Kitty used every endeavour to get the girl to herself for half an hour, hoping she might be able to extract the truth from her. But Nan had developed an extraordinary elusiveness and she skilfully avoided tête-à-tête talks with anyone other than Roger. Moreover, there was that in her manner which utterly forbade even the delicate probing of a friend. The Nan who was wont to be so frank and ingenuous--surprisingly so at times--seemed all at once to have retired behind an impenetrable wall of reticence.
Meanwhile Fenton and Penelope had mutually decided to admit none but a few intimate friends into the secret of their engagement. As Ralph sagely observed: "We shall be married so soon that it isn't worth while facing a barrage of congratulations over such a short engagement."
They were radiantly happy, with the kind of happiness that keeps bubbling up from sheer joy of itself--in love with each other in such a delightfully frank and barefaced manner that everyone at Mallow regarded them with gentle amusement and loved them for being lovers.
Nothing pleased Nan better than to persuade them into singing that quaintly charming old song, _The Keys of Heaven_--the words of which hold such a tender, whimsical understanding of the feminine heart. Perhaps the refusal of the coach and four black horses "as black as pitch," and of all the other good things wherewith the lover in the song seeks to embellish his suit, was not rendered with quite as much emphasis as it should have been. One might almost have suspected the lady of a desire not to be too discouraging in her denials. But the final verse lacked nothing in interpretation.
Passionate and beseeching, as the lover makes his last appeal, offering the greatest gift of all, Ralph's glorious baritone entreated her:
"Oh, I will give you the keys of my heart, And we'll be married till death us do part, Madam, will you walk? Madam, will you talk? Madam, will you walk and talk with me?"
Then Penelope's eyes would glow with a lovely inner light, as though the beautiful possibilities of that journey through life together were envisioned in them, and her voice would deepen and mellow till it seemed to hold all the laughter and tears, and all the kindness and tender gaiety and exquisite solicitude of love.