“Peter?” She strove to keep all expression out of her voice.

“Yes.  He finds he can come after all.  Isn’t it jolly?”

“Very jolly.”

Nan’s tones were so non-committal that Kitty looked at her with some surprise.

“Aren’t you pleased?” she asked blankly.  She was relying tremendously on Peter’s visit to restore Nan to normal, and to prevent her from making the big mistake of marrying Roger Trenby, so that the lukewarm reception accorded to her news gave her a qualm of apprehension lest his advent might not accomplish all she hoped.

“Of course I’m pleased!” Nan forced the obviously expected enthusiasm into her affirmative, then, swallowing the last mouthful of milk with an effort, she added:  “It’ll be topping.”

Kitty took the glass from her and with an admonishing, “Now try and have a good sleep,” she departed, blissfully unconscious of how effectually she herself had just destroyed any possibility of slumber.

Peter coming!  The first thrill of pure joy at the thought of seeing him again was succeeded by a rush of apprehension.  She felt herself caught up into a whirlpool of conflicting emotions.  The idea of marriage with Roger Trenby seemed even more impossible than ever with the knowledge that in a few days Peter would be there, close beside her with that quiet, comprehending gaze of his, while every nerve in her body would be vibrating at the mere touch of his hand.

In the dusk of her room, against the shadowy background of the blind-drawn windows, she could visualise each line of his face—­the level brows and the steady, grey-blue eyes under them—­eyes that missed so little and understood so much; the sensitive mouth with those rather tired lines cleft each side of it that deepened when he smiled; the lean cheek-bones and squarish chin.

She remembered them all, and they kept blotting out the picture of Roger as she had so often seen him—­big and bronzed by the sun—­when he came striding over the cliffs to Mallow Court.  The memory was like a hand holding her back from casting in her lot with him.

And then the pendulum swung back and she felt that to marry—­someone, anyone—­was the only thing left to her.  She was frightened of her love for Peter.  Marriage, she argued, would be—­must be—­a shield and buckler against the cry of her heart.  If she were married she would be able to stifle her love, crush it out, behind those solid, unyielding bars of conventional wedlock.

The fact of Peter’s own marriage seemed to her rather dream-like.  There lay the danger.  They had never met until after his wife had left him, so that her impression of him as a married man was necessarily a somewhat vague and shadowy one.