And Kitty felt as though she had laid her hand on the soft folds of a velvet curtain, only to come sharply up against a shutter of steel concealed beneath it.

In duty bound, however, she invited Trenby to remain for dinner, an invitation which he accepted with alacrity, and throughout the meal Nan was at her gayest and most sparkling.  It seemed impossible to believe that all was not well with her, and if the brilliant mood were designed to prevent Penny from guessing the real state of affairs it was eminently successful.  Even Lord St. John and the Seymours were almost persuaded into the belief that she was happy in her engagement.  But as each and all of them were arguing from the false premise that the change in Nan had been entirely due to Rooke’s treatment of her, they were inevitably very far from the truth.

That Peter was in love with Nan, Kitty was aware, but she knew nothing of that brief scene at the flat, interrupted by the delivery of Rooke’s telegram, and during which, with hardly a word spoken, Nan had suddenly realised that Peter loved her and that she, too, returned his love.  Perhaps had any of them known of that first meeting between the two, when Peter had come to Nan’s rescue in Hyde Park and helped her to her journey’s end, it might have gone far towards enlightening them, but neither Peter nor Nan had ever supplied any information on the subject.  It almost seemed as though by some mental process of thought transference, each had communicated with the other and resolved to keep their secret—­an invisible bond between them.

“You’re not frightened, are you, Nan?” asked Roger, when the rest of the household had tactfully left them alone together a few minutes before his departure.

He spoke very gently and tenderly.  Like most men, he was at his best just now, when he had so newly gained the promise of the woman he loved—­rather humble, even a little awed at the great gift bestowed upon him, and thinking only of Nan and of what he would do to compass her happiness in the future when she should be his wife.

“No, I’m not frightened.” replied Nan.  “I think”—­quietly—­“I shall be so—­safe—­with you.”

“Safe?”—­emphatically.  “I should think you would be safe!  I’m strong enough to guard my wife from most dangers, I think!”

The violet-blue eyes meeting his held a somewhat weary smile.  It was beginning already—­that inevitable noncomprehension of two such divergent natures.  They did not sense the same things—­did not even speak the same language.  Trenby took everything quite literally—­the obvious surface meaning of the words, and the delicate nuances of speech, the significant inflections interwoven with it, meant about as much to him as the frail Venetian glass, the dainty porcelain figures of old Bristol or Chelsea ware, would mean to the proverbial bull in a china-shop.

“And now, sweetheart,” he went on, rather conventionally, “when will you come to see my mother?  She will be longing to meet you.”