“I might”—­non-committally.

“Then you may as well go and do it.  As I am going to be married—­to Roger Trenby.”

“To Roger!  Nan, you don’t mean it?  It isn’t true?”

“It is—­perfectly true.  Have you anything to say against it?”—­defiantly.

“Everything.  He’s the last man in the world to make you happy.”

“Time will decide that.  In any case he’s coming on Monday for my answer.  And that will be ‘yes.’  So you and Ralph can have your banns put up with a clear conscience—­as the only just cause and impediment is now removed.”

Penelope was silent.

“You ought to be rather pleased with me than otherwise,” insisted Nan.

When at length Penelope replied, it was with a certain gravity.

“My dear, matrimony is one of the affairs of life in which it is fatal to accept second best.  You can do it in hats and frocks—­it’s merely a matter of appearances—­although you’ll never get quite the same satisfaction out of them.  But you can’t do it in boots and shoes.  You have to walk in those—­and the second best wear out at once.  Matrimony is the boots and shoes of life.”

“Well, at least it’s better to have the second quality—­than to go barefoot.”

“I don’t think so.  Nan, do wait a little.  Don’t, in a fit of angry pique over Maryon Rooke, go and bind yourself irrevocably to someone else.”

“Penny, the bluntness of your methods is deplorable.  Instead of insinuating that I am accepting Roger as a pis-aller, it would be more seemly if you would congratulate me and—­wish me luck.”

“I do—­oh, I do, Nan.  But, my dear—­”

“No buts, please.  Surely I know my own business best?  I assure you, Roger and I will be a model couple—­an example, probably, to you and Ralph!  You’ll—­you’ll say ‘yes’ to him to-morrow when he comes back again, won’t you, Penny?”

“He isn’t coming back to-morrow.”

“I think he is.”  Nan smiled.  “You’ll say ‘yes’ then?”

Penelope looked at her very straightly.

“Would you marry Roger in any case—­whether I accepted Ralph or not?” she asked.

Nan lied courageously.

“I should marry Roger in any case,” she answered quietly.

A long silence ensued.  Presently Nan broke it, her voice a little sharpened by the tension of the moment.

“So when Ralph comes back you’ll be—­kind to him, Penny?  You’ll give him the answer he wants?”

Penelope’s face was hidden by a curtain of dark hair.  After a moment an affirmative came softly from behind the curtain.

With a sudden impulse Nan threw her arms round her and kissed her.

“Oh, Penny!  Penny!  I do hope you’ll be very happy!” she exclaimed in a stifled voice.  Then slipped from the room like a shadow—­very noiselessly and swiftly—­to lie on her bed hour after hour staring up into the blackness with wide, tearless eyes until sheer bodily exhaustion conquered the tortured spirit which could find neither rest nor comfort, and at last she slept.