you see_? . . . It"s because I didn"t write to him yesterday from here. He doesn"t _believe_ the note I left behind--he doesn"t believe I"m with you!"
"But, my dear, where else should you be?" protested Penelope. "And why shouldn"t he believe it?"
Nan shrugged her shoulders.
"I told you we"d had a row. It--it was rather a big one. He probably thinks I"ve run away and married--oh, well"--she laughed mirthlessly--"anyone!"
"Nan!"
"That"s what"s happened"--nodding. "It was really . . . quite a big row." She paused, then continued, indignantly:
"As if I"d have tried to deceive him over it--writing that I was going to you when I wasn"t! Roger"s a fool! He ought to have known me better. I"ve never yet been coward enough to lie about anything I wanted to do."
"But, my dear"--Penelope was openly distressed--"we must send him a wire at once. I"d no idea you"d quarrelled--like that! He"ll be out of his mind with anxiety."
"He deserves to be"--in a hard voice--"for distrusting me. No, Penny"--as Penelope drew a form towards her preparatory to inditing a rea.s.suring telegram. "I won"t have a wire sent to him. D"you hear? I won"t have it!" Her foot beat excitedly on the floor.
Penelope signed and laid the telegraph form reluctantly aside.
"You agree with me, Kitten?" Nan whirled round upon Kitty for support.
"I"m not quite sure," came the answer. "You see, I"ve been away so long I really hardly know how things stand between you and Roger."
"They stand exactly as they were. I"ve promised to marry him in April.
And I"m going to keep my promise."
"Not in April," said Kitty very quietly. "You won"t be able to marry him so soon. Nan, dear, I"ve--I"ve bad news for you." She hesitated and Nan broke in hastily:
"Bad news? What--who is it? Not--_not_ Uncle David?" Her voice rose a little shrilly.
Kitty nodded, her face very sorrowful. And now Nan noticed that she had evidently been crying before she came to the flat.