"If she does, it is quite unconsciously. Consciously, I feel almost sure that Maryon Rooke still occupies her thoughts."
"I wonder where she finds the great attraction in him?" queried Kitty thoughtfully.
"Simply this: That he was the first and, go far, the only man who has ever appealed to her at all. And as he has treated her rather badly, he's succeeded in fixing himself in her mind."
"Well, I've never understood the affair at all. Rooke was in love if ever a man was."
"Yes," agreed Penelope slowly. "But I think Maryon Rooke is what I should describe as--a born bachelor."
"Then he's no business philandering round with women who aren't born spinsters," retorted Kitty promptly.
"You're rather limiting his horizon," she observed.
"Possibly. But I'm furious with him for hashing up Nan's life. . . . As he has done," she added.
"Not necessarily," suggested Penelope. "I think Nan's rather like a little hard, unopened bud. He's bruised the bud, perhaps, but I don't think he's injured the flower."
"Good gracious, Penny, you're not trying to find excuses for the man!"
"Not a bit of it. But I believe that Nan has such a tremendous fascination for him that he simply can't resist her. In fact, I think if the question of finance didn't enter into the matter he'd be ready to shoulder the matrimonial yoke. . . But I don't see Maryon Rooke settling down to matrimony on a limited income! And of course Nan's own income ceases if she marries."
"It was very queer of Lord St. John to make that stipulation," commented Kitty.
"I don't think so at all. He wants to make quite sure that the man who marries Nan does so for love--and nothing else. And also to give her a free hand. How many women, if they had money of their own, as Nan has, would marry, do you suppose?" Penelope spoke heatedly. She was a modern of the moderns in her ideas. "Subconsciously it's the feeling of economical dependence, the dread of ultimate poverty, which has driven half the untrained women one knows into unhappy marriages. And Lord St. John recognises it. He's progressed with the times, bless him!"
"But Rooke will be making big money before very long," protested Kitty, keeping firmly to the point and declining to be led aside into one of Penelope's argumentative byeways. "He'll be able to settle a decent income on his wife in a few years."
