A gleam of humour shot across Nan's face, and the painfully set expression went out of it.
"Yes," she said, smiling a little. "It is 'that man.'"
"Well, what's happened? Surely"--with an accent of reproof--"surely you've not refused him?"
Nan still regarded her with a faintly humorous smile.
"Do you think I ought not--to have refused him?" she queried.
"Certainly I do. You could see--anyone could see--that he cared badly, and you ought to have choked him off months ago if you only meant to turn him down at the finish. It wasn't playing the game."
"Penny, you're too funny for words--if you only knew it. But still, you're beginning to restore my self-respect. If you were mistaken in him, then perhaps I've not been quite such an incredible fool as I thought."
"Mistaken?" There was a look of consternation in Penelope's honest brown eyes. "Mistaken? . . . Nan, what do you mean?"
"It's quite simple." Nan's laughter ceased suddenly. "Maryon Rooke has _not_ asked me to marry him. I've not refused him. He--he didn't give me the opportunity." Her voice shook a little. "He's just been in to say good-bye," she went on, after a pause. "He's going abroad."
"Listen to me, Nan." Penelope spoke very quietly. "There's a mistake somewhere. I'm absolutely sure Maryon cares for you--and cares pretty badly, too."
"Oh, yes, he cares. But"--in a studiously light voice that hid the quivering pain at her heart--"a rising artist has to consider his art. He can't hamper himself by marriage with an impecunious musician who isn't able to pull wires and help him on. 'He travels the fastest who travels alone.' You know it. And Maryon Rooke knows it. I suppose it's true."
She got up from her chair and came and stood beside Penelope.
"We won't talk of this again, Penny. What one wants is a 'far Moon' and I'd forgotten the width of the world which always seems to lie between. My 'shining ship' has foundered. That's all."
Penelope tapped sharply at Nan's bedroom door.
"Nan, are you ready? Your taxi's waiting outside."
"Ticking tuppences away like the very dickens, too!" returned Nan, emerging from her room dressed for a journey.
It was a week or two later and in response to a wire--and as the result of a good deal of persuasion on the part of Penelope--Nan had accepted an engagement to play at a big charity concert in Exeter. Lady Chatterton, the organiser of the concert, had offered to put her up for the couple of nights involved, and Nan was now hurrying to catch the Paddington West-country train.