Penelope greeted her with kindly reproach.
"You hardly touched the lunch I sent up for you," she said.
"I've been saying good-bye to Uncle David," she answered quietly. "I didn't want anything to eat."
Kitty, who had remained at the flat, regarded her with some concern. The girl had altered immensely since she had last seen her before going abroad. Her face had worn rather fine and bore an indefinable look of strain. Kitty sighed, then spoke briefly.
"Well, you'll certainly eat some dinner," she announced with firmness. "And, Ralph, you'd better unearth a bottle of champagne from somewhere. She wants something to pick her up a bit."
Under Kitty's kindly, lynx-eyed gaze Nan dared not refuse to eat and drink what was put before her, and she was surprised, when dinner was over, to find how much better she felt in consequence. Prosaic though it may appear, the fact remains that the strain and anguish of parting, even from those we love best on earth, can be mitigated by such material things as food and drink. Or is it that these only strengthen the body to sustain the tortured soul within it?
After dinner Ralph deserted to his club, and the three women drew round the fire, talking desultorily, as women will, and avoiding as though by common consent matters that touched them too nearly. Presently the maid, came noiselessly into the firelit room.
"A gentleman has called to see Miss Davenant," she said, addressing her mistress.
Nan's heart missed a beat. It was Peter--she was sure of it--Peter, who had come back to her! In the long watches of the night he had found out that they could not part . . . not like this . . . never to see each other any more! It was madness. And he had come to tell her so. The agony of the interminable night had been his as well as hers.
"Did he give any name?" Her violet eyes were almost black with excitement.
Slowly Nan made her way across the hall, one hand pressed against her breast to still the painful throbbing of her heart. Outside the room she hesitated a moment; then, with a quick indrawing of her breath, she opened the door and went in.
She shrank back and stood gazing at him dumbly, silent with the shock of sudden and undreamed-of disappointment. She had been so sure, so _sure_ that it was Peter! And yet, jerked suddenly back to the reality of things, she almost smiled at her own certainty. Peter was too strong a man to renounce and then retract his renunciation twenty-four hours later.