Somehow she must manage to throw dust in Kitty’s keen eyes—­and a simulated appetite made quite an excellent beginning.  She was determined that no one should ever know that she was anything other than happy in her engagement to Roger.  She owed him that much, at least.  So when Kitty, making an effort to speak quite naturally, mentioned that Peter had been obliged to return to town unexpectedly, she accepted the news with an assumption of naturalness as good as Kitty’s own.  Half an hour later, leaving Nan to dress, Kitty departed with any suspicions she might have had entirely lulled.

But her heart ached for the man whose haggard, stern-set face, when he had told her last night that he must go, had conveyed all, and more, than his brief words of explanation.

“Must you really go, Peter?” she had asked him wistfully.  “I thought—­you told me once—­that you didn’t mean to break off your friendship? . . .  Can’t you even be friends with her?”

His reply came swiftly and with a definiteness there was no mistaking.

“No,” he said.  “I can’t.  It’s true what you say—­I did once think I might keep her friendship.  I was wrong.”

There was a pause.  Then Kitty asked quickly: 

“But you won’t refuse to meet her?  It isn’t as bad as that, Peter?”

He looked down at her oddly.

“It’s quite as bad as that.”

She felt herself trembling a little at the queer intensity of his tone.  It was as though the man beside her were keeping in check, by sheer force of will, some big emotion that threatened to overwhelm him.  She hesitated, then spoke very quietly and simply: 

“That was a perfectly selfish question on my part, Peter.  Don’t take any notice of it.”

“How—­selfish?” he asked, with a faint smile.

“Because, if you refuse to meet Nan, I shall always have to see you separately—­never together.  I love you both and I can’t give up either of you, so it will be rather like cutting myself in half.”

Mallory took her hand in both his.

“You shall not have to cut yourself in half for me, dear friend,” he said, with that touch of foreignness in his manner which revealed itself at times—­not infrequently when he was concealing some strong feeling.  “We shall meet again—­some day—­Nan and I. But not now—­not at present.”

“She’ll miss you, Peter. . . .  You’re such a good pal!” Kitty gripped his hands hard and her voice was a trifle unsteady.  After Barry, there was no one in the whole world she loved as much as she loved Peter.  And she was powerless to help him.

“You’ll be back in town soon,” he answered her.  “I shall come and see you sometimes.  After all”—­smiling a little—­“Nan isn’t constantly with you.  She has her music.”  He paused a moment, then added gravely, with a quiet note of thankfulness in his voice:  “As I, also, shall have my work.”