Meanwhile Fenton and Penelope had mutually decided to admit none but a few intimate friends into the secret of their engagement.  As Ralph sagely observed:  “We shall be married so soon that it isn’t worth while facing a barrage of congratulations over such a short engagement.”

They were radiantly happy, with the kind of happiness that keeps bubbling up from sheer joy of itself—­in love with each other in such a delightfully frank and barefaced manner that everyone at Mallow regarded them with gentle amusement and loved them for being lovers.

Nothing pleased Nan better than to persuade them into singing that quaintly charming old song, The Keys of Heaven—­the words of which hold such a tender, whimsical understanding of the feminine heart.  Perhaps the refusal of the coach and four black horses “as black as pitch,” and of all the other good things wherewith the lover in the song seeks to embellish his suit, was not rendered with quite as much emphasis as it should have been.  One might almost have suspected the lady of a desire not to be too discouraging in her denials.  But the final verse lacked nothing in interpretation.

Passionate and beseeching, as the lover makes his last appeal, offering the greatest gift of all, Ralph’s glorious baritone entreated her: 

  “Oh, I will give you the keys of my heart,
  And we’ll be married till death us do part,
    Madam, will you walk? 
    Madam, will you talk? 
  Madam, will you walk and talk with me?”

Then Penelope’s eyes would glow with a lovely inner light, as though the beautiful possibilities of that journey through life together were envisioned in them, and her voice would deepen and mellow till it seemed to hold all the laughter and tears, and all the kindness and tender gaiety and exquisite solicitude of love.

Sometimes, as she was playing the accompaniment, Nan’s own eyes would fill unexpectedly with tears and the black and white notes of the piano run together into an oblong blur of grey.

For though Peter had given her the keys of his heart that night of moon and sea at Tintagel, she might never use them to unlock the door of heaven.

CHAPTER XVIII

“TILL DEATH US DO PART”

Within a fortnight of Mallory’s departure from St. Wennys, the whole of the house-party at Mallow had scattered.  Lord St. John was the first to go—­leaving in order to pay a short visit to Eliza McBain before returning to town.  Often though she might scarify him with her sharp tongue, she was genuinely attached to him, and her clannishly hospitable soul would have been sorely wounded if he had not spent a few days at Trevarthen Wood while he was in the neighbourhood.  Ralph Fenton had been obliged to hurry north to fulfil an unexpected concert engagement; and on the same day Barry left home to join a shooting-party in Scotland.  A few days later Nan and Penelope returned to London, accompanied by Kitty, who asserted an unshakable determination to take part in the orgy of spending which Penelope’s forthcoming wedding would entail.