"Then Nan must be an unusually difficult subject, mustn't she, Roger? Why, you've been at it two weeks and have literally nothing to show for it! You want speeding up."
Meanwhile Roger had been regarding the sketches in silence, an uneasy feeling of dissatisfaction stirring in his mind.
"Yes," he said slowly. "You don't seem to have made much progress." And his eyes travelled rather sombrely from Nan's face to that of the artist.
"You must have a little patience, Trenby," replied Rooke pleasantly. "The start is the difficult part. Tell me"—placing a couple of sketches on the easel as he spoke—"which of those two poses do you like the better?"
For the moment Roger's thoughts, slowly moving towards a vague suspicion, were directed into another channel, precisely as Rooke had intended they should be, and he examined the sketches carefully. Finally he gave his opinion with surprisingly good judgment.
"That's Nan," he said, indicating one of them—the last of the afternoon's efforts.
"Yes," agreed Rooke. "That's my choice." Then, turning laughingly to Nan, he went on: "The die is cast. To-morrow we'll begin work in good earnest."
"To-morrow?" broke in Isobel. "Oh, Roger, you mustn't let him take possession of Nan to-morrow! We're all motoring over to Denleigh Abbey for lunch, and the Peabodys will think it most odd if Nan doesn't come."
"The Peabodys?" queried Rooke. "Are those the 'new rich' people who've bought the Abbey?"
"Yes. And they want us all to go—Mrs. Peabody made a special point of it the other day. She asked everyone from Mallow as well as ourselves."
"What extensive hospitality!" murmured Rooke.
"They're quite nice people," asserted Isobel defiantly.
"Dear lady, they must indeed be overflowing with the milk of human kindness—and Treasury notes."
Isobel's bird-like eyes gleamed maliciously.
"They want to hear Nan play," she persisted.
"And to see me paint?" he suggested ironically.
She ignored his retort and, turning to Nan, appealed to her directly.
"Shan't you come?" she asked bluntly.
"Well, if Maryon wants me to sit for him—" Nan began hesitatingly.
"The sooner the portrait's begun, the sooner it will be finished," interposed Rooke. "Can't you dispense with your fiancée to-morrow, Trenby? . . . But just as you like, of course," he added courteously.
Roger hesitated. The frank appeal was disarming, shaking the suspicion he was harbouring.
"Let's leave it like this," continued Rooke, following up his advantage. "If the light's good, you'll let me have Nan, but if it's a dull day she shall be swept into the gilded portals of the Peabodys."
"Very well," agreed Roger, rather reluctantly.
"I think you'll find," said Isobel, as she and Roger strolled back to the car, "that the lightwillbe quite good enough for painting."
And that seemingly harmless remark lodged in Roger's mind and rankled there throughout the whole of the following day when the Peabody lunch took place as arranged—but lacking the presence of Maryon Rooke and Nan.
"And this is my holiday!" exclaimed Maryon, standing back from his easel the better to view the effect of his work. "Nan, you've a lot to answer for."
Another fortnight had gone by, and the long hours passed is the music-room, which had been temporarily converted into a studio, were beginning to show fruit in the shape of a nearly completed portrait.
Nan slipped down from the makeshift "throne."
"May I come and look?"
Rooke moved aside.
"Yes, if you like. I've been working at the face to-day."
She regarded the picture for some time in silence, Rooke watching her intently the while.
"Well?" he said at last, interrogatively.
"Maryon"—she spoke slowly—"do I really look like—that?"
He nodded.
"Yes," he replied quietly. "When you let yourself go—when you take off the meaningless mask I complained of."
With that uncanny discernment of his—that faculty for painting people's souls, as Nan described it—he had sensed the passionate, wistful, unhappy spirit which looked out from her eyes, and the face on the canvas gave back a dumb appeal that was almost painfully arresting.
Nan frowned.
"You'd no right to do it," she exclaimed a little breathlessly.
"I painted what I saw."
She was silent, tremulously disturbed. He could see the quick rise and fall of her breast beneath the filmy white of her gown.
"Nan," he went on in low, tense tones. "Did you think I could be with you, day after day like this, and not—find out? Could I have painted your face, loving each line of it, and not learned the truth?" She stretched out her hand as though to check him, but he paid no heed. "The truth that Roger is nothing to you—never will be!"
"He's the man I'm going to marry," she said unevenly.
"And I'm only the man who loves you! . . . But because I failed once, putting love second, must I be punished eternally? I'm ready to put it first now—to lay all I have and all I've done on its altar."
"What—what do you mean?" she stammered.
He put his hands lightly on her shoulders and drew her nearer to him.
"Is it hard to guess, Nan? . . . I want you to leave this life you hate and come with me. Let me take you away—right away from it all—and, somewhere we'll find happiness together."
She stared at him with wide, horrified eyes.
"Oh, you're mad—you're mad!"
With a struggle she freed herself from his grasp and stood away from him.
"Listen," she said. "Listen to me and then you'll understand what you're asking. I'm not happy—that's true. But it's my own fault, not Roger's. I ought never to have given him my promise. There was someone else—"
"Mallory!" broke in Rooke.
"Yes—Peter. It's quite simple. We met too late. But I learned then what love means. Once I asked him—Ibeggedhim—to take me away with him. And he wouldn't. I'd have gone to the ends of the earth with him. I'd go to-morrow if he'd take me! But he won't. And he never will." She paused, panting a little. "And now," she went on, with a hard laugh, "I don't think you'll ask me again to go away with you!"
"Yes, I shall. Mallory may be able to live at such high altitudes that he can throw over his life's happiness—and yours, too—for a scruple. I can't—and I don't want to. I love you, and I'm selfish enough to be ready to take you any minute that you'll come."
Throwing one arm about her shoulders, he turned her face up to his.
"Don't you understand?" he went on hoarsely. "I'm flesh and blood man, and you're the woman I love."
The hazel eyes blazed with a curious light, like flame, and she shivered a little, fighting the man's personality—battling against that strange kinship of temperament by which he always drew her.
"I can wait," he said, quietly releasing her. "You can't go on long as you're living now; the tension's too high. And when you're through with it—come to me, Nan! I'd at least make you happier than Trenby ever will."
Without reply she moved towards the door and he stood aside, allowing her to pass out of the room in silence.
In the hall she encountered Roger, who had ridden over, accompanied by a trio of dogs, and the sight of his big, tweed-clad figure, so solidly suggestive of normal, everyday things, filled her with an unexpected sense of relief. He might not be the man she loved, but he was, at any rate, a sheet-anchor in the midst of the emotional storms that were blowing up around her.
To-day, however, his face wore a clouded, sullen expression when he greeted her.
"What have you been doing with yourself?" he asked, his eyes fastening suspiciously on her flushed cheeks.
She answered him with a poor attempt at her usual nonchalance.
"Oh, Maryon came over this morning, so I've been sitting to him."
"All day? I don't like it too well." The look of displeasure deepened on his face. "People will talk. You know what country folks are like."
Nan's eyes flashed.
"Let them talk! I'm not going to regulate my conduct according to the villagers' standard of propriety," she replied indignantly.
"It isn't merely the villagers," pursued Roger. "Isobel said, only yesterday, she thought it was rather indiscreet."
"Isobel!" interrupted Nan scornfully. "It would be better if she kept her thoughts for home consumption. The neighbourhood might conceivably comment on the number of times you and she go 'farming' together."
Roger looked quickly at her, a half-smile on his lips.
"Why, Nan!" he said, a note of surprise, almost of satisfaction, in his voice. "I believe you're growing jealous?"
She laughed contemptuously. She was intensely angry that he should have quoted Isobel's opinion to her, and she struck back as hard as she could.
"My dear Roger, surely by this time it must be clear to you that I'm not very likely to be afflicted by—jealousy!"
The shaft went home, and in an instant the dawning smile on his face was replaced by an expression of bitter resentment.
"No, I suppose not," he returned sullenly.
He stared down at her, and something in the indifferent pose of her slim figure made him realise afresh for how little—how pitifully little—he counted in this woman's life.
He gripped her shoulder in sudden anger.
"ButIam jealous!"—vehemently. "Do you hear, Nan? Jealous of your reputation and your time—the time you give to Rooke."
She shrank away from him, and the movement seemed to rouse him to a white heat of fury. Instead of releasing her, he pulled her closer to him.
"Don't shrink like that!" he exclaimed savagely. "By God! Do you think I'll stand being treated as though I were a leper? You avoid me all you can—detest the sight of me, I suppose! But remember one thing—you're going to be my wife. Nothing can alter that, and you belong—to—me"—emphasising each word separately. "You mayn't give me your smiles—but I'm damned if you shall give them to any other man."
He thrust his face, distorted with anger, close to hers.
"Nowdo you understand?"
She struggled in his grasp like a frightened bird, her eyes dilating with terror. She knew, only too well, what this big primitive-souled man could be like when the devil in him was roused, and his white, furious face and blazing eyes filled her with panic.
"Roger! Let me go!" she cried, her voice quick with fear. "Let me go!You're hurting me!"
"Hurting you?" With an effort he mastered himself, slackening his grasp a little, but still holding her. "Hurting you? I wonder if you realise what a woman like you can do to a man? When I first met you I was just an ordinary decent man, and I loved and trusted you implicitly. But now, sometimes, I almost feel that I could kill you—to make sure of you!"
"But why should you distrust me? It's Isobel—Isobel Carson who's put these ideas into your head."
"Perhaps she's opened my eyes," he said grimly. "They've been shut too long."
"You've no right to distrust me—"
"Haven't I, Nan, haven't I?" He held her a little away from him and searched her face. "Answer me! Have I no right to doubt you?"
His big chest heaved under the soft fabric of his shirt as he stood looking down at her, waiting for her answer.
She would have given the world to be able to answer him with a simple "No." But her lips refused to shape the word. There was so much that lay between them, so much that was complicated and difficult to interpret.
Slowly her eyes fell before his.
"I utterly decline to answer such a question," she replied at last."It's an insult."
His hands fell from her shoulders.
"I think I'm answered," he said curtly, and, turning on his heel, he strode away, leaving Nan shaken and dismayed.
As far as Maryon was concerned, he refrained from making any allusion to what had taken place that day in the music-room, and gradually the sense of shocked dismay with which his proposal had filled Nan at the time, grew blurred and faded, skilfully obliterated by his unfailing tact. But the remembrance of it lingered, tucked away in a corner of her mind, offering a terrible solution of her difficulties.
He still demanded from her a large part of each day, on the plea that much yet remained to be done to the portrait, while Roger, into whose ears Isobel continued to drop small poisoned hints, became correspondingly more difficult and moody. The tension of the situation was only relieved by the comings and goings of Sandy McBain and the enforced cheerfulness assumed by the members of the Mallow household.
Neither Penelope nor Kitty sensed the imminence of any real danger. But Sandy, in whose memory the recollection of the winter's happenings was still alive and vivid, felt disturbed and not a little anxious. Nan's moods were an open book to him, and just now they were not very pleasant reading.
"What about the concerto?" he asked her one day. "Aren't you going to do anything with it?"
"Do anything with it?" she repeated vaguely.
"Yes, of course. Get it published—push it! You didn't write it just for fun, I suppose?"
A faintly mocking smile upturned the corners of her mouth.
"I think Roger considers I wrote it expressly to annoy him," she submitted.
"Rot!" he replied succinctly. "Just because he's not a trained musician you appear to imagine he's devoid of ordinary appreciation."
"He is," she returned. "He hates my music. Yes, he does"—as Sandy seemed about to protest. "He hates it!"
"Look here, Nan"—he became suddenly serious—"you're not playing fair with Trenby. He's quite a good sort, but because he isn't a scatter-brained artist like yourself, you're giving him a rotten time."
From the days when they had first known each other Sandy had taken it upon himself at appropriate seasons to lecture Nan upon the error of her ways, and it never occurred to her, even now, to resent it. Instead, she answered him with unwonted meekness.
"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'mnot in love withhim."
"I should hope not," he observed drily, "seeing that you're going to beMrs. 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, passing 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 "swanked," as the lad put it, but who understood so well the bitter disappointment of which Duncan McBain's uncompromising attitude 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 manuscript 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 associations. 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 littlemoue. "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.
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 assist 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 anexceptionalportrait, 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, Iknow. 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.
He snatched it up and read it hastily, then stood silently staring at it, his face white with anger, his eyes as hard as Lady Gertrude's own.
"It's a great pity you ever met Nan Davenant," pursued his mother, breaking the silence. "There's bad blood in the Davenants, and Nan will probably create a scandal for us one day. I understand she strongly resembles her notorious great-grandmother, Angèle de Varincourt."
"My wife will lead a very different kind of life from Angèle deVarincourt," remarked Roger. "I'll see to that."
"It's a pity you didn't look nearer home for a wife, Roger," she observed. "I always hoped you would learn to care for Isobel."
"Isobel!"—with blank amazement. "I do care for her—she's a jolly good sort—but not in that way. Besides, she doesn't care for me in the slightest—except in a sisterly fashion."
"Are you sure of that? Remember, you've never asked her the question."And with this final thrust, Lady Gertrude left him to his thoughts.
No doubt, later on, the thought of Isobel in the new light presented by his mother would recur to his mind, but for the moment he was entirely preoccupied with the matter of Nan's portrait and his determination to put an end to the sittings.
It would be quite easy, he decided. The only thing that stood in the way of his immediately carrying out his plan, was the fact that he had promised to go away the following morning on a few days' fishing expedition, together with Barry Seymour and the two Fentons. The realisation that Maryon Rooke would probably spend the best part of those few days in Nan's company set the blood pounding furiously through his veins. His decision was taken instantly. The fishing party must go without him.
As a natural sequence to his engagement to Nan he had an open invitation to Mallow, and this evening he availed himself of it by motoring across to dinner there. The question of the fishing party was easily disposed of on the plea of unexpected estate matters which required his supervision. Barry brushed his apologies aside.
"My dear chap, it doesn't matter a scrap. We three'll go as arranged and you must join us on our next jaunt. Kitty'll be here to look after Nan," he added, smiling good-naturedly. "She hates fishing—it bores her stiff."
After dinner Roger made an opportunity to broach the matter of the portrait to Nan.
"When's Rooke going to finish that portrait of you?" he asked her."He's taking an unconscionable time over it."
She coloured a little under the suspicion she read in his eyes.
"I—I think he'll finish it to-morrow," she stammered. "It's nearly done, you know."
"So I should think. I'll see him about it. I'm going to buy the thing."
"To—to buy it?"—nervously.
"Yes." His keen eyes flashed over her. "Is there anything extraordinary in a man's purchasing the portrait of his future wife?"
"No. Oh, no. Only I don't fancy Maryon painted it with any idea of selling it."
"And I didn't allow you to sit for it with any idea of his keeping it," retorted Roger grimly.
Nan remained silent, feeling that further discussion of the matter while he was in his present humour would serve no purpose. The curt, almost hectoring manner of his speech irritated her, while the jealousy from which it sprang made no appeal to her by way of an excuse, as it might have done had she loved him. She was glad when the evening came to an end, but she was still in a sore and angry frame of mind when she joined Rooke in the music-room the following day.
He speedily divined that something had occurred to ruffle her, and without endeavouring to elicit the cause—possibly he felt he could make a pretty good guess at it!—he set himself to amuse and entertain her. He was so far successful in his efforts that before very long she had almost forgotten her annoyance of the previous evening and was deep in a discussion regarding the work of a certain modern composer.
Engrossed in argument, neither Maryon nor Nan noticed, the hum of a motor approaching up the drive, and when the door of the room was thrown open to admit Roger Trenby neither of them was able to repress a slight start. Instantly a dark look of anger overspread Roger's face as he advanced into the room.
"Good morning, Rooke," he said, nodding briefly but not offering his hand. "So the portrait is finished at last, I see."
Nan glanced across at him anxiously. There was something in his manner that filled her with a quick sense of apprehension.
"Not quite," replied Rooke easily. "I'm afraid we've been idling this morning. There are still a few more touches I should like to add."
Roger crossed the room, and, standing in front of the picture, surveyed it in silence.
"I think," he said at last, "that I'm satisfied with it as it is. . . .It will look very well in the gallery at Trenby."
Rooke's eyes narrowed suddenly.
"The portrait isn't for sale," he observed.
"Of course not—to anyone other than myself," replied Roger composedly.
"Not even to you, I'm afraid," answered Rooke. "I painted it for the great pleasure it gave me and not from any mercenary motive."
Nan, watching the two men as they fenced, saw a sudden flash in Roger's eyes and his under jaw thrust itself out in a manner with which she was only too familiar.
"Then may I ask what you intend to do with it?" he demanded. There was something in the dead level of his tone which suggested a white-hot anger forcibly held in leash.
"I thought—with Nan's permission—of exhibiting it first," said Rooke placidly. "After that, there is a wall in my house at Westminster where it would hang in an admirable light."
The cool insolence of his manner acted like a lighted torch to gunpowder. Roger swung round upon him furiously, his hands clenched, his forehead suddenly gnarled with knotted veins.
"By God, Rooke!" he exclaimed. "You go too far!Youwill exhibitNan's portrait . . .youwill hang it in your house! . . . And youthink I'll stand by and tolerate such impertinence? Understand . . .Nan's portrait hangs at Trenby Hall—or nowhere!"
Rooke regarded him apparently unmoved.
"I've yet to learn the law which compels a man to part with his work," he remarked indifferently.
Roger took an impetuous step towards him, his clenched hand raised as though to strike.
"You hound—" he began hoarsely.
Nan rushed between them, catching the upraised hand.
"Roger! . . . Roger!" she cried, her voice shrill with the fear that in another moment the two men would be at grips.
But he shook off her hand, flinging her aside with such force that she staggered helplessly backwards.
"As for you," he thundered, his eyes blazing with concentrated anger, "it's you I've to thank that any man should hold my future wife so cheap as to imagine he may paint her portrait and then keep it in his house as though it were his own! . . . But I'm damned if he shall!"
White and shaken, she leaned against the window frame, clutching at the wood-work for support and staring at him with affrighted eyes as he turned once more to Rooke.
In his big, brawny strength, doubled by the driving force of anger, he seemed to tower above the slim, supple figure of the artist, who stood leaning negligently against the side of the piano, watching him with narrowed eyes and a faintly supercilious smile on his lips.
"Take your choice, Rooke," he said shortly. "My cheque for five hundred and get out of this, or—" He paused significantly.
"Or? . . . The other alternative?" murmured Rooke. Roger laughed roughly, fingering something he held concealed in his hand.
"You'll know that later," he said grimly. "I advise you to close with the five hundred."
Rooke shook his head.
"Sorry it's impossible. I prefer to keep the picture."
"Oh, Maryon, give in to him! Do give in to him!"
The words came sobbingly from Nan's white lips, and Rooke turned to her instantly.
"Have I your permission to keep the picture, Nan?" he asked, fixing her with his queer, magnetic eyes.
An oath broke from Roger.
"You'll have the original, you see, Trenby," explained Rooke urbanely, glancing towards him.
Then he turned again to Nan.
"Have I, Nan?"
She opened her lips to reply, but no words came. She stood there silently, her eyes wide and terror-stricken, her cheeks stained with the tears that dripped down them unheeded.
Roger's glance swept her as though there were something distasteful to him in the sight of her and she flinched under it, moaning a little.
"Well," he said to Rooke. "Is the picture mine—or yours?"
"Mine," answered Rooke.
Roger made a single stride towards the easel. Then his hand shot out, and the next moment there was a grinding sound of ripping and tearing as, with the big blade of his clasp-knife, he slashed and rent and hacked at the picture until it was a wreck of split and riven canvas.
With a cry like that of a wounded animal Rooke leaped forward to gave it, but Roger hurled him aside as though he were a child, and once more the knife bit its way remorselessly through paint and canvas.
There was something indescribably horrible in this deliberate, merciless destruction of the exquisite work of art. Nan, watching the keen blade sweep again and again across the painted figure of the portrait, felt as though the blows were being rained upon her actual body. Distraught with the violence and horror of the scene she tried to scream, but her voice failed her, and with a hoarse, half-strangled cry she covered her eyes, rocking to and fro. But the raucous sound of rending canvas still grated hideously against her ears.
Suddenly Roger ceased to cut and slash at the portrait. Seizing it in both hands, he dragged it from the easel and flung it on the floor at Rooke's feet.
"There's your picture!" he said. "Take it—and hang it in your 'admirable light'!" And he strode out of the room.
A long silence fell between the two who were left. Then Rooke, who was staring at the ruin of his work with his mouth twisted, into an odd, cynical smile, murmured beneath his breath:
"Sic transit. . ."
Once more the silence wrapped them round. Wan-faced and with staring eyes, Nan drew near the heap of mangled canvas.
At last:
"I can't bear it! I can't bear it!" she whispered, and a shuddering sob shook her slight frame from head to foot. "Oh, Maryon—"
She stretched her hands towards him gropingly, like a child that is frightened in the dark.
. . . Half an hour later found them still together, standing with linked hands. In Rooke's eyes there was a quiet light of triumph, while Nan's attitude betrayed a kind of hesitancy, as of one driven along strange and unknown ways.
"Then you'll come, Nan, you'll come?" he said eagerly.
"I'll come," she answered dully. "I can't bear my life any longer."
"I'll make you happy. . . . I swear it!"
"Will you, Maryon?" She shook her head and the eyes she raised to his were full of a dumb, hopeless misery. "I don't think anything could ever make me—happy. But I'd have gone on . . . I'd have borne it . . . if Uncle David were still here. What we are going to do would have hurt him so"—and her voice trembled. "But he's gone, and now nothing seems to matter very much."
A sudden overwhelming tenderness for this pain-racked, desolate spirit surged up in Maryon's heart.
"You poor little child!" he murmured. "You poor child!"
And gathering her into his arms he held her closely, leaning his cheek against her hair, with no passion, but with a swift, understanding sympathy that sprang from the best that was in the man.
She clung to him forlornly, so tired and hopeless she no longer felt any impulse to resist him. She had tried—tried to withstand him and to go on treading the uphill path that lay before her. But now she had come to the end of her strength. She would go away with Maryon . . . go out of it all . . . and somewhere, perhaps, together they would build up a new and happier life.
Dimly at the back of her mind floated the memory of Peter's words:
"But there's honour, dear, and duty . . ."
She crushed down the remembrance resolutely. If she were going away into a new world with Maryon, the door of memory must be closed fast.
The atmosphere still held the chill of early morning as Sandy emerged, vigorous and glowing and amazingly hungry, from his daily swim in the sea. He dressed quickly in a small tent erected on the shore and then, whistling cheerfully and with his towel slung over his shoulders, took his way up the beach to where his bicycle stood propped against a boulder.
A few minutes' pedalling brought him into St. Wennys, where he dismounted to buy a packet of "gaspers" dispensed by the village postmistress.
It was a quaint little village, typical of the West Country, with its double row of small houses climbing the side of a steep hill capped at the summit by an ancient church of weather-beaten stone. The bright June sunshine winked against the panes, of the cottage windows and flickered down upon the knobby surface of the cobbled pavements, while in the dust of the wide road an indiscriminate group of children and dogs played joyously together.
The warning hoot of a motor-horn sent them scuttling to the side of the road, and, as Sandy smilingly watched the grubby little crowd's hasty flight for safety, a big green car shot by and was swiftly lost to sight in a cloud of whirling dust.
But not before Sandy's keen eyes had noted its occupants.
"Nan and the artist fellow!" he muttered.
Then, remembering that Nan had promised to go with him that afternoon for a run in the "stink-pot," he stepped out into the middle of the street and stood staring up the broad white road along which the car had disappeared—the great road which led to London.
An ominous foreboding knocked at the door of his mind.
Where was Nan going with Rooke—driving at reckless speed at this hour of the day on the way to London, when, according to arrangement, she should have been ready later on to adventure herself in the "stink-pot"?
Of course it was just possible she had only gone out for a morning spin with Maryon and proposed returning in time to keep her appointment with him. But the hour was an unusually early one at which to make a start, and the green car was ripping along at a pace which rather precluded the idea of a pleasure jaunt.
Sandy was obsessed by a sense of misgiving that would not be denied.Wheeling his bicycle round, he mounted and headed straight for MallowCourt at break-neck speed.
He arrived to find Kitty composedly dividing her attention between her breakfast and an illustrated paper, and for a moment he felt reassured. She jumped up and greeted him joyfully.
"Hullo, Sandy! Been down to bathe? Come along and have some breakfast with me. Or have you had it already?"
He shook his head.
"No, I've not been home yet."
"Then you must be famished. I'll ring for another cup. I'm all alone in my glory. Barry and the Fentons departed yesterday on their fishing trip, and Nan—"
"Yes. Where's Nan?" For the life of him he could not check the eager question.
"She's gone off for the day with Maryon. He's driving her over toClovelly—she's never been there, you know."
Sandy's heart sank. He knew the quickest route from St. Wennys to Clovelly—and the green car's nose had been set in quite a different direction.
"She's fixed up to go out with me this afternoon," he said slowly.
"Tch!" Kitty clicked her tongue sharply against her teeth and, crossing to the chimneypiece, took down a letter which, was resting there. "I'd forgotten this! She left it to be given to you when you called for her this afternoon. I wanted her to 'phone and put you off, but she said you would understand when you'd read the letter and that there was something she wanted you to do for her."
Sandy ripped open the envelope and his eyes flew down the page. Its contents struck him like a blow—none the less hard because it had been vaguely anticipated—and a half-stifled exclamation broke from him.
"Sandy dear"—it ran—"I'm going to vanish out of your life, but we've been such good pals that I can't do it without just a word of good-bye, not of justification—I know there's none for what I'm going to do. But I know, too, that there'll be a little pity in your heart for me, and that you, at least, will understand in a way why I've had to do this, and won't blame me quite so much as the rest of the world. I'm going away with Maryon, and by this afternoon, when you come to fetch me for our motor spin, I shall have taken the first step on the new road. Nothing you could have said would have altered my determination, so you need never think that, Sandy boy. I know your first impulse will be to put the 'stink-pot' along at forty miles an hour in wild pursuit of me. But you can spare your petrol. Be very sure that even if you overtook me, I shouldn't come back.
"I don't expect to find happiness, but life with Maryon can never be dull. There'd never be anything to occupy my mind at Trenby—except soup jellies. So it would just go running round and round in circles—with the memory of all I've missed as the pivot of the circle. I'm sure Maryon will at least be able to stop me from thinking in circles. He's always flying off at a tangent—and naturally I shall have to go flying after him.
"And now there's just one thing I want you still to do for me.Tell Kitty. I couldn't leave a letter for her, as it might have been found almost at once. You won't get this till you come over for me in the afternoon, and by that time Maryon and I shall be far enough away. Give Kitty all my love, and tell her I feel a beast to leave her like this after her angel goodness to me. And say to her, too, that I will write very soon.
"Good-bye, Sandy boy."
"Well? Well?" Kitty's patience was getting exhausted. Moreover there was something in the set look on Sandy's face that frightened her.
He handed her the letter.
"She's bolted with Maryon Rooke," he said simply.
When Kitty had absorbed the contents of the letter she looked up at him blankly. The shock of it held her momentarily speechless. Then, after what seemed to her an endless silence, she stammered out:
"Nan—gone! And it's too late to stop her!"
"It's not!" The words leapt from Sandy's lips. "Wemuststop her!"
The absolute determination in his voice infected Kitty. She felt her courage rising to the emergency.
"What can we do?" she asked quietly. She was as steady as a rock now.
Sandy dropped into a chair, absent-mindedly lighting one of the "gaspers" he had so recently purchased.
"We must work it out," he said slowly. "Rooke told you they were going to Clovelly, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"Well, they're not going anywhere near. That was just a blind. They took the London road."
"Even that mightn't mean they were going to London. They could branch off anywhere."
"They could," agreed Sandy, puffing thoughtfully at his cigarette. "But we've got to remember Rooke has a house in Westminster—nice little backwater. It's just on the cards they might go there first—wherever else they intended going on to afterwards—just to pick up anything Rooke might want, arrange about letters and so on."
"Yes?" There was a keen light in Kitty's eyes. She was following Sandy's thought with all a woman's quickness. "And you think you might overtake them there?"
"I must do more than that. I mustbe there first—to receive them."
"Can you do it in the time?"
"Yes. By train. They're travelling by car, remember."
Kitty glanced at the clock.
"It's too late for you to catch the early train from St. Wennys Halt.And there's no other till the afternoon."
"I shan't risk the afternoon train. It stops at every little wayside station and if it were ten minutes late I'd miss the express from Exeter."
"Then you'll motor?"
"Yes, I'll drive to Exeter, and catch the train that gets in to town about half-past seven. Maryon isn't likely to reach London till about an hour or so after that."
"That's settled, then. The next thing is breakfast for two," said Kitty practically. "I'd only just begun when you came, and I—I'll start again to keep you company. You must be absolutely starving by now."
She rang the bell and gave her orders to the servant who appeared in answer.
"What about Aunt Eliza?" she went on when they were alone again. "I'll 'phone her you're having breakfast here, shall I?"
"Yes. And, look here, we've got to make things appear quite ordinary.The mater knows I'm supposed to be taking Nan for a run this afternoon.You'd better say I'm coming straight back to fetch the car, as we'restarting earlier."
Kitty nodded and hurried off to the telephone.
"It's all right," she announced, when she returned. "Aunt Eliza took it all in, and merely remarked that I spoilt you!" She succeeded in summoning up a faint smile.
"Then that coast's clear," said Sandy. "Who else? There's Roger.What shall you do if he comes over to-day?"
"He won't. Lady Gertrude had a heart attack yesterday, and as Isobel Carson's away, Roger, of course, has to stay with his mother. He 'phoned Nan last night."
"I think that safeguards everything this end, then," replied Sandy, heaving a sigh of relief. "Allah is very good!"
After that, being a man with a long journey in front of him, he sensibly applied himself to the consumption of bacon and eggs, while Kitty, being a woman, made a poor attempt at swallowing a cup of tea.
Half an hour later he was ready to start for home.
"It's the slenderest chance, Kitty," he reminded, her gravely. "They may not go near London. . . . But it's theonlychance!"
"I know," she assented with equal gravity.
"And in any case I can't get her back here till the morning. . . .Good heavens!"—a new thought striking him. "What about the mater?She'll be scared stiff if I don't turn up in the evening! Probablyshe'll ring up the police, thinking we've had a smash-up in the car.That would settle everything!"
"Don't worry about it," urged Kitty. "I'll invent something—'phone her later on to say you're stopping here for the night."
Sandy nodded soberly.
"That'll do it, and I'll—Oh, hang! What about your servants? They'll talk."
"And I shall lie," replied Kitty valiantly. "Nan will be staying the night with friends. . . . Each of you stopping just where you aren't!"—with a short strained laugh. "Oh, leave things to me at this end! I'll manage, somehow. Only bring her back—bring her back, Sandy!"
It was not until Sandy was actually in the express heading for London that he realised quite all the difficulties which lay ahead. He was just a big-hearted, impulsive boy, and, without wasting time in futile blame or vain regrets, he had plunged straight into the maelstrom which had engulfed his pal, determined to help her back to shore.
But, assuming he was right in his surmise that Rooke would take Nan first of all to London, he doubted his own ability to persuade her to return with him, and even if he were successful in this, there still remained the outstanding fact that by no human means could she reach Mallow until the small hours of the morning. He could well imagine the consternation and scandal which would ensue should she arrive back at the Court about five o'clock A.M.!
In a place like Mallow, where there was a large staff of indoor and outdoor servants, it would be practically impossible to secure Nan's return there unobserved. And as far as the neighbourhood—and Roger Trenby—were concerned, she might just as well run away with Maryon Rooke as return with Sandy McBain at that ungodly hour! She would be equally compromised. Besides, Kitty would have informed her household that she was not expecting Miss Davenant back that night.
Sandy began to see that the plans which he and Kitty had hastily thrown together in the dire emergency of the moment might serve well enough by way of temporary cover, but that in the long run they would rather complicate matters. Lies would have to be bolstered up with other lies. For example, what was he to do with Nan if he succeeded in persuading her to return? Where was she really to spend the night? It looked as though a veritable tissue of deceit must be woven if she were to be shielded from the consequences of her mad act. And Sandy was not a bit of good at telling lies. He hated them.
Suddenly into his harassed mind sprang the thought of Mallory. Of all men in the world, surely he, who loved Nan, would find a way to save her!
From the moment this idea took hold of him Sandy felt as though part of the insuperable load of trouble and anxiety had been lifted from his shoulders. His duty was now quite simple and straightforward. When he reached down he had only to seek out Peter, lay the whole matter before him, and then in some way or other he believed that Nan's errant feet would be turned from the dangerous path on which they were set.
There was something rather touching in his boyish faith that Peter would be able, even at the last moment, to save the woman he loved.
With unwonted forethought, born of the urgent need of the moment, he despatched the following telegram to Peter:
"Coming to see you. Arrive London to-night seven-thirty. Very urgent. Sandy McBain."
"Well, young Sandy McBain?"
Peter looked up from a table littered with manuscript. His face, a moment before rather troubled and stern, relaxed into a friendly smile, although the fingers of one hand still tapped restlessly on a sheet of paper that lay beside him—a cablegram from India which had evidently been the subject of his thoughts at the moment of Sandy's arrival.
"What's the urgent matter? Have you got into a hole and want a friendly haul-out? If so, I'm your man."
Sandy looked down wretchedly at the fine-cut face with its kind eyes and sensitive mouth.
"Oh, don't!" he said hastily, checking the friendly welcome as though it hurt him. "It—it isn't me. . . . It's Nan."
Peter sat quite still, only the hand that held his pen tightened in its grip.
"Nan!" he repeated, and something in the tone of his voice as he uttered the little name seemed to catch at Sandy's heart-strings and sent a sudden unmanageable lump up into his throat.
"Yes, Nan," he answered. Then, with a rush: "She's gone . . . gone away with Maryon Rooke."
The penholder snapped suddenly. Peter tossed the pieces aside and rose quietly to his feet.
"When?" he asked tensely.
"Now—to-day. If they've come to London, they'll be here very soon. They were in his car—I saw them on the London road. . . . And she left a letter for me. . . . Oh, good God, Mallory! Can't you save her—can't you save her?" And Sandy grabbed the older man by the shoulder and stared at him with feverish eyes.
Throughout the whole journey from Exeter to London he had been revolving the matter in his mind, thinking . . . thinking . . . thinking . . . to the ceaseless throb and hum of the train as it raced over the metals, and now he felt almost as though his brain would burst.
Peter pushed him down into a chair.
"You shall tell me all about it in a minute," he said quietly. Crossing the room to a cupboard in the wall, he took down a decanter and glass and poured out a stiff dose of whisky.
"There—drink that," he said, squirting in the soda-water. "You'll be all right directly," he added.
In a few minutes he had drawn the whole story from Sandy's eager lips, and as he listened his eyes grew curiously hard and determined.
"So we've just one chance—the house in Westminster," he commented."We'll go there, Sandy. At once."
They made their way quickly downstairs and out into the street. Hailing a passing taxi, Peter directed the man to drive to Maryon's house, where he enquired for Rooke in a perfectly ordinary manner, as though expecting to find him in, and was told by the maid who opened the door that Mr. Rooke had only just arrived and had gone out again immediately, but that she expected him back at any moment.
"Then I'll wait," said Peter, easily. "Miss Davenant's waiting here, too, isn't she?"
An odd look of surprise crossed the girl's face. She had thought—well, what matter what she had thought since it was evident there was really no secret about the lady's presence in her master's house. These people obviously expected to meet her there. Perhaps there were others coming as well, to an appointed rendezvous for a restaurant supper party or something of the sort.
"Yes, sir," she answered civilly, "Miss Davenant is in the studio."
Sandy heard Peter catch his breath at the reply as though some kind of tension had been suddenly slackened. Then the maid threw open the studio door and they saw Nan sitting in a chair beside a recently lit fire, her hands clasped round her knees.
She turned at the sound of their entrance and, as her eyes fell upon Peter, she rose slowly to her feet, staring at him, while every drop of colour drained away from her face.
"Peter!" she cried wonderingly. "Peter!" Her hands groped for the back of the chair from which she had risen and clung to it.
But her eyes never left his face. There was an expression in them as of the dawning of a great joy struggling against amazed unbelief, so that Sandy felt as though he had seen into some secret holy place. Turning, he stumbled out of the room, leaving those two who loved alone together.
"Peter, you're asking me to do the hardest thing in the world," saidNan at last.
She had listened in heavy silence while he urged her to return.
"I know I am," he answered. "And do you think it's—easy—for me to ask it? To ask you to go back? . . . If it were possible. . . . Dear God! If it were possible to take you away, would I have left it undone?"
"I can't go back—I can't indeed! Why should I? I've only made Roger either furious or wretched ever since we were engaged. It isn't as if I could do any good by going back!"
"Isn't it something good to have kept faith?" There was a stern note in his voice.
She looked at him wistfully.
"If it had been you, Peter. . . . It's easy to keep faith when one loves."
"And are you being faithful—even to our love?" he asked quietly.
"To our love?" she whispered.
"There is a faithfulness of the Spirit, Nan—the only faithfulness possible to those who are set apart as we are."
He broke off and stood silent a moment, looking down at her with hard, hurt eyes. Presently he went on:
"That was all we might keep, you and I—our faith. Honour binds each of us to someone else. But"—his voice vibrating—"honour doesn't bind you to Maryon Rooke! If you go with him, you betray our love—the part of it that nothing can touch or spoil if we so will it. You won't do that, Nan. . . . Youcan'tdo it!"
She knew, then, that she would have to go back, go back and keep faith with Roger—and keep that deeper faith which love itself demanded.
Her head drooped, and she stretched out her hands as though seeking something of which they might lay hold. Peter took them into his and held them.
After a while a slight tremor ran through her body, and she drew herself away from him, relinquishing his hands.
"I'll go back," she said. "You've won, Peter. I can't . . . hurt . . . our love."
To Sandy the time seemed immeasurably long as he waited on the further side of the closed door, but at last they came to him—Peter, stern and rather strained-looking, and Nan with tear-bright eyes and a face from which every vestige of colour had vanished.
"Get a taxi, will you, Sandy?" said Peter.
Perhaps Sandy's face asked the question his lips dared not utter, forNan nodded to him with a twisted little smile.
"Yes, Sandy boy, I'm going back."
"Thank God!"
He wrung her hands and then went off in search of a taxi. Nan glanced round her a trifle nervously.
"Maryon may be here at any moment," she said. "Something's gone wrong with the car and he's taken it round to the garage to get it put right."
"We shall be off directly," answered Peter. "See"—he pointed down the street—"here comes Sandy with a taxi for us." He spoke reassuringly, as though to a frightened child.
In a few minutes they had started, the taxi slipping swiftly away through the lamp-lit streets. It had turned a corner and was out of sight by the time the parlourmaid, hearing the sound of the street door closing, had hurried upstairs only to find an empty studio. Nor could she give Rooke, on his return, the slightest information as to what had become of his guests—the lady, or the two gentlemen who, she told him, had called shortly afterwards, apparently expecting to find Miss Davenant there.
Meanwhile the taxi had carried them swiftly to Peter's house, where he hurried Nan and Sandy up to his own sanctum, instructing the taxi-driver to wait below.
"We've just time for a few sandwiches before we start," he said. He rang the bell for his servant and gave his orders in quick, authoritative tones.
Nan shook her head. She felt as though a single mouthful would choke her. But Peter insisted with a quiet determination she found herself unable to withstand, and gradually the food and wine brought back a little colour into her wan face, though her eyes were still full of a dumb anguish and every now and then her mouth quivered piteously.
She felt dazed and bewildered, as though she were moving in a dream. Was it really true that she had run away from the man she was to marry and was being brought back by the man who loved her? The whole affair appeared topsy-turvy and absurd. She supposed she ought to feel ashamed and overwhelmed, but somehow the only thing that seemed to her to matter was that she had failed of that high ideal of love which Peter had expected of her. She knew instinctively, despite the grave kindness of his manner, that she had hurt him immeasurably.
"And what are you going to do with me now?" she asked at last, with an odd expression in her face. She felt curiously indifferent about her immediate future.
Mallory glanced up at her from the time-table he was studying.
"There's a ten o'clock express which stops at Exeter. We're taking you home by that."
"There's no connection on to St. Wennys," remarked Nan impassively.
It didn't seem to her a matter of great importance. She merely stated it as a fact.
"No. But Sandy left his car in Exeter and we shall motor from there."
"We can all three squash in," added Sandy.
"We won't be able to keep Roger ignorant of the fact I've been away," pursued Nan.
"He will know nothing about it," said Peter quietly.
She looked dubious.
"I think," she observed slowly, "that you may find it more difficult than you expect—to manage that. Someone's sure to find out and tell him."
"Not necessarily," he answered.
"What about the servants?" persisted Nan. "They'll hardly allow my arrival at Mallow in the early hours of the morning to pass without comment! I really think, Peter," she added with a wry smile, "that it would have been simpler all round if you'd allowed me to run away."
His eyes sought hers.
"Won't you trust me, Nan?" he said patiently. "I'm not going to take you to Mallow to-night. I'm going to take you to Sandy's mother."
"To the mater!"
Sandy fairly gasped with astonishment.
Eliza, narrow-minded and pre-eminently puritanical in her views, was the very last person in the world whose help he would have thought of requisitioning in the present circumstances.
Peter nodded.
"Yes. I've only met her two or three times, but I'm quite sure she is the right person. I believe," he added, smiling gently, "that I know your mother better than you do, Sandy."
And it would appear that this was really the case. For when, in the small hours of the morning, the trio reached Trevarthen Wood and Sandy had effected an entry and aroused his mother, there followed a brief interview between Peter and Mrs. McBain, from which the latter emerged with her grim mouth all tremulous at the corners and her keen eyes shining through a mist of tears.
Sandy and Nan were waiting together in the hall, and both looked up anxiously as she bore down upon them.
To the ordinary eye she may have appeared merely a very plain old woman, arrayed in a hideous dressing-gown of uncompromising red flannel. But to Nan, as the bony arms went round her and the Scottish voice, harsh no longer but tender as an old song, murmured in her ears, she seemed the embodiment of beautiful, consoling motherhood, and her flat chest a resting-place where weary heads might gladly lie and sorrowful hearts pour out their grief in tears.