“Go on,” she said very low.

He hesitated.  Then, as if suddenly making up his mind to hit hard, as a surgeon might decide to use the knife, he spoke incisively: 

“The man wasn’t worth it.”

Nan gave a faint, irrepressible start.  Recovering herself quickly, she contrived a short laugh.

“You don’t know him—­” she began.

“But I know you.”

“This is only our second meeting.”

“What of that?  I know you well enough to be sure—­quite sure—­that you wouldn’t give unasked.  You’re too proud, too analytical, and—­at present—­too little passionate.”

Nan’s face whitened.  It was true; she had not given unasked, for although Maryon Rooke had never actually asked her to marry him, his whole attitude had been that of the demanding lover.

“You’re rather an uncanny person,” she said at last, slowly.  “You understand—­too much.”

“Tout comprendre—­c’est tout pardonner,” quoted Mallory gently.

Nan fenced.

“And do I need pardon?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered simply, “You’re not the woman God meant you to be.  You’re too critical, too cold—­without passion.”

“And I a musician?”—­incredulously.

“Oh, it’s in your music right enough.  The artist in you has it.  But the woman—­so far, no.  You’re too introspective to surrender blindly.  Artiste, analyst, critic first—­only woman when those other three are satisfied.”

Nan nodded.

“Yes,” she said slowly.  “I believe that’s true.”

“I think it is,” he affirmed quietly.  “And because men are what they are, and you are you, it’s quite probable you’ll fail to achieve the triumph of your womanhood.”  He paused, then added:  “You’re not one of those who would count the world well lost for love, you know—­except on the impulse of an imaginative moment.”

“No, I’m not,” she answered reflectively.  “I wonder why?”

“Why?  Oh, you’re a product of the times—­the primeval instincts almost civilised out of you.”

Nan sprang to her feet with a laugh.

“I won’t stay here to be vivisected one moment longer!” she declared.  “People like you ought to be blindfolded.”

“Anything you like—­so long as I’m forgiven.”

“I think you’ll have to be forgiven—­in remembrance of the day when you took up a passenger in Hyde Park!”—­smiling.

Soon afterwards people began to take their departure, Nan and Penelope alone making no move to go, since Kitty had offered to send them home in her car “at any old time.”  Mallory paused as he was making his farewells to the two girls.

“And am I permitted—­may I have the privilege of calling?” he asked with one of his odd lapses into a quaintly elaborate manner that was wholly un-English.

“Yes, do.  We shall be delighted.”

“My thanks.”  And with a slight bow he left them.