“Well, if I wait till Monday—­that’s four days—­will that do?” he asked.

“Yes.  I’ll tell you then.”

“Thank you”—­very simply.  He lifted her hands to his lips.  “And remember,” he added desperately, “that I love you, Nan—­you’re my whole world.”

He paced the short length of the room and back, and when he came to her side again, every trace of emotion was wiped out of his face.

“Now I’m going to take you back home.  Mrs. Denman”—­smiling faintly—­“says she’ll put ’an ‘assock’ in the car for your damaged leg to rest on, so with rugs and that coat you were so averse to bringing I think you’ll be all right.”

He went to the table and poured out something in a glass.

“Drink that,” he said, holding it towards her.  “It’ll warm you up.”

Nan sniffed at the liquid in the glass and tendered it back to him with a grimace.

“It’s brandy,” she said.  “I hate the stuff.”

“You’ll drink it, though, won’t you?”—­persuasively.

“No,” shaking her head.  “I can’t bear the taste of it.”

“But it’s good for you.”  He stood in front of her, glass in hand. 
“Come, Nan, don’t be foolish.  You need something before we start. 
Drink it up.”

He held it to her lips, and Nan, too proud to struggle or resist like a child, swallowed the obnoxious stuff.  As Trenby drove her home she had time to reflect upon the fact that if she married him there would be many a contest of wills between them.  He roused a sense of rebellion in her, and he was unmistakably a man who meant to be obeyed.

Her thoughts went back to Peter Mallory.  Somehow she did not think she would ever have found it difficult to obey him.

CHAPTER X

INDECISION

Kitty and her husband were strolling together on the terrace when Trenby’s car purred up the drive to Mallow.

“You’re back very early!” exclaimed Kitty gaily.  “Did you get bored stiff with each other, or what?” Then, as Roger opened the car door and she caught sight of Nan’s leg stretched out in front of her under the rugs and evidently resting upon something, she asked with a note of fear in her voice:  “Is Nan hurt?  You’ve not had an accident?”

Roger hastily explained what had occurred, winding up: 

“She’s had a wonderful escape.”

He was looking rather drawn about the month, as though he, too, had passed through a big strain of some kind.

“I’m as right as rain really,” called out Nan reassuringly.  “If someone will only unpack the collection of rugs and coats I’m bundled up with, I can hop out of the car as well as anybody.”

Barry was already at the car side and as he lifted off the last covering, revealing beneath a distended silk stocking the bandaged ankle, he exclaimed quickly: 

“Hullo!  This looks like some sort of damage.  Is your ankle badly hurt, old thing?”