A thrill of dismay ran through her.  So far, he had not raised the question as to the actual date of their marriage, and she had been thankful to leave it for settlement at some vaguely distant period.

“Why—­why, I couldn’t he married till Kitty comes home,” she faltered.

“I suppose not.  When do you expect her back?”

“About the end of the month, I think, or the beginning of February.”

“Then you’ll marry me in April.”

He made the statement with a certain grim arrogance that forbade all contradiction.  He was in a curiously uncertain mood, and Nan, anxious not to provoke another storm, assented reluctantly.

“You mean that?  You won’t fail me?” His keen eyes searched her face as though he doubted her and sought to wring the truth from her lips.

“Yes,” she said very low.  “I mean it.”

He left her then, and a few minutes later, when she had recovered her poise, she rejoined Lady Gertrude and Isobel in the drawing-room.

“You and Roger have been having a very long confab,” remarked Isobel, looking up from the jumper she was knitting.  “What does it portend?”

Her sallow, nimble fingers never paused in their work.  The soft, even click of the needles went on unbrokenly.

“Nothing immediate,” answered Nan.  “He wants me to settle the date of our wedding, that’s all.”

The clicking ceased abruptly.

“And when is it to be?” Isobel’s attention seemed entirely concentrated upon a dropped stitch.

“Some time in April.  It will have to depend a little on Mrs. Seymour’s plans.  She wants me to be married from her house, just as Penelope was.”

Lady Gertrude was busily engaged upon the making of a utilitarian flannel petticoat for one of her protegees in the village.  She anchored her needle carefully in the material before she laid it aside.

“Do you mean from her house in town?” she asked.

“Why, yes, I suppose so.”  Nan looked faintly puzzled.

“Then I hope you will re-arrange matters.”

Although Lady Gertrude’s manner was colder and infinitely more precise, yet the short speech held the same arrogance as Roger’s “Then you’ll marry me in April”—­the kind of arrogance which calmly assumes that any opposition is out of the question.

“It would be the greatest disappointment to the tenantry,” she continued, “if they were unable to witness the marriage of my son—­as they would have done, of course, if he’d married someone of the district.  So I hope”—­conclusively—­“that Mrs. Seymour will arrange for your wedding to take place from Mallow Court.”

She picked up the flannel petticoat and recommenced work upon it again as though the matter were settled, supremely oblivious of the fact that she had succeeded, as usual, in rousing every rebellious feeling her future daughter-in-law possessed.